Having Hindsight

After completing my Gelli Print Meets Metal Roses card I immediately had to buckle down and start creating another card needed for a birthday celebration.  I pulled out some older paper packs and found inspiration from one of the papers in My Mind's Eye Sunshine 6x6 pack.  I started die cutting, assembling, spritzing, panicking because I spritzed the wrong color, spritzing some more, over spritzing, became frustrated and them almost ruined the whole thing by trying to remove hot glue from a wet petal.

Then I discovered that I had basically re-created my Gelli Print Meets Metal Rose card, but with paper.

Which, would explain why I liked it, but I admit I started to chant stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut, stuckinarut.

Details:  Card size is 5.5" square. Paper: Gina K Ivory, basic black, SU Wild Wasbi. MME's Sunshine. Mustard paper is scrap paper.  Ink: Distress Old Paper, Vintage Photo.  Stamps: Unity Bold Insight. Dies: Spellbinder's Label Two, Rose creations.  SU small flower punch (sorry! I don't recall the name of the punch!). Sizzix Branch w/Leaves.  Other: Tattered Angels Glimmer mists.  Sorry, I don't recall which ones I used!! I was grabbing left and right to try to fix my mistakes!

 A CAS version to be revealed next!! stuck in a rut....stuck in a rut....stuck in a rut........ 

Sounds of Distress

The E-Team is bringing you another episode in the Get Distressed series!  Today the focus is on different ways to use the Distress Reinkers and the Distressed Stains.  Of course, Daisy is offering lots of goodies to make getting Distressed so easy!! hehe

2 fun prizes for this blog hop! 2 Distress Stains, 2 Re-inkers, 3 yards each of Maya Road lace trims plus 6 inches of Maya Road Large Organza Rose;

To be eligible to win, visit and comment on each E-Team member blog post;

Broni Holcombe

Latrice Murphy

Linda Duke
( Linda is sitting out this hop!)

Linda Ledbetter

Micki Harper

Sherry Cheever

and

Starla Nelson (that's me!)

You will have from Tuesday-Thurs to leave a comment; Winners will be posted on eP blog Friday, April 8th.

HOLD ON! THERE'S MORE!!

Daisy is offering some wonderful savings at eclecticPaperie!

Re-Inkers - 10% off

Perfect Pearls - 20%(includes kits & individual colors)

Distressed Bundle (won't probably ship until next week)

eP Bundle - This is a special bundle for this blog hop: 2 Distress Stains, 2 matching Re-inkers, a mini mister, 2 yds of seam binding and some lace trims, too.

Now that we've got all the yummy goodies out of the way, LET'S GET DISTRESSED!

I was blog cruising one day and came across Lin's idea to combine the Distress Stains and some paints (I don't have the specific paint she was using, but I DO have lots of acrylic paints!).  So, here is my version of her technique:

Supplies:  Tag, acrylic paint (in a light color), 2-3 Distress Stains.

Grab a tag and apply a somewhat dry coat of acrylic paint.  I used Folk Art's Spring White.  Don't completely cover the tag.

Next, apply your lightest color of Distress Stain in some random streaks along your tag.  Here I used Antique Linen.  Take a paper towel while the ink is still wet and "blend" it into the tag.

 Apply your next color the same way.  This time I used Distress Stain in Weathered Wood

Again, use a paper towel to blend the Stain into the tag. 

Your tag is then ready to use as your background!!  WARNING:  THE PICTURES YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE DOES not UTILIZE THE ABOVE TAG.  While playing around with different color combinations, inspiration was struck to use a different tag.  But I didn't have photos.  And, I KNEW you'd want photos.   

The tag background was created using a combination of Distress Stains in Wild Honey and Fired Brick.  Instead of making my streaks vertical, I went horizontal.  I then spritzed the tag heavily with Glimmer Mist Tuscan Sun.  In real life, there is a pink/orange shimmer to the tag that I could not capture in my photo.  After the tag had dried, I stamped one of the flourishes from Marah Johnson's Art & Soul with Distress Walnut Stain.  The sentiment is from TenSecond Studio's Life, and was stamped with Archival Jet Black ink. 

Then I made another wonderful discovery using the Distress Stains.  I pulled out Wendy's Art Part frames and painted a coat of Claudine Hellmuth's Sable Brown acrylic paint onto the frame (have I ever mentioned how wonderfully silky this paint is?!! Lovely stuff!).  I felt the frame was just a little too "brown" and grabbed the Fired Brick Distress Stain and applied it over the dried paint.  Perfect for adding that bit of red tint!!



FYI:  The Distress Stains also work great applied directly to the Art Parts!  Yes, there is now another red frame just waiting to be made into another project!

Finally, I had to add some metal! If you don't have a piece of metal the color that matches your project, just make your own!  I started out with TenSecond Studio's Kiss Me Pink metal that was die cut using the Tattered Florals die.  Then, after scribbling on them with my pointy refiner, I applied two coats of Mountain Rose alcohol ink (allow the ink to dry between coats or you will just pull off the color).

I layered the Daisy pieces, curling the petals to my liking.  I then cut tiny strips to the middle of the six petaled flower, which makes the strips curl up. A large pearl was colored with my black copic for the center.  E-6000 glue holds everything together.  The leaves were die cut with Sizzix's Branch w/leaves out of Poison Ivy metal.  I used the small butterfly punch from MS on Rock Star black metal and scribbled some lines that were lightly sanded.  The butterfly was suspended by cutting a thin strip of Wendy's Clearly for Art Modeling film and winding it around a pen to make my spring.  Here are a couple of close up pictures:

Finally, the butterfly at the top of the frame was cut with SU's Beautiful Butterflies die out of Rock Star Black metal.  The metal was embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder (swiss dots) and lightly sanded.  I then die cut another butterfly the same size out of  the clear Clearly for Art modeling film.  I stamped it with Archival Jet Black ink with a Stampendous music stamp.  I attached only the bodies of the two butterflies with some Hummungo tape and heated the modeling film so that I could bend the wings over the metal.  Half back pearls were colored with a copic marker for both butterflies.

