It's Heating Up!

Hot, Humid, Sunny....  The rain has finally moved on for a bit but the humidity is sticking. :)  I am hosting the challenge at The Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge blog this time around and I picked our new challenge:  "It's Heating Up!".

Here is my description of the challenge:

"July is when the weather here in the Midwest really starts to turn warm and muggy. This is the inspiration for our challenge to interpret the heat with using one or more of the following colors: Yellow, Red or Orange. Your challenge is to create a vintage or shabby chic project where the main color is yellow, orange or red. I can't wait to see how you turn up the heat in your art!"

The heat had me thinking of long summer days with the flowers in bloom and the bees hovering over their buffet of flowers to partake from. 
 From my wide range of stencils, I selected a variety of summer inspired shapes and started playing with the yellow sprays, embossing paste and browns. 

 I was playing around with trying to create an embossing paste honeycomb with a mix of sprays.  I pulled up my stencil and the back of the stencil had the most beautiful mix of embossing paste, yellow and brown inky mess.

I quickly laid that down onto a piece of mixed media paper and what fantastic mix of texture and color.  I loved this more than the embossed pieces I created. (Never fear they will stay in the scrap pile to pull out for future fun!)

After that this just seemed to come together quickly because of course we needed some type of bug to crawl over our beautiful texture.  I stamped them with brown ink and embossed with brown embossing powder. 

I then added a hint of the entomology script over the background.   The bugs were colored with a hint of yellow distress oxide spray.

What a beautiful quote by Aristotle Onassis and a perfect match with the yellow hues found in the wall hanging.

 The bugs were cut out and pop dotted to give them depth.  They needed something to make them stand out even more so they were given a fun bod with tail to give them more movement.

I hope this has  you thinking about how you can play along in the challenge with the colors of summer.

 The winner will earn a chance to be a Guest Designer at a future date here at Frilly and Funkie, and everyone who enters and follows the rules will go into the draw for the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. There are also Top 3 Badges for three additional outstanding entries, chosen by the Design Team.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Products:
Stampers Anonymous - Entomology
Idea-Ology - Tim Holtz Display Hanger
Bronze Jump Ring Set
Idea-Ology - Tim Holtz Swivel Clasps
Idea-Ology - Tim Holtz Index Clips 
Ranger Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Honeycomb
Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste
Ranger Distress Oxide Spray - Fossilized Amber 
Ranger Distress Ink Spray - Walnut Stain
Ranger Archival Ink - Potting Soil 
Stampendous Brown Embossing Powder
Idea-Ology - Tim Holtz Quotations Metallic Stickers
Inky Antics - Darkness and Light Stamp

Saturday Showcase at The Funkie Junkie Boutiqe Challenge

Howdy!  Hope your Saturday is treating you right!  I am sharing a Saturday Showcase of the Stampers Anonymous Fragments Stamp over on The Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge blog today!

Here is one of the projects I was working on for the showcase:

I had so much fun pulling out scraps and pieces left over in my stash to create a variety of art using the fragments stamps!

Pop over to the blog to see the rest of the projects I created!

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Happy Birthday!

Hi!  Happy Birthday to all you July Birthdays!  We have a big month of birthdays in July in our family.  This month had me working in overtime creating cards!  Lucky for me I had the new Darkroom Door Birthday stamp to help inspire some of my cards for this month.

My first inspiration was to play with the coordinating Darkroom Door Candles stamp and create an overlapping sentiment with the fun birthday candles. 

I colored the candles with watercolor markers and spritzed with a little water and stamped them.  I repeated the colors and did it again to give me a fun row of candles. 

Next I colored the sentiment with the same markers and stamped onto cardstock. I cut the sentiment out and layered it up. 

I then found some white raffia and colored it with the same markers to coordinate and wrapped it around the card front and tied it.

My final touch was to add gloss to the balloon and pop dot the sentiment over the raffia.  A quick and easy birthday card!

 My next card I wanted to add one of the sweet birds from the new bird life set.  I stamped him first in the corner.  I then masked the balloon on the sentiment with a post - it note and inked up the sentiment. Pulled off the post-it note and stamped the sentiment. 

I liked the idea of the balloon, that inspired me to cut a slit under the beak of the bird.  I colored some coordinating twine and inked up cardstock with the same colors.  After that I drew a balloon and cut it out to coordinate.  (I originally tried the balloon on the sentiment but it was very out of proportion and I had to hand draw mine. :)

I colored the bird with some watercolor pencils and a waterbrush.  Another sweet and simple card for a family member.

