Saturday, April 12, 2014

Here's a few more things!

This page was so much fun to make. Lots of techniques. I mixed a gel medium with pink paint and used the same mixture on both pages. They both had gesso on first. I put the medium on over a heart stencil. On the left page, it is pink, on the right page, it came out orange! Don't know why, but I went with it. Next I cut out some white card stock with my star dies and then decided to paint it with gesso so I could paint the paper with acrylics and lots of water. I was using what I now call my scrap card stock pile. The back was a denim looking blue - just turned those stars over and glued them in the holes! I also tried a technique that you transfer the card stock pattern onto paper. See that blue tag on the right page? That is cloth! Somewhere online I found a free feather pattern. I printed it smaller and glued it to the back of card stock and cut it out. I love that feather! I used a border sticker between the two pages. Didn't know that not much will stick to gesso without glue. Do now. I decided I didn't like the white background so I colored it with those finger dabbers and just used the ink that was already on them. I did use a lot of stickers and gems, but I really enjoyed putting them on. And boy is my stashed going down!
Remember those stars? Well the middle of this page is the scrap I used behind it while I gessoed it. I added some Tim Holtz ink. The photo is colored in the background with water soluble oil pastels. Who knew? They are super cheap - at least the ones I bought. It made such a difference in that photo. Behind me is a mirror and you could see the flash from the camera as well as the huge mess all over the place. This was at a recital and little girls are big pigs! I could hardly find a place to stand! I used a doily - tried spraying one first but decided I liked the white better. I probably could have put more time into finding and making just the right embellishments, but it was fun to do it this way. I loved the memory of this photo but hated the way it looked before. This was a great fix, in my book.

This was just a page with an all blue background. I had punched a whole lot of little flowers out of a then new punch and glued them all over the right side. Unfortunately, the card stock was a blue and orange plaid that looked awful on the rest of what I had done. It stayed that way for almost a year until the other day when I had to "fix" it. First I used  ink with my little daubers through a flower stencil. I liked it much better but it was a bit touchy over those little flowers I had glued on. The new flowers didn't stand out as much as I wanted them to, so I used My colored sharpies to outline, etc. It was getting better. I decided to do another feather and edged it with ink. Then I did embossing paste leaving it white over some more stencils. Those flowers that I had glued on still looked horrible, so I ended up using stickles in gold and boy did they cover up the flowers! It is now what I could call done! I actually like it and the gold was just what I needed. I am so glad I have so many of them at my disposal. I have another 3 weeks of this class and have just been having a ball with it. Hope you are enjoying looking at my stuff. will be making cards soon and posting as soon after as I get time. Hugs to you all,  and thanks so much for sticking around! Barb F

Monday, April 7, 2014

Happy

This is the latest addition for my Mixed Media class over at Studio Calico. I am really enjoying this as I love mixed media since the only rule is there are no rules. I do want to tell you a little bit about this one first. My daughter printed me a bunch of photos on printer paper and even though I loved them, I didn't know exactly what to do with them. I decided to use this one on my first lesson scrapbook page. I also decided to use a color combo that I never have used before - peach and blues. This photo is darker than in real life by a couple of shades. I still like it. We used "modeling paste" to add texture to a background. I learned a slick way of putting down gesso in a very thin layer first. Then I glued some white paper flowers down with matte media and let the whole thing dry. I had cut out parts of a doily and was going to use them to frame my picture. So far, every thing was white and ready. Then was the application of modeling paste - this can also be embossing paste or are you ready for this enlightening info - caulking! My friend and I compared caulking ( something like 6 oz for less than $3 at the most) to embossing paste ($10 for 4 1/2 oz). They work the same! And actually I like that the caulking has a tube so you don't waste any and it doesn't dry out because you don't keep putting it back in a little jar! Anyhow, I added mine with stencils. And then I sprayed inks through stencils and then I added some color here and there using water soluble oil pastels. Then I had fun embellishing with gems, sequins, paperclips, flowers, etc. Lots of stuff and so much fun. Of course there is distress ink in several places and stickles! My two main staples!
Hope this makes you happy to look at it. And forgot to tell you the best part - I put the picture on crooked! That was after I mounted it. So I found a little border sticker and made sure I had the edge straight and now it gives the illusion that the photo is straight. It is a blue sticker. I also found that a rose pen looked like it was peach when I drew on the frame for the photo. 
Hugs to you all! I probably won't be adding all these to my groups since I am always low on time lately but I will continue to post as I do stuff. Barb F

Sunday, April 6, 2014

A whole lot of catchup!

Will start this one off with a couple of cards colored with copics one using digital images, the other cricut images. Then a scrapbook page that I needed to make for quite awhile and finally some art journal pages. Hope you enjoy and I am open to questions about any of them. Sorry the photos came in all over the place and I did want to post them for you. I just don't have lots of time today so I do apologize for the order. Hugs to you all, Barb F