Time Goes By- Altered shadow box

Here is a store bought shadow bx that I altered. It started out life as a white glossy frame. I have been collecting various bits and pieces for a while and decided now was the time.

 

 Layering die cuts, chipboard and other embellishments and decicing what looks good.

Start gluing it all down with gel medium and Helmers Glue. Once dry, cover it all with black Gesso.

Add Prima texture crackle paste with a palate knife on smooth surfaces and let dry. Add Copper metallic paint with a dry brush. once dry add a touch of Silks Acrylic glaze in turquoise with a dry brush as well. Add bits of Blue crystals and pearls to highlight. I mounted this on acetate leaving a border of clear plastic so it looks like its floating in the frame.

 

 

I sanded lightly before I did this next few steps as it was a glossy frame and I knew the Geeso would be repelled. I applied modeling paste through a stensil to 3 sides (not the bottom) and let  dry. Cover the inside border and the outside of the frame and modelling paste with Black geeso.  I applied 2 coats, then I drybrushed on the copper and the turquoise paints again.

This isn't a great pic of my finished product as the light kept throwing a reflection off the glass. I do love it and really enjoyed making it as well.

Forgive to Forget mixed media piece

I got introduced to the artist Tamara Laporte's whimsical style of portraits and creatures last year and was captivated. I was always convinced I couldn't paint landscapes leave alone portraits! But she makes it so achievable with her step by step video lessons and how she plays with a variety of media.

So after doing her Art, Heart and Healing class, I took the time to write all the negative things I was feeling, down on my paper and pondered it. I then Gesso'd over it all as a way of letting it all go. My beautiful lady emerged. People say that your emotions come through in your art and I guess it's true because everyone says she look sad. But the most important thing for me is that I replaced my negative thoughts with a positive quote that I feel will help me every time I look at her. Shes not perfect but then neither am I, or you or anyone for that matter. I used  a mixture of Gelatos, Lyra Aqua colour crayons, acrylic paints, Versamark and Archical ink stamp pads and various stamps to complete this piece.

Adding Texture and Dimension to air dry clay AND my first youtube Video!

This video thing is a huge learning curve for me. I love watching tutorials on different techniques and products. I had signed up to a swap where I had to make 10, 2x2 inch tiles to send to my partner. Initially we were to use cardboard, paper etc but then I thought to use the pack of DAS air dry clay I had sitting there. But I needed it to be the thickness of chipboard and I wanted texture and dimension.
So out came the manual pasta rolling machine that was still in its box in the cupboard. I got my supplies together, got my hubby's Go Pro and the rest is history. I do however take my hat off to all the You tubers out there that do videos all the time.

Here is the link for my video on using embossing folders with air dry clay to get texture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F44ydZkRO0I
Unfortunately, I only found the clamp to hold the machine to the table AFTER I had shot the video. Isn't that always the way??

Otherwise, here are some pics of using stamps on clay.

These babies have all been sent of to be distributed without being painted so that others can customize them to their own projects. I love using Silks acrylic glaze pints to paint them though, and covering them in a hi gloss varnish like JOSONJA's . I will post more pictures another time when the project I am using them in is finished.

Fabric Tissue Paper Tutorial Outcome

One of my fellow artists had posted this link fabric tissue paper tutorial on our FB page and it fascinated me. How to use scraps of material and tissue paper and Gesso and Modpodge to make flexible fabric paper! So.. I did it! Here are the results. The only Modpodge I had was the glitter kind which did just beautifully!

And then I got to manipulate and trim them into 2 index card sized pieces fabric swap for the AASG group. It was so easy to paint (Tim Holtz distress acrylic paint daubers worked very well and were so easy to apply) and spread colour around on. After it dried, I applied neutral shoe polish with a soft buffer as a sealer on top.

TA DA! Just do it, it was really fun. I will upload pictures later of how I used it for myself in my art journal when I finish the page.

Inspired By the AASG Napkin index card swap.