Next up a little Fireworks inspiration!  This card took me quite a few tries as I was trying different ideas to get the fireworks to light up!  

I actually created this sentiment for the first card but didn't like how the ombre effect didn't pop with the candles.  Hence the ombre background on the card with the fireworks to coordinate.

I ended up creating three versions of the ombre with the fireworks.  This version was my favorite.  I stamped the fireworks on white cardstock with versamark and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  

I then sponged the three distress oxide inks over and blended them together.  I used dry paper towels to brush off the excess ink and brighten the fireworks.  I added a few tiny gems for pop of sparkles.

Last but not least was a simple flower card with the fun sentiment with the balloon masked again.

I inked up the daisy stamp with distress oxide ink around the edges and colored the center with a marker and spritzed with water.  I stamped off the image a few times to get a softer image on the background.  I repeated with the script and butterflies. 

I then stamped the sentiment over the stem with an archival ink. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Products:
Darkroom Door Small Stamp - Birthday
Darkroom Door Eclectic Stamp - Candles
Darkroom Door Eclectic Stamp - Daisy
Darkroom Door Texture Stamp - French Script 
Darkroom Door Rubber Stamp Set - Bird Life 
Darkroom Door Rubber Stamp Set - Wings 
Darkroom Door Rubber Stamp Set - Celebration
Ranger Distress Markers - Seedless Preserves, Crushed Olive, Worn Lipstick, Gathered Twigs, Fossilized Amber
Ranger Distress Oxides - Seedless Preserves, Crushed Olive, Worn Lipstick, Fossilized Amber ,
 Gathered Twigs
Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black, Peat Moss
Versamark Watermark Ink
Clear Embossing Powder
Twine
Raffia
Ranger Glossy Accents 
Tiny Gems
Staedtler Watercolor Pencils 

Water, Water, Everyhwere

Hi!  A little surprise here... We have changed up the challenges a bit and Frilly and Funkie and now you get to see the whole team's art all at once.   The talented Cec is hosting the new challenge which is called Water, Water, Everywhere.  She describes the challenge as:


"Often when people go on vacation there is water involved – fishing, cruising, checking out the aquarium, enjoying water sports or playing in the sand at the beach. For this challenge I want you to create a vintage or shabby chic project that reminds you of one or more of these past times"

I thought about the water in the summer time and I was drawn to the ocean and wanted to see if I could create a vision of the ocean using alcohol inks.

 I had so much fun with this!  I wish I had a huge canvas of Yupo paper and could create this for my family room!

I started with some lovely translucent Yupo paper as my base.

I started with laying down the indvidual colors in each section with drops of the color and the blending solution on the felt.

I smeared the colors across the sections.  I then went back in with a tiny bit of ink to blend between the sky colors. 

In the blue and brown areas I added a few drips of darker colors on the felt and dabbed them on randomly to get the pops of dark color.

To add the waves I put blending solution along the edge of a piece of felt and picked it up and used it to smear some wavy lines in my water. 

I finished off with some blending solution drops to add bubbles along the top of the water line.  I also splatted some white paint over the water as frothy bubbles.

I then stamped the sentiment on the top of the tag and mounted it on white cardstock. 

I found the cutest brass charms to add as an accent but painted them white to coordinate.  I wanted to add more to my tag but didn't want to cover up my scene I had created. :) 

Please check out the design team's fabulous inspiration and play along with us!   The winner will earn the chance of a Guest Designer spot at Frilly and Funkie, and everyone who enters and follows the rules will go into the draw for the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. And there are Top 3 Badges for three further outstanding entries, chosen by the Design Team!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Suzz 

Products: 

Ranger Alcohol Ink - Slate

Ranger Alcohol Ink - Stream

Ranger Alcohol Ink - Sunset Orange

Ranger Alcohol Ink - Sunshine Yellow

Ranger Alcohol Ink - Pitch Black

Ranger Alcohol Ink - Raspberry

Ranger Alcohol Ink - Blending Solution

Alcohol Ink Mini Applicator Tool

Mini Applicator Felts

Dina Wakely White Paint

Rayon Seam Binding

Seaside Charm Set - Antique Bronze

Stampers Anonymous - Stuff to Stay 

Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black 

Yupo Paper - Translucent - 8x10 

Heart of Art

Salutations!  I have been busy playing with a new stencil from Darkroom Door the Small Heart Stencil.

