Mixed Media Project

I'm thinkin' Spring!!!

AND I LOVE GERANIUMS!!!

So I just had to make this mixed media project.

I painted an 8x10 canvas and cut 1" paper squares for the background. (I used my Cricut - George and Basic Shapes). Then I cut leaves from the Wild Card Cartridge and a flower pot from the Walk in My Garden cartridge. I punched red paper flowers with the Martha Stewart Geranium punch.

I shaded the leaves with dark green ink and golden yellow chalk. I also shaded the petals of the flowers and edges of the flower pot with a brown ink.

I used a large seed bead for the flower center.

So, I used paint, ink, chalk, paper and beads.

I had fun making this project. I think the next one I'm going to try is going to be hydrangeas if I can find balls to build the flowers around.

My next post will be some cards I made. My friend Gail and I sell greeting cards at her place of work. I LOVE PAPER too - so the card making keeps me busy with my little paper fetish.

Talk soon,

Michelle

Willow Tree

I know, I know - I haven't posted in awhile but i've been busy making crafts. I have to go with the inspiration when I can get it. :) I have some pretty cool stuff coming up to show you (if I do say so myself)

The craft I have posted today Erin and I made together. I had decorated a box for her at Christmas with a smaller version of this tree on it. We both said we wanted a bigger one of it. So we made an 8x10 canvas willow tree.

I started with a base coat of harvest gold paint. Then I did a coat of crackle medium. Then another coat of harvest gold. I'm sure you're wondering why I did two coats like that. I wanted the gold to show and then I was going to antique the crackle with stain medium mixed with a brown wash. So instead of priming the canvas I just painted it with the gold paint. The stain medium is a neat product to have in your stash of acrylic paints. The medium is a clear to kind of cloudy medium and then with a 1/1 ratio you can add any color acrylic you want to make your own stain.

The trunk is cut free hand and then all crinkled up. Then we rubbed brown ink on it to give some dimension.

The leaves are punched with a Martha Stewart punch. ALL of the paper used in the project was scrap.

We used white craft glue to adhere all the pieces to the canvas.

Super simple! Super cool!

I love my willow tree - it matches my living room perfectly.

Talk soon,

Michelle

Collage

If you know me well enough you know i love birds and flowers. Of just about any shape, size and color. So today I made a collage of those very things. All of the images are printed from my home printer and they were royalty free images I grabbed off the internet.

The print of the nest is printed on Velum and then I used some chalk on parts of it to pull out some detail... but not too much because I LOVED the pencil drawn look of it. The bird was actually cut out of a larger image that had pine branches and another bird in it. I only wanted this bird. I have no idea what kind of bird it is but I really liked it's coloring. I LOVE GERANIUMS!!! They are one of my favorite flowers. I used to have my laundry room decorated in a geranium theme and I miss it so much when I redecorate it i'm going back to geraniums. I plant geraniums in my flower pots every year that border my brick pavers. They make me smile. The little dimensional nest is actually a button that I bought at the dollar store several months ago not knowing what I was going to do with it but knowing I had to have it. The little eggs are beads from a garage sale necklace I took apart. The metal embellishments are jewelry findings that were on clearance at JoAnn's that again - I had to have - with out a plan in mind but knowing someday I would use them. The background is a save from a product that didn't do what it said it was going to do. I ended up "washing" it in brown paint to dull the aqua paint down a bit (that color was planned). I wanted it to look crackled and the crackle didn't work. It was product I had here for awhile so it could have just been past it's prime. All of this on an 8x10 canvas that YES - I bought on clearance.

I hope you enjoy this canvas collage - I think i'll hang it in my craft room so I can smile when ever I go in there.

Talk soon,

Michelle

Domino Tile

Today, I learned three things. One, if you miss measure your ingredients for the banana bars you are making you can still save the recipe. You might end up with more banana bars than you wanted but the whole recipe wasn't an entire loss.

Two, if you make a mistake stamping Staz-On ink on your domino tile project you can clean it off with the Staz-On ink cleaner. That little discovery made me really happy. I was so excited to finally make this project to think that I would have to re-glue some dominos and wait for them to dry gave me anxiety - this happened after the miss measure of the banana bars. I guess it wasn't my day. But, my third lesson today (i'll tell you about after I tell you how to make the tile) redeemed ALL the mistakes I made today.

The tile is very simple to make. You can make it as big as you like. I've seen people line a serving tray with dominos and stamp on them. It was very pretty.

Cut a piece of cardboard to the size of the domino project you want to make. Glue them down. I just used white craft glue. I weighted it down and left it sit for about an hour. Make sure your dominos are square to each other before you glue them. I used a t-square.

You will want to use Staz-On ink for your project. Staz-on ink is like a Sharpie Marker in ink pad form. You can stamp on just about an surface with it. Colors are kind of limited but well worth having them in your ink pad collection. You do need to purchase cleaner specific for Staz-on; regular cleaner won't work. But, Staz-On cleaner will work with other inks - so you may want to consider just using this cleaner.

After your glued project is dry you are ready to stamp. Choose the stamps you want to use and away you go. You do have to be careful when you stamp - the stamps tends to "slip and slid" on the smooth domino surface. The ink dries very fast so your project is complete right away.

