Mixed Media Train Canvas

This is only of those projects I’ve been meaning to post for a while.  I made it as an Easter gift for my father back in 2015.   I’m using it as a sample for a challenge I’m hosting over at Artsy Inkers.  Today is the start of Winter Fest on the message board.   If you’ve never checked out Artsy Inkers, now is a great time to do so.

Ok, so on to the project.  I started by tinting some light weight spackle with paint and added a little water to make it easier to spread and I covered the canvas with it.  I believe it is a 6x6 canvas.

The color was a little off, so inked it with Distress Ink in Spiced Marmalade and Tea Dye, I think.  It might have been vintage photo. 

Then I stamped a bunch of images from Stampendous’ clear stamp set Railway on tissue paper with Stazon brown.  I then used mod podge to attach the images to the canvas.  I got this idea from Anna Karin.  It is a great way to get clean images onto a canvas, because the tissue paper disappears.  Mostly.  You can see in the picture some white spots. I didn’t use enough mod podge.  So a couple of tips: trim as much of the excess tissue paper off, use plenty of mod podge, and make sure the tissue paper isn’t coated (I’ve got another project that I have to redo because I used the wrong tissue paper and it didn’t disappear).  It isn't as noticeable in real life as it is in the photos.

The oval is part of the Stampendous train postcard stamp. There’s more to the image than the oval and there is actually holly on the corner of the oval because it’s a Christmas stamp.  I think I stamped it on tissue paper, originally planning to mod podged it onto the canvas.  But I realized it wouldn’t work and mod podged it onto a piece of comic book board and cut out the oval part.  I added some liquid pearls around the edge of the oval.

I made the ticket to cover the holly on the train image.  I inked the paper with Distress Ink in Mustard Seed and Tea Dye.  The image is from the same Railway set.

The embellishment is a flattened bottle cap.  To cover the logo, I die cut a piece of metallic paper that I had inked with alcohol inks.  I stamped the lantern image from the Railway set on it but you can’t really see it all that well.  The same image is on the canvas just below it. 

Here's a closer look at the finished canvas.

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

Foiled

Long time, no blog.  I have had a crazy year, which is why I haven’t been online much and I haven’t been crafting too much.  My husband and I decided to get divorced, so we spent the beginning  of the year getting our affairs in order. The divorce was amicable and I'm happier now.  Then I had a roof leak in the beginning of June in my tv/craft room.  The leak wasn’t that bad, but it ruined part of the popcorn ceiling.  So I had to redo the ceiling and that led to repainting the room.  So I was without a craft space for 2 months.  At the same time, I had 2 coolant leaks in my car.   Then I had another leak in the roof that caused the ceiling in the bathroom to collapse.  And now my dog has cancer and I’m driving 2 hours every week for his treatment. 

On the happier end of the spectrum, my Mom and I took an epic trip to Oregon and Seattle for my 40^th birthday.  We went  to Portland, checked out the waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge, row boated on Clear Lake, went to Crater Lake and drove up the Oregon coast before finishing the trip out in Seattle.  Crater Lake is absolutely amazing.

 

Now to the crafting.  Artsy Inkers is getting ready to have another party – Inktoberfest.  And I’m hosting a challenge for it.  So if you aren’t a member of the board, now is a great time to join.

The challenge is based upon a Plaid product my Mom demonstrated back in the 1990s.  She was a craft demonstrator for Plaid and would demonstrate the products at different craft stores in the areas.  

I’ve been wanted to try it for a card for a while.  Here's the finished card.  

Now here are the step by step photos and instructions.

Step 1 – stamp an image on a piece of acetate.  You will be putting a frame around it eventually, so just make sure the piece is big enough to fit your frame.  I used Staz-On and the image is by Stampendous.

Step 2 – color in the image with a coloring medium that will be translucent.  I used my Copic markers.  Because Staz-On and Copic markers are both alcohol based, I colored the reverse side.  Otherwise, the markers would have removed the stamped image. 

Step 3 – this is the tedious step.  You need to use something that will be opaque to color around the stamped image.  I used a metallic acrylic paint.  You need to color everywhere except your stamped image.  Do the painting on the reverse side.  Make sure you don’t paint where you colored.  You want the stamped image to be translucent.  It will probably take several layers to get it opaque.  Just let it dry between layers.  It took me about 4 or 5 layers to get it fully colored. 

Layer 1 

Finished 

Step 4 – lightly crumple a piece of tin foil.  It should be smaller than the frame.  You are going to attach the tin foil behind the image.  It will show through in the areas that are translucent but not where they are opaque. 

Step 5 – make a frame and attach your image to the frame.

I die cut the scalloped oval and used a regular oval to make the frame.  I used next size down of scalloped ovals to trim down the image and the piece of foil.  I cut another of the larger scalloped ovals from a scrap piece to be the back of the sandwich I created.