The stencils are fun because they come with the cut out opening but also with the reverse mask!  I used it on this tag to protect my heart after I created it.

I started with using the heart stencil to layer a second stencil under the heart opening and then using embossing paste to create a heart shape of the first stencil.

I let the embossing paste dry and then placed the heart over the textured letters and misted with a mix of distress oxide sprays.

After that dried I used a black pen and charcoal pencil to outline the heart.

I then masked the heart and stamped the pencils along the side of my tag.  I came back with the original creativity stencil and put post it notes around the words create art and used black embossing paste to add the words along the top.

I finished it all off with a splattering of mists and using the texture stamp I added some black spots.

I love how graphic this design was.  But I was off playing with other ideas that were much cleaner in composition.

I wanted to use the beautiful Part of You Quote as the focal point and then just add a soft shaded  heart around the center to accent the heart section of the quote.  I love hos simple this is and how it makes the quote shine.
 

As I looked through my many Darkroom Door stamps this little robin popped out at me.  I decided he would be the perfect fit inside the heart.

I laid out the heart in the center of my card and stamped the robin over the opening.  After I stamped the robin I sponged antique linen around the edges.

I then added a little shading around the outside of the heart with a water color pencil.  To add the script I used the mask to cover my stamped bird and sponged heart.  I then used the script stamp to stamp over the masked heart to give me a background of stamping.

I finished off the sweet bird with a little bit of thread with a button and a lovely little sentiment. 

 I wanted to share a few other things I was playing with by layering stencils. 

I first stenciled the creativity in a blue dye ink and then came back with the stencil and sponged the hearts with antique linen randomly over the surface.

I wanted to show you what the stencil and mask look like and you can see the remnants of my projects on the stencil/mask.  I will need to use some stamp cleaner to clean them up later. :)

I have my last two projects which both use the same quote and splattering but two different effects  with the stencil. 

 On the first one I stamped the Wordblock stamp through the stencil and then sponged a lovely pink over the words.  I then outlined the heart with a black pen and watercolor pencil.

The second one uses the same quote but the heart contains an embossing paste stenciled words with a distress ink spray over the image.

Well I hope you have enjoyed the tour of hearts today!  I have included links to everything from Darkroom Door below in the products list.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Products:
Darkroom Door - Small Heart Stencil 
Darkroom Door - Medium Creativity Stencil
Darkroom Door - Quote Stamp - Part of You 
Darkroom Door - Eclectic Stamp - Robin 
Darkroom Door - Eclectic Stamp - Pencils
Darkroom Door - Texture Stamp - French Script
Darkroom Door - Texture Stamp - Splatter
Darkroom Door - Wordblock - Love
Ranger Distress Inks - Broken China, Antique Linen
Ranger Distress Oxide Inks - Picked Raspberry
Ranger Archival Ink - Jet Black 
Ranger Distress Oxide Sprays - Picked Raspberry, Fossilized Amber 
Ranger Distress Sprays - Picked Raspberry
Watercolor Pencils
Watercolor Brush
Sponge / Applicator

Home, Sweet Home

Howdy!  It's Funkie time at the Frilly and Funkie Challenge blog!  The talented Sara Emily is hosting our challenge called "Home, Sweet Home".   She describes the challenge as:

"Whether your house is grand or modest, neat or messy, there's no place like home. Houses get bought and sold, but home stays with you forever. For this challenge, I would like to see how you interpret what home means to you on your vintage or shabby chic project."

I decided to mix it up with different stamps and things for me that represent home into a collage of ideas.

I started with a scheme to represent our physical home with a touch of bricks and colors.   The background is covered with gesso and then with stenciled bricks in crackle paste.

I pulled out the house dies and cut a lot of them. (They will be showing up in future posts for sure!) I had fun using a variety of stamps and colors to make them pop. 

The various elements are just stamped, sponged, and layered.  Each element was selected to represent our family and home.

Hop over to check out the rest of the design teams beautiful inspirations of Home Sweet Home.  Get inspired and join us in the challenge!