My tile project is going in my kitchen for a decoration. My kitchen is blue and white that's why I chose blue ink. I think you could glue your dominos to a cork and make a coaster. If you go on the internet you can find LOTS of ideas for dominos used in designing jewelry.

NOW, my third lesson today. Brian came in from the workshop with white latex interior house paint on his coat. He was painting some closet doors for his job and brushed up against them. His coat is in very good shape and it would have ruined his coat. Well, as anyone knows you don't get paint out of your clothes - UNLESS YOU DISCOVER WHAT I DID TODAY!!!! I grabbed a container of my fine art paint brush cleaner. It's called "The Masters" "Brush Cleaner and Preservative." You can buy it at Michaels. It comes in a round tan container about an inch tall and three inches across. The words are written in brown. I got a cloth wet and rubbed it in the cleaner and then on the paint. It immediately started cleaning the paint out of his coat. In just a few minutes the paint was gone. I think every one should go buy some of this cleaner and keep it on hand in your house. It says on the container that it works on dried paint too. What have you got to lose if you have some dried paint in an article of clothing than to use it and see if it gets it out. It will be like getting new clothes.

well, if you make a domino project send me a photo - i'd love to see it.

Talk soon,

Michelle

I LOVE MY CRICUT!

I made some tags the other day. For two reasons... i've never made a tag before and the other I wanted to play with my Cricut! I'm in love with that little bug. The possibilities of what you can create with it and the cartridge designs are limitless. If you are any kind of a paper crafter put it on your wish list. I don't believe it can only be used by card makers and scrapbookers. Now i understand they make a Cricut for cutting fondant for cake decorating. Boy will that open doors to some creative designs in that area of crafting.

I'm not quite sure what my next project will be - i'm thinkin' something with some dominos that I have. I bought them on clearance after Christmas @ Michaels - I have two craft ideas that i know of to make with them - I may go off into the wild blue yonder of the internet and see what else i can find. I know there's bound to be some inspiration out there.

I'll close for now. I have the tags posted below and a basic description of how I made them. Hope it brings you some inspiration.

Talk soon,

Michelle

This was a fun valentine tag. I used the cartridges Bags, Tags Boxes and More for the tag itself and the rest of the tag was made with all different icons from Wild Card (one of my favorite cartridges) I added a little bling, the fibers and inked the edges to dress it up.

This was a tag I made just because i loved the papers and I like aqua and brown together. It's a little hard to see but I have my initial "M" in the little frame. I used the cartridge BTB&M and again Wild Card. The bird paper was already embellished with some copper glitter and I added coordinating ribbons and cords for the tie. I inked the edges too to pull it all together.

This was a practice tag for the new Mother's Day cartridge I bought. I wanted to see how it worked. My first try for the word "MOM" ended up about 3 inches high and about 10 inches long. OOPS! A little big for a tag - so i'll save it for a scrapbook page. BTW - all the tags i made are cut at 5 1/2 on the Cricut. I added rhinestones to the center of the flowers, inked the edges and added some decorative dots and dashes with a matching marker. And of course the fibers to tie it with.

This is one of my favorite tags. I'm so longing for spring I guess I had to bring it into my craft room. I used BTB&M for the tag. The window and branches were from Wild Card, the Cat and blue bird are from Animal Kingdom. I think the blue bird is anyway. The background I cut free hand to add a sky and grass. I inked the edges, inked some clouds in the sky and added fibers.

I decided if i have to look at snow it's going to at least be artistic. So i made the leaves on the trees look like snowflakes. I used Wild Card for the wind swirls and the tree trunk and Accent Essentials for the snowflakes. I also added a few snowflakes from some Stampin' Up punches I have. I inked the edges, added Crystal Effects to the tree trunk and the wind swirls to make them look icy and some glitter to the snow flakes. Again, fiber to tie it with.

Is it or isn't it???

Remember the other day I mentioned that my friends and i had a long scrapbooking weekend? Well we had a fun project that all four of us made together. I did it as a surprise for Erin, Karen and Gail. We made a wallet out of paper... no kidding it looks like leather!!! I had received an email from Splitcoaststampers.com with the idea, pattern and supply list a week before the weekend. It was so cool i just had to make one. Then I thought "why not share the idea with my friends." All of our wallets turned out great! AND we had fun making them. It didn't take us long so we didn't lose much scrapbooking time.

Since we made it my mind has been running thinking of all the different designs I could make the wallet out of. I think i'll make one out of white embossed paper and make it look like patent leather. Then of course black would be fun too!!! The patterns that are embossed could be changed too - I think hearts would be fun. Of course all the linings and ribbon trim would be changed to coordinate with the whole "theme" of the wallet.

Tomorrow i'll post photos of 5 different tags I made today.

Well, i'll stop yapping and post the photos of the wallet so you can say "is it or isn't it?" -

Talk soon,

Michelle

Paper Posies

I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO POST PHOTOS ON HERE!!! WOO HOO!!!

This is the craft project i made today. i cut all the shapes (flowers, leaves, butterflies etc...) on the cricut. i used the accent essentials cartridge. the papers were out of the butcher block paper stacks - blue and red. i loved that paper the instant i