Paper Blossoms

Spring takes a long time to get here in Wisconsin.  And this year the wait seems really long.  While waiting for my outdoor spring flowers to show up, I decided to make some paper blossoms.   An abundance of sticks in the yard gave me an idea of making a table decor piece using only what I had on hand. 

I liked the idea of making dogwood blossoms.  Dogwood blossoms are often used as symbols of rebirth - perfect for spring.  These blossoms have four petals that are almost heart shaped.  I sketched until I got a shape that I liked.  The paper is scrap paper from the printer (20 lb copy printer paper).

Next I added color using Distress Oxide ink 'Picked Raspberry'.  

Just to give a hint of pink to the blossoms.  

I used a thin pencil to curve the petals for some dimension.  Now what to use for the center of the flower?  Tried different things, even sketching with colored pencils, but didn't like the results.  

Then used a mini flower punch and a scrap of light green cardstock.   

Voila!  just the look I wanted.

Now to attach the blossoms to the branches. This ended up being a bit of a challenge.  Although I used regular white craft glue for the centers, it wasn't working to hold the blossoms to the branches without me holding each flower for several minutes.  And even then some fell off.  A thicker more sturdy glue was needed.  I couldn't locate my hot glue sticks. Thought I had fabric glue which might be stronger but couldn't find that either.  (Really, I must clean my studio one of these days)  Finally found a bottle of Gorilla Glue.  Gorilla Glue is a thick, clear, waterproof glue that dries fast and is great for repairing items.  Definitely overkill for thin pieces of paper but it was on hand.    

I placed the branches (sticks) in a jar filled with some glass pebbles to hold them in place.  When I was happy with the placement, I started gluing the blossoms to the branches.  I placed a dab of glue on the bottom of the paper blossom and gently held it to a branch for 1-2 minutes to get it to hold.  Some took a bit longer to stay.  After that I let it sit overnight before moving it to a table.    

recycled cabinet door --> kitchen art

 

sometimes you come across a phrase that makes you laugh and say "wow, that is so me!"

 Which is what I did when I read this phrase.  I honestly can't remember where I saw this phrase, perhaps on Facebook?  

We love making pizza at our house and the pizza crust and sauce are always made from scratch.  

Nothing beats grilled margherita pizza in the summer with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden...yum!

I had a few old kitchen cabinet doors in the studio, leftovers from a major kitchen remodel a few years ago.   I used one of the cabinet doors and chalk lettering to make this art piece. 

I refinished the wood then sprayed the center with chalkboard paint.  I gave it a few coats, letting it dry between each coat. Had my hubby fasten some serious mounting hardware to the back (this piece is heavy) and then I was ready to start with the chalk. 

First step was to season the chalkboard area.  Think of this as priming the space before lettering.  It involves taking the side of a regular piece of white chalk and rubbing it over the chalkboard area a few times (in both directions) then wiping it off.  This creates a surface that easier to write on and erase. 

Using a chalk pencil, instead of a regular piece of chalk, makes lettering much easier.  And the fact that it is chalk, makes wiping away mistakes easier too.  Which I had to do.  A lot.  

I got my chalk pencil from Dick Blick Dick Blick Chalk Pencil

The pizza cutter (and I sure hope you could tell it is a pizza cutter!) was lightly sketched several times before I gave in and figured it looked good enough. 

When all was said and done I decided to seal the piece using Krylon Matt Spray (mainly because I had some in the studio).   I tested the spray a few times on an old Masonite board, just to make sure it was spraying evenly.  Then it was all set to display in the kitchen. 

and now I feel like making pizza tonight...

 

mandala inspired initial art

 

I had fun creating this piece.  It was done with Micron pens on some white cardstock I had in my studio. Mandala art inspired the design.  The overall size is 8" x 10".  

Mandala art is a geometric design that holds a lot of symbolism in Hindu and Buddhist cultures.  Mandala's are circles with geometric designs.  Some people find creating mandalas to be a form of meditation. 

I sketched out the "K" initial lightly in pencil then used micron pens to make designs up to the penciled area.  After I was finished I erased any pencil lines. 

At first I was going to color it in but for now I'm leaving this in black and white. 

Making cards using Peel-Off stickers

 Nothing like a cold winter day to get some studio time and make a bunch of cards.  I’ve used Peel-Off stickers (also called Outline Stickers) to make these cards.    