I participated in a napkin swap recently through the AASG Facebook page and received a lovely haul of paper napkins that then led to another swap where we had to use some of those napkins to create 2 Index cards to swap. This posed a challenge for me, as when I see these pretty napkins, I just see these pretty napkins with cool art already on them..not how I can transform them into my own works. But after a lot of You-tubing and Pinteresting and Googling this is what I  managed to come up with .

 I've always liked the quote by Aibileen Clark in The Help (book and movie) so I decided to add it to this napkin card. I really liked how it turned out so I decided to do a page in my art journal using the same quote and technique so I had a "tweaked copy" I liked as well. I made my own stencils for these projects, using thinlit dies and overhead projector plastic sheets, and created my own texture paste by adding beach sand with impasto medium. seemed to work well. I will be making a lot of my own stencils now using some of the dies I already have.

Using a combination of spray inks and dripping and paints for background colour before I used gel medium to glue on my napkin ..

I then finished of with Tim Holtz Marquee Alphabet thinlit die cuts and liquid pearl accents for the light globe parts to make the quote and gave everything a wash of gold metallic paint.

Thanks for looking, hope you have a great day!

After years and years of resisting, a friend recently persuaded me to try her Copic Ciao Alcahol markers. I dug my heels in and said "Nah..its all good, I have my water colour pencils/ Crayons/gelatos/acrylic paints and water colour paints (and every other type of colour media in between) what do I need markers for?'  I said.. RIIIGGGHHHHHTTTT... I just knew I shouldn't have because now I want them all. All the colours..all three hundred and something shades of them...Arghhh..Meanwhile, my own voice echos inside my mind with what I say to my kids all the time: "What we want and what we get are two very different things."

So, I have started collecting. Traipsing through the Facebook world of buy,sell, swap craft sites and have manged to pick up a few second hand markers along with the assistance of my friend Di (who i am sure is just as much a hoarder/collector of crafty stuff as I am) Anyway..I digress. I have also recently fallen in love with the Santoro brand Gorjuss Girl stamps and just acquired some mini versions! Just in time for a ATC swap with the theme LOVE. I absolutely love and adore these little girls. they are creepy to some people but when I colour them I imagine them as lovely little shy creatures. So cute! I did a beginners class on the basics of Copics at my local Scrapbooking Shop called Scrapbook Secrets (which is For Sale, if anyone wants to keep this dying breed of shops alive!) and I haven't looked back.

So here are the three that I coloured and sent off with a little piece of my heart in each. Thanks for popping by!

(I had actually re-sized and saved them the right way up but they refuse to upload like that..must be part of their personalities. )

AASG- Favourite Author/Story/Poem DAJ, February Challenge

I am actually the one that suggested the theme for this months A.A.S.G. Deconstructed Art Journal page swap challenge, and I am the one that has been the most slack in getting it done! I have recently been a little obsessed with Alice in wonderland, more so since the Tim Burton movie version came out. Not with the movie or book or plot but the characters and the depth to them that has been given by being played by certain actors or written by certain authors.  Of course, I had GRAND plans in my head of what i wanted this D.A.J. to look like with Stamps, paint and die-cuts...and then I had to go back to work...The bills need paying right? Before I knew it, the due date for the project had rolled around and all I had done was stick my background page onto my card stock and do the outline and lettering in Sharpie!
I had just purchased a gorgeous set of Japanese solid water colours, called Kuretake Gansai Tambi. My first REAL set of water colours. They were almost too pretty to use. My first step was to fill out the colour swatch on the inside of the lid (which was covered in a green linen with the name embossed in Gold).

After that I thought why not? So I painted the background to this piece using these watercolours and watched it come to life. I love how you can still see the text of the dictionary through the colours.

 The other side is dedicated to one of my favourite childhood authors Enid Blyton.  I blended the background with Distress Paint and a baby wipe, then stuck on a photocopied picture of Mrs B I found off the Internet. Then I just doodled in the names of some of her famous books. Voila! Hope you get some sparks of inspiration from this.