And the final outcome again:



I hope you enjoyed yet another week of being Distressed!  'Till next time.................

Cheeep!

 

 

The Three Faces of Suzi

 How FUN IS THIS?!! Today the E-Team is showcasing Suzi Blu for Unity and GUESS WHAT?!!  The ubber talented artist herself is joining in on the fun!!  You'll definitely want to hop to each of the team members blogs.  Suzi was asked different questions about her creativity  process, inspirations, favorite tools, etc., and the E-Team is featuring a different one on their individual blogs. 

Suzi Blu (the artist!!)

Broni Holcombe

Latrice Murphy

Linda Duke

Linda Ledbetter

Micki Harper

Sherry Cheever

Starla Nelson (that's me!)

Daisy Sparks (owner of eP)

After you've cruised through all the blogs, make sure you leave a comment on the eP blog, letting us know which Suzi Blu set you liked the best. You'll have a chance at winning your favorite set!

Now, for my question of Suzi~

Do you have a place you have visited that really inspires your art?

I always get inspired when I go to galleries. Now not all art inspires me, I have to visit a few galleries sometimes before I find something that gets me excited. Mixed Media is a new art form and it is just beginning to enter the gallery world. When I find a work that is adding layers it always makes me want to rush home and work.

*****

And now for my project!

Raise your hand if you saw Linda's INCREDIBLE project using Suzi Blu's Creative Girl?  Now, try to image the overwhelming sense of "OMG, I was going to use the same image!! How am I suppose to come up with anything that will even be remotely as good?!!

I couldn't.

BUT!! I really like how my project turned out! When I first saw Creative Girl, I knew immediately that I wanted to use metal somehow.  And, with Halloween just around the corner, I started thinking about purples and greens.  And goth girls. 

But I still couldn't get an idea to gel.  So, once again, I called in the BIG GUNS (aka. The Toad).  As usual, he had some creative ideas, just not ones that I had time to take seriously (Toad:  Why don't you do a TOTAL Halloween card?  Paint her up like a dark, goth girl, or vampire type girl.  Cut off her arm and have it all bloody?) Then he came up with the idea to show a Goth Girl and a Hippie Girl. hmmmmm.....maybe!

 I also started pondering the saying around the frame of the image:

I am a Creative Girl.

I have the right to make my mark.

I deserve a rewarding creative life.

And this is how my Three Faces of Suzi came to be (The individual color combinations of the Color Girl and Quiet Girl were chosen by The Toad) 

The Color Girl

The Goth Girl

The Quiet Girl

I tried to remember to take some photos along the way to show how I did the metal work. I promise that one of these days, I'll make a more detailed tutorial.   I used a scrap image (I usually stamp new images on scrap paper to play around with different ideas) and traced the portion I wanted to use onto a piece of Poison Ivy metal using a refiner tool.



You'll notice from this photo that I only used a portion of the image, leaving off the frame.  I love the saying around the frame, but it did not fit into the direction that my Three Faces of Suzi was developing!

Then flipping the metal from side to side, I used the refiner and paper stumps to emboss or deboss certain elements.

After I had the image embossed how I wanted it, I used a sanding block to sand away the color from the raised portions, revealing the aluminum underneath.  

You'll noticed that I puffed out the main outline of the girl.  I wanted to lift the actual image from the background when put together.  Puffing the outline eliminated me having to use foam tape to pop the image.

The three images were stamped on Pure Luxury card stock with Archival Jet Black ink.  I used sponges and Distress Inks in Fired Brick, Dusty Concord and Black Soot to color the different tones of hair.  Copics were used to color the dresses.  I deliberately did not do any shading on the dresses.  I wanted to achieve a more stark look to the dresses with just the faint impression of fine pleats.  I was also afraid that if I shaded, my shading would be different enough on each image that it would take away from the uniform look I wanted in all three images.  Each of the heart pendants were also covered in glossy accents (which does not show up in the pictures at all!!)

The images were cut out and matted onto black card stock.  I then used more Poison Ivy metal as my base layer.  All three images were then placed into a frame that had the larger white mat inset.  I debated adding something else to the white mat, but I rather like the stark clean and simple frame around the darker metal and images.  This will hang in my creative space.  Who knows?  Maybe one day I'll get the creative hair to add more too it.  Or just let it be.  Guess it will depend on which Creative Girl is residing at the time!!

Supplies:  Stamps:  Creative Girl by Suzi Blu for Unity.  Paper:  Pure Luxury (Gina K), Basic Black.  Inks:  Distress Inks in Fired Brick, Black Soot and Dusty Concord.  Copic Ciao markers.  Accessories:  TenSecondStudio's Poison Ivy Metal, refiner, paper stumps, sanding block and decorative wheel.  Glossy Accents and Tombo Mono Metal Liquid Glue.  Other: frame

I hope you have enjoyed all the wonderful projects that the E-Team created along with Suzi Blu!!  Thanks for dropping by again today and remember: 



You are a Creative Individual

You have the right to make YOUR mark

You deserve a rewarding creative life!!

And a very special Thank You to The Toad:  once again you bailed me out!

Till next time.........