Peel-Off stickers are thin flexible stickers of images or sentiments/greetings.  They give a faux embossed look to your project.  These stickers have been around for a long time and I always have a stash in my studio.  They are fairly inexpensive and you can make a lot of cards with just one sheet of stickers.  They are available in different foils and colors with the post popular being black, gold and silver.  

The trick with these stickers is to go slow and be gentle when removing them.  They are very thin and can easily twist.  Use your finger nail to get under the edge of the sticker or use a craft tweezer.

Using Post-It Notes is another way to help remove the stickers.  This technique works well with sentiments that you want to make sure are lined up straight on the paper.

Take a Post-It Note and place it sticky side down on top of the sticker, press down gently then carefully pull up the edges of the sticker.  You are aiming to have the post-it note hold on to the sticker.  

After it is removed from the sheet then carefully position the sticker onto your paper and press down on the Post-It Note and remove it from the sticker.

My favorite way of using these stickers on cards is to color them in with paints or Copic markers.

  

You can also place the stickers over decorative paper and leave them as is or cut them out and glue them to a card.  Here I’ve placed the stickers on scrap sheets of alcohol inked paper and cut them out - a technique called “fussy cutting”.  

This sticker was placed on watercolor paper, painted, cut out and glued onto the card.  The silver decorative corners were from another sheet of Peel-Off stickers. 

I like buying sentiments in white or silver because then they can be colored with sharpie markers or alcohol inks. Allows me to color coordinate with the colors on the card.  Before coloring them in I always cut the sentiment from the sheet so I don't get color on surrounding images. 

 There are lots of creative options for these stickers. 

It was a fun day in the studio and didn't take long to pull these card together. 

Happy crafting!

Egg-cellent alcohol ink idea

                                     

I actually purchased these plastic eggs a few years ago at an after Easter sale at Michaels craft store.  They have been sitting in my studio collecting dust so I was determined to work on them this year.  My plan was to color them with alcohol inks to make faux marbled eggs. 

** Note!  never use alcohol inks on eggs that you will eat.  These inks are for decorative use only!** 

The package listed them as plastic eggs and I was surprised when I opened it that they weren’t the shiny plastic eggs you normally find at a craft store.  These had a dull almost chalky surface.  There was a seam to the eggs but you could not take them apart.  

The chalky surface was not egg-actly what I was looking for but the inks worked just fine. 

For this project you get a lot of ink on your hands so if you'd like to try this I'd recommend gloves. 

I put alcohol ink and blending solution in a swirl on a square of white felt and used an applicator with a handle to "pounce" the ink over the egg.  Occasionally I'd blow on the egg to dry the ink faster so I could move the egg around to color the other side.  After they dried I experimented with adding more colors with more blending solution.

I used bottle caps to make the eggs stay still on the table.  Otherwise they’d roll all over the place.

 I was pleased with how they turned out.  Afterwards I felt the need to seal them and add a bit of shine.  The chalky surface was dull and I wanted a shine but not a super high gloss.  

I used Krylon Crystal Clear spray on the eggs.  Right after I used this I remembered I usually use Krylon Kamar Varnish first with alcohol inks since the Crystal Clear can make the inks run.  But it didn’t happen in this case and the inks didn't run at all. 

To hold the eggs while spraying I used the egg carton from the package and turned it upside down.  Sprayed the tops of the eggs, waited 10 min then turned them over and sprayed the rest.  Worked great.  Gave just a bit of shine to the surface but not overly glossy. 

These beautiful colored eggs were completed in less than an hour.  A great addition to my Easter decor.

Supplies used: 

• Carton of plastic eggs 
• Alcohol inks (colors used here were Sailboat Blue, Patina, Purple Twilight, Botanical, Citrus, Flamingo, Watermelon, Sunshine Yellow, Sunset Orange, Raspberry, and Stream). 
• Alcohol Ink Blending Solution
• White felt (I  buy an 8 x 11 piece of white felt from the craft store and cut it into small pieces)
• Applicator
• Disposable gloves
• bottle caps (for holding eggs while drying)
• Krylon Crystal Clear sealer spray

Mardi Gras ATC

Mardi Gras season is upon us and I wanted to create some art to celebrate it.  I came across these Tim Holtz Idea-ology mini mason jars in my studio and got a photo clip kit to go with the jars.  The jars can hold a few strands of beads and the clip is perfect for holding a Mardi Gras bling worthy ATC. 