Step 6 - Attach the image to the back of the frame.

Step 7 -  lay the foil down.  Don't use any glue at this point because you don't want it interfering with the effect.

Step 8 - Glue the scrap large scallop oval to the oval frame and tin foil.  I forgot to take a picture of this step.

Here is what the finished piece looks like.

Here are a couple of close-ups to better show the tin foil behind the image.

And here is one more of the finished card.  I embossed the base with a Sizzix (?) embossing folder.  The ribbon was from my stash. I used by bow-it-all to make the bow.  I made the little poinsettia using a new Spellbinders die.  I added liquid pearls for the center. 

Instead of making a floating image, you can just die cut a piece of cardstock that is the same size as your card.  That is what I did with the first card I made using this technique.  Here is that card.

The image is by Power Poppy and I colored it with Copics.

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.  

Brushos

Here is the very first project I made with my new Brusho Crystal Colours.  And I love playing with them. 

My Dad's birthday is in June, so I have to come up with 2 masculine cards each June.  And masculine cards are not my forte.  So I was having a hard time coming up with an idea for a Father's Day card (I made his birthday card for an Artsy Inker's challenge back in March) so I pulled out my new toy. 

I used Leaf Green, Emerald and Sea Green for the card base.

For the focal piece, I used Cobalt Blue, Ostwald Blue, Ultramarine, Prussian Blue, and Turquoise.

Here's what they look like before I stamped on them.

 

Because it is so humid in Florida, I haven't worked up the courage to poke holes in the tops of the containers like I've seen in so many you-tube videos.  Instead, I used a soft dry brush that I dipped into the container.  I tapped most of what the brush picked up back into the container and then tapped a small amounts of the crystals onto the paper and then spritzed with water.

 Once dry, I stamped the Dad stamp with Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder. The stamp is by Stampendous. I matted it with black. 

 

 

I know there have been some attempts by folks for Pixie's playground to follow me and they have encountered problems. Thanks so much for trying.  Since this seems to be a persistent issue, I created a page with the directions Mary found for a work around when the join this site button is being twitchy.

 

I will have some more posts this week of projects I've made with my new Brushos.  They are seriously addictive.

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again. 

Christmas Z-Fold Card Insanity (Project 48)

Warning: this will be a really long post with lots of pictures and detailed descriptions of one card.

As promised, here is the second Z-fold card I made. And this was one of those ideas that sounded really good in my head and then about 1/3 of the way through, I realized that it was actually insane. I think I spent about 10 + hours making this card. And I'm not sure if I'm going to give it away or keep it for myself. I'm just not sure I like anyone I like enough to give this too. :-) I'm either going to put it out with my Christmas decorations or maybe add some squirrels and give it to my mom since she puts all the cards I've made for her over the years out with her Christmas decorations.

I started by drawing a triangle on each section to create a base shape for the tree. Since I improvised on the z-fold cut to make my tree base and insure that the whole tree lines up when the card is folded, I've included at the bottom of the posts photos and an explanation of how I did it.

Since I was going to use die cut pine needles to create the tree, I knew there would be gaps. So I used painter's tape to mark off the partial triangle on the front section and inked it with Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn and, what else, Pine Needles. I wished I had taken some pics while I was doing this.

 I die cut the pine needles from snippets of watercolor cardstock. It is an Impression Obsession die.  Then I colored them with Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn and Pine Needles. I know it would have been faster to color the paper first and die cut second but then the sides would still be white, which would have bugged me. I have slight crafting OCD tendencies. Then began the epic assembly process by attaching each one individually. Here's a pic of what the individual pine needles look like, with a dime for some perspective on the size. For non-Americans, a dime is about 1.8cm in diameter.

 

The trunk is a piece of brown floral tape attached at the top (before I added the pine needles). The bottom 2 rows of each section were attached with glossy accents and the rest were attached with rolled pieces of scor-tape to give some dimension.  There are 43 pine needle branches on the front section.

I couldn't decide if I liked the full sun or in the shade photos better, so included both.  For the garlanded, I attached pieces of ribbon that I folded the edges under the pine needles to give the illusion of it wrapping around the tree.  

 

Here's the middle section, with the front folded back, so you see the middle section and the bottom section.  There are 54 pine needle branches on the middle section.

 

And the full sun picture.

Here it is with the whole card unfolded.  This is the back of the card.  For the sentiment, I die cut the red and white cardstock with Spellbinders' nesties.  It is one of the label sets but I forget which one.  The sentiment is by Impression Obsession. I stamped with ColorBox Pigment ink in Evergreen and since it usually takes forever to dry, I heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I realized when I went to attach it that it was a little to big for the section, so I had to attach it at a wonky angle to fit.  I added a couple of gems.  I think that was because I smudged some ink on the white cardstock. 