AASG- You and Me Swap

I belong to a really great Australian Art swap group on Facebook, with a really fantastic, supportive bunch of people. I actually stumbled across them  on the 'interweb' when I started googling art journals as a serious thing for the first time last year. Anyway, that's an art journal story for another time.

So.. In this Facebook group, People organise art swaps of all kinds including Digital, ATC's, Printing, DAJ's and even our kids get to take part in Junior swaps (which my son and I just ADORE!).

This post is about a swap called "You and Me." You were to pick 6 items from your stash including , textures, fabrics, stamps etc and send 2 lots of these to your assigned partner. When you get your package from your partner, you were to create 2 Index Card sized pieces of art using at least 3 of those items and anything else from your own stash you liked. Simple right?? I thought so...until I realized I had created 3 different versions of this art without adding the required amounts of received elements each time! I'm still not 100% happy with it, as it was a frustrating process,but followed my old rule "When In doubt, Bling it out" and that raised my happiness level a little.

Supplies I was given: Damask print brown paper bag, script washi tape, some metallic rubber mesh, gold ribbon, poison stamped images and a metal embellishment.

 I started with student grade acrylic in purple my favourite  colour.

Then using Gesso and a Prima damask Stencil to add some texture to the card.

It looked a little busy so I then used a baby wipe to smudge it a up. I took a lot off the middle as that's where I wanted to place my stamped image.

I printed my quote on plain paper and cut it into strips which  I then inked up with Tim Holtz Distress ink in Bundled sage.

 I then cut the strip into words and stuck onto the washi tape. I used Faber Castle Pit Pen in brown to create shadows around the edges.

Using the Tim Holtz Mixed Media Die set #1, and the Big Shot I cut the patterns on the top and bottom of the cards.

I had embossed the Stampotique Brand ,Angel image in black glitter and silver straight onto the card but because of the nature of the stamp, it all melded together to look like a silhouette instead of being detailed....so ...

I wasted more time using some clear crackle texture paste and leaving it to dry, I figures it would act as a sealer over the tape and wording as well. While this dried, I stamped the image onto CopicBlending paper...but again, way too much black showed up and the copics would only show up properly on the shadows. Then I used water colour pencils (yes.. I went there..on alcohol blending paper) and cut it all out when I finished. 

I then stuck her on with foam tape, a bit over to the right so the original embossed outline showed a bit underneath.

Then I stuck on all the embellishments.. 

Here are the finished cards. There are slight differences to them but still glad I got them done in time.

Until Next time:)

Debs.

Hello Me! 

I can't believe I forgot I had created a blog! So much has changed since I started this but at the same time so much hasn't changed. We are back living in Perth again and our years in the bush were some of the best we have experienced as a family. I lost interest/passion for scrap booking for awhile but I knew I still wanted to create things. While I was in Leinster, a friend took me down to "the Cottage" in Leinster where some ladies were giving Quilting classes. I had tried to do this by myself previously but with no guidance. I had bought all the "wrong" fabrics for quilting and struggles to understand the sewing jargon like seams and nesting and grain of fabric. So going to the Cottage for lessons was the highlight of my week.

My Daughters Quilt called Kite Flight! I made the quilt top and a lovely lady called Margaret Cooper from Margaret Cooper Quilting, did the sandwich quilting on her long arm machine.

My son Jake's quilt with a Squares Squared pattern.

 I met such lovely ladies who inspired and taught me. We were given the opportunity to transform the Cottage into an Art and Craft Cottage and an Op shop combined. A committee was formed for this not for profit organisation, and this little cottage became my second home in our remote community. I helped coordinate and facilitate Card making, School holiday art and craft for the kids and mixed media/painting workshops too. During this time, We organised artists to visit as well. A most memorable lady Cher Shakleton from Shackleton Galleries, came and taught us how to "throw clay" on our Pottery wheels.  I learnt so much form this lovely lady! which reminds me... I must try to get in touch with her now I am back and say Hello!
Anyway, too much has happened and time gone for me to try and cramm it all in here, so I will just continue to blog about things from this point and hope for the best.
Cheers,
Debs!