For those who don't know, ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards.  ATCs are mini works of art.  As far as I know there are two general rules with ATCs.  One is the size - they must be 2.5x3.5 inches (or 64x89 mm).  Think the size of a baseball card.  The other rule is they are intended to be traded or given away and must not be sold.

I knew I wanted the ATC to have a Mardi Gras mask.  I found some shrink plastic sheets (a.k.a. Shrinky Dinks in my childhood) and thought they would be perfect material for a mask embellishment.  Shrink plastic can be cut to shapes, colored, stamped, etc and it shrinks to a small size when heated. I found this mask template online and traced it onto the plastic.  I always write the word "template" on any of my paper templates so I know not to accidentally recycle them.

After it was cut out I stamped the piece using a harlequin background stamp made by Inkadinkado.  The green ink was an archival ink pad by Ranger. I colored the white spaces purple using a colored pencil. 

The original size of the shrink plastic mask is almost 6 inches long.  But after this is heated up it will be small enough to fit on an ATC card...trust me! I punched hole on the tops of the mask.  You must punch holes BEFORE heating the plastic.

I used a heat gun while holding wood chopsticks to hold the piece in place while heating it.  It moved around a lot and I guess it would have been easier if I used a toaster oven.  In any case be careful when working with this material because it gets hot (but does cool quickly).  Always follow the package directions on how to use it.   

And here is the mask after heating...it shrunk to just over 2 inches!   While it was still hot, I used a spatula and moved it to a foil wrapped can so it would dry curved.  I wanted the mask to have some dimension and stand out on the card.

Here's a close up of the newly created mask embellishment.  I used a gold paint pen to outline the mask and add details.

Next was creating the card background. Any guesses as to my art supply of choice?  Yep, it was alcohol inks.  Actually I did try some other materials first; water colored backgrounds, stamped backgrounds and even layering tissue papers.  But I liked the thought of using gold metallic alcohol ink to give it lots of shimmer. Other alcohol inks used were Bottle and Purple Twilight.

It took several tries to get a background I was happy with.  Some other papers that didn't make the cut are shown here - but they won't get thrown away.  If I don't use them in another background I'll use them with punches for embellishments.

I used rubber stamps and black archival ink to add a fluer de lis image and a French scrip.

Then I tied some gold treads to a corner of the mask and glued a small green feather to the top.  I outlined the fluer de lis with Glossy Accents to give it some dimension.  Glossy accents was used to adhere the final mask to the card.

Laissez Les Bons temps Rouler!

more Valentine art...

finished up two more pieces of Valentine art.  This beaded piece started with a scrap of wrapping paper with a dragonfly image that I loved but didn't know what I wanted to use it for.  I glued the wrapping paper to card stock and die cut the heart shape.  Using Modge Podge, I added more paper scraps and an old stamp for a collage look.  I used Glossy Accents to adhere misc. beads and findings from my embellishments stash.  One of these days I will organize all of my embellishments, beads, findings, etc.  Right now they all reside in a storage box with no organization whatsoever.  I'll admit sometimes it's fun to rummage through the box and discover new bits and bobs that I didn't know I had.  But some organization would be helpful though.  In any case it was fun putting this together. 

As I was rummaging through the said embellishment box I discovered misc alphabet letters from sticker sets over the years.  Really cool dimensional metal alphabet letters, a few scrabble tiles, round sticker letters of an "a" and "h" (really? why did I save these two letters?) and a cloth brad style button ampersand.  

So I decided to make another Valentine piece (a nod to my love of calligraphy) with some scrap writing paper and these various alphabet letters.  The "a" and "h" round stickers were a cranberry color so I decided to color the other pieces to match (or a close match) using Alcohol Inks.  This worked well with the metal letters since they were silver.  

Also colored an old pen nib and added it to the piece.  A small white feather (also from the box) finished off the piece.   

Both pieces were adhered to paper from my paper stash and set in black frames (without glass). 

I really enjoyed putting these Valentine pieces together.  Hope these projects inspire you to create something with found items from your studio.  Or perhaps just enjoy exploring storage boxes :-)