The winner will earn the chance of a Guest Designer spot at Frilly and Funkie, and everyone who enters and follows the rules will go into the draw for the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. And there are Top 3 Badges for three further outstanding entries, chosen by the Design Team.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Products:

Stampers Anonymous Merchant
Stampers Anonymous The Professor 
Prima Marketing  Wild and Free
Stampers Anonymous Great Outdoors  (Family stamp)
Stampers Anonymous Mail  Art 
Stampers Anonymous - Entomology
Tim Holtz Layering Stencil Christmas
Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Shifter 
Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Bricked
Ranger Archival Ink - Wendy Vecchi - Watering Can, Orange Blossom, Jet Black 
Ranger Distress Oxide - Iced Spruce, Rusty Hinge, Hickory Smoke
Ranger Distress Oxide Spray - Hickory Smoke
Tim Holzt - Idea-Ology - Ball Chain
Tim Holtz - Idea-Ology - Hinge Clips  
Tim Holtz - Idea-Ology - Story Sticks 
Large Metal Keys
Wendy Vecchi - Embossing Paste - Crackle
Prima Art Basics White Gesso 
Dina Wakely White Acrylic Paint
Black Charcoal Pencil
Hero Arts Memory Definition Stamp
Waterbrush

Embellishments, Trinkets and Trims

Howdy!  I can't believe we are already in June!  I am back today for the Frilly and Funkie Challenge hosted by the wonderfully talented Jenny.  She is challenging us with Embellishments, Trinkets, and Trims. 

She describes the challenge as:

"Linda sells a huge array of beautiful embellishments, trinkets and trims in her store, from metal filigree pieces and charms to buttons, laces and ribbons. They can be the important focal point on a project or the final finishing touches that complete it. However you wish to use them lets see those embellishments, trinkets and trims in action on your vintage or shabby chic entries."

 

I may know a little bit about embellishments, trinkets and trims. :)  I have a few different jars on my crafty shelves full of bits and bobs.    

If you go shopping at the Funkie Junkie Boutique you can see Linda has a fondness for pretty and fun embellishments.   I have quite a few of her beautiful embellishments in my collection and they are what inspired my tag! 

I knew I wanted to showcase the flowery embellishment and had these lovely oblong filigree pieces that coordinated.  I decided to layer them together.

 I first painted the silver filigree with white paint to give it a coat.  I wasn't sure where I was going with the colors but I painted the pieces.

While they were drying I decided to create an architectural background.  I took a piece of mixed media cardstock and cut it to the size of a tag. 

I smeared the surface with embossing paste.  I like to have a heavy coat for the technique I wanted to showcase.  I took a piece of tissue paper larger than the tag and laid it on top of the wet embossing paste.  I then inked up the stamp and pressed it into the embossing pasted and pushed down. 

This gives you a beautiful embossed effect by pushing the imprint into the wet embossing paste.  The beauty of it is your stamp stays clean and the image is imprinted.  I used black ink to add the detail but you could do this with now ink and just use the sprays to pool in the crevices for a softer effect.

After it dried I came back and spritzed the background with blue and antique linen distress sprays.  Once that was dry I was trying to decided what to do with my embellishments when I thought why not add a hint of gold highlights to my background.

That inspired the rest of this because I ended up spraying my painted filigree with amber distress oxide spray. I heat set the color and then I used the gold wax to smear a gold finish.  I painted the ball and chain with gold paint.  And painted a few other metal pieces to coordinate. 

I added splatters of white paint to the background to lighten the effect.  I found the gold sentiments and added them. 

The pink came from the flower I found in my embellishment jar which had a pink crystal in the center.  I decided to use that to add a series of pink crystals over the background of the tag.

The tissue paper inspiration came from the Vintage Journey's June challenge to use Tissue Paper.

Come join us in the fun at Frilly and Funkie! The winner will earn the chance of a Guest Designer spot here at Frilly and Funkie, and everyone who enters and follows the rules will go into the draw for the chance to win a $25 spending spree at The Funkie Junkie Boutique. And there are Top 3 Badges for three further outstanding entries, chosen by the Design Team.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Products:

Antique Silver Filigree
Antique Silver Filigree Flowers
Metal Filigree Flowers
Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste 
Ranger Distress Sprays - Antique Linen,  Fossilized Amber, Peacock Feathers 
Ranger Archival Ink - Cobalt, Jet Black
Tissue Paper
Prima Farmhouse Ephemera 2
Prima Vintage Art Pebbles
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Ball Chain
Prima Marketing Metallique Wax - Vintage Gold
Prima Marketing Sparks Acrylic Paint Unicorn Hair
Dina Wakely White Paint 
Dina Wakely White Gesso