Saturday, January 31, 2015

Upcycle til it Sparkles & Shines!

Hi My blogger friends,

Today I am here to share a project I made for the Finnabair challenge: Sparkle & Shine.  I have been in love with mixed media for awhile now but have done only a few projects.  When I saw that Finnabair was doing a blog hop and challenge I knew I just had to join in.   I love her work and even have a board on my Pinterest page where I collect my favorites. 

So here I go with my wacky piece for the challenge.  We had a printer that no longer worked so I asked Mac to disassemble it for me.  I ended up with a box full of strange looking parts and the most wonderful little gears in all sizes.    I have to confess that although I love the pieces that came from it I procrastinated when it came to making something. This is one time when procrastination paid off because I love this crazy thing.

I used photos of Mac in this piece because it's computer and printer related - even if it is in pieces. Mac's my go to guy for all my mechanical and programing questions.  He doesn't know much about blogging or how to use software but he always comes to the rescue for the hardware issues.  Then of course I had to add the final touch, the goggles.

 

 The entire piece shines and the two places where I have placed the funky lights from Prima sparkle.  I used acetate and glitter for the rays.
 
 I just had so much fun putting this together and I'm oh so happy with the way the colors look.  This is the view from the upper left corner.
 


Here's how I did it!
 
I started out with a 9" X 12" canvas because that is the size that the printer piece fit on best.  I put one coat of gesso on it and then some tissue paper for texture.  Then I used a Finnabair stencil and texture paste.  Then of course more gesso.

I found some corrugated cardstock in my stash so glued it down on the left side of the canvas.  Then gesso again.

I added the printer piece and then gesso!

 I then started looking through my stash for items to use and started laying them out to see what I wanted to do before moving on.  Then I set the loose pieces aside for gluing later.
 
 Then the painting, spraying and experimenting part began.
 
I used some blues, burgundy, rust and greens. 

When the color was all applied the way I wanted it, I sealed it and then covered it with gel medium mixed with pigment powder.  It was very shiny and the colors really popped.

I still have all this left in the box.

 
Enjoy the rest of your weekend -
S@ndy 


     

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Love Is In The Air @ A Vintage Journey

Hi Vintage Travelers,

Over at A Vintage Journey the challenge is
 
Love Is In The Air!!

I decided to go with a page from my flip calendar that I made a couple years ago but still use each day. 

 
You can definitely see the influence of Tim in this page - I used lots of his movers and shapers dies as well as the Love Struck Die.
 
This is still one of my most popular posts.  This year I simply printed new calendars to insert and it is good to go.
 
To see a complete tutorial simply click the link below.
 
Have a fabulous weekend,
 

Monday, January 19, 2015

Original Collection

Hi my blogger friends,

I'm here to share a card I made for the Karen Burniston monthly challenge.  This month Karen asked us to show ideas where we combine dies from at least 3 categories. Categories include: Accordions & Frame Edges, Pivot Cards, General Pop-ups, Pull Cards, Pop Stands, Edge dies, Characters & Props, Embossing Folders, and Accessory Dies. The Designer Challenge post with all of the team's ideas and a new card and video from Karen will be on the ECD blog on January 21, 2015.

I made my card with the Rectangle Pull Card #974, the Tag Pivot Card #973 and the Butterfly Accessory Set #773.









Here's How I Did It!!

I first decided that I wanted my finished card to be a 5" X 7" card so I cut my piece of Kraft Cardstock at 7", giving me a base of 7" X 11".  Next I scored the 11" side at 5.5" giving me a folded card size of 5.5" X 7".

 
Next I opened the card and placed it flat on the die cutting machine and lined up the die on the fold, for this card, I avoided the closure notch.  I use a Big Shot Pro so if you are using a standard size machine your card can be no taller than 6" but that will make a great card using this technique.
 
 
Now I have a Rectangle Pull Card which is great fun but I went a step further and added the Tag Pivot at this point.


I then opened the card so it was flat and then turned it over.  Then using the center point again, the crease, placed the Tag Pivot Die on the crease and cut again.


After making the second cut, fold the card the way it should have been originally and it looks like this.  Next cut each end of the card off at 2.5" from the center and it is a
5" X 7" card. 


Next I placed a decorative strip under the first layer to hide the difference in shapes.  Then, of course, trim the strip the same size as the card.  I then rounded the outside edges of the card and edged everything with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

At this point I'm ready to decorate.  I cut several of the smaller tags that came in the die set, edged them and then added some Remnant Rubs, twine, and brads. I also wanted to use the pop up feature of the Rectangle Pull card so added those at the top an bottom of the other tags.  When you open the card they pop up.  So Fun!!


 
To get the red edge on this tag I simply cut an extra one in red, cut it in half and added it to the tag.  I then added some butterflies.


A few more Remnant Rubs and some stars, it's done.

Have a wonderful week,
S@ndy

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Hello Love

Hi my friends,

I'm having a "play day" so thought I would share with all of you.  Since it is only a play day for me - no tutorial, just photos.
 
I have been playing with the new Karen Burniston Pop it Ups Dies and the first one I decided to try is the Tag Pivot (973) - Love it! (pun intended) So now I need to get busy on a card for the challenge this week using three different dies on the same card.
 
For this one I put a tag within a tag by using the Tag Die from
Elizabeth Craft Designs(951).



 
Hope you enjoy -
Have a crafty week!  I know I will.
 

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

My CHA Adventures

Hi Everyone,

I'm back from CHA 2015, very tired but happy.  I went to Anaheim with friends to see what we could see and we had a great time, saw our favorite designers and looked at some wonderful new products. 

The fun began on Friday night when Michael's sponsored a nice party with a band and a give away of an art journal.

We stopped by the Elizabeth Craft Designs booth and had a nice chat with designer, Karen Burniston.

While we were there, we did a fun "make & take" using some of her new release.
 
 
For this card we used the Eiffel Tower Stand Up along with the Paris Edges.
 
How cute is that????
These great new dies will be in your local stores around the end of the month.
 
Of course no show would be complete without a visit to The Ranger booth to see Tim.
 
 Tim is always so gracious and it is wonderful to watch his demos.
We saw some fantastic art which I will show you at the end of this post.
 
While at Ranger we got to see all of our favorite designers and artists.
So fun to talk to Wendy Vecchi and Tammy Tutterow.
 
Next we were off to Sizzix -
 Eileen Hull was showing all her new line for this show, so cute!!

 
While at Sizzix, they were giving away the new Wordpress Station and I was lucky enough to get one.  I'm happy!!

 We also did a "make & take" using the new Transfer Sheets - these are cool.  We each got some samples to take home.  How nice is that?
 
Here's the whole gang having fun at Idea-ology!
 
Here is what we made.  So nice to have a direction and suggestions for some of these new items in the line.

 Next stop was Prima where we took our photos in this spectacular piece of art.

So excited to meet Anna (Finnabair)
 
We made this beautiful card while visiting at Heartfelt Creations.
 
We did this great card front at the Penny Black Booth.

Here are a few more photos taken at the show-





 
Well my friends, that's it for today-
Got to get busy now writing some comments and perhaps doing some work around my house, it needs it!