 

Here's just the middle by itself.  I realized as I was drafting this, I didn't have a pic of just the middle without the bottom layer showing, so I took another pic but by that time the sun was hiding.

Now for the bottom section (the inside of the card), which had the full tree on it.  The star on top of the tree is a die by My Favorite Things colored with metallic watercolor paint and with a gem at the center.  And this section has 69 pine needle branches.  So that's 166 individually colored and attached pine needle branches. Yep, I'm a little crazy. In full sun:

 

 

And in the shade.  I added a dime to give perspective on the ornaments.  

 

The ornaments are My Favorite Thing stamps. I used the pieces of cardstock cut off from the card base for stamping them. The first batch I stamped with Versafine. Since I didn't stamp nearly enough the first time, I stamped the second batch with Versafine and embossed with clear embossing powder, because after I colored the first batch, the lines on some of the ornaments didn't show up as well. On some of them I embossed a snowflake with clear embossing powder. It was part of a three snowflake stamp also by My Favorite Things that I did surgery on. I colored them all with metallic water colors, added glossy accents, cut each out and attached with rolled pieces of scor-tape. I also added sequins with a dot of Stickles in the middle and gems for sparkle. This close-up (of the bottom section) shows the ornaments better.

 

 

You can really see the sparkle in the full sun one. Again this is the bottom section. 

 

When I attached the trunk, I only adhered the top down because I wanted to be able to tuck the ribbon for the tree skirt under the trunk so that it would look like the tree skirt went around the whole trunk.  It took a bit of trial and error to get the tree skirt to work.  I used a snippet of wired ribbon to create the skirt, tucking it behind the trunk and then folded over the top. The presents are My Favorite Things stamp, except the gold one, which is Hero Arts.  I stamped all but the far left one on snippets of pattern paper, embossed, used the watercolor metallic paint for the ribbons and fussy cut. The far left one was stamped on snippets of plain white cardstock and painted with metallic paints.    

In this close-up of the front section, you can see that I got better at attaching the tree skirt as I went along.  The presents were a strategic choice to hide the worst of the lumps.

 

Here is the card fully open to show the inside.  The inside sentiment is by Stampendous.  Oh and the green pattern paper on the 2 non-tree panels were snippets as well.

 

Full Sun



 

 

Partial Shade

 

 

Since this card is literally covered with snippets, I'm going to share it over at the playground.

 

Pixie's Snippets Playground Weeks 181 and 182

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again. 

 

Now for the detailed directions for creating the card base, which I figured I would put at the bottom so you didn't have to read through/ scroll through them to get to the good stuff, but you could look if you were interested.

 

For the Z-fold you need a piece of cardstock that is 6 inches by 12 inches (15.3 cm by 30.6 cm - I think I have conversions right).  I used a scrap piece for these pics because I forgot to take pics while I was making it and the piece was only 5.75 inches by 12 so if it looks a little off that’s why.  Here's a picture on the starting piece with all the measurements on it.  They will be explained in steps 1-3.

 

1) You are going to measure up 3 inches (7.6 cm) on one side and draw a diagonal line to the opposite corner.  That is your usual cut line for a z-fold line. 

 

2) Flip the paper over and draw the diagonal line again, making sure you measure up the 3 inches on the same side that you did on the front. This will give you a guide line for the middle section, which when the card is folded is actually the back of the piece of paper.

 

 

 3)  Then score at 4 inches (10.1 cm) and 8 inches (20.2 cm) across.  These are your fold lines.  That way each section is 4 inches wide.  Here’s a pic of the front with all the measurements and the diagonal cut line draw in.

 

4) Fold you card at the 4 and 8 inch score lines to make your Z. 

5) Now, on the front panel, find the center point of the top and draw a triangle with a ruler.  I also added the trunk and line for the tree skirt. The diagonal line is the cut line.  The straight line is showing that it is 4 inches wide.

 

 

 

 

6) Now cut just the front section along the cut line and then up the folded edge to the top.  That way you can see the middle section when the card is folded.

 

 

7) Line the ruler up using the edge of the tree on the front section to draw the top of the tree on the middle section.

 

 

 

8) Then on the front panel measure up from the bottom of the card to the bottom of the tree. 

9) Use that measurement to draw the bottom line of the tree on the middle section. 

 

 

10) Then connect the bottom of the tree to the top part you already drew. 

 

 

11) Again, cut along the cut line (for the middle section this time) and the fold.  This is where drawing the cut line on the back comes in handy.  Now you can see the bottom section when the card is folded.

 

 

 

12) Repeat steps 8 to 10 for the back section.  When you go to cut this time, cut along the cut line until you get to the tree top.  Then cut up the tree top then down the other side to the cut line, across the cut line to the fold and then up the fold.  Now you have a tree base.  

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Now you too can join my insanity.  And I did warning at the beginning this would be a long one.  So thanks for hanging in there for all my long drawn out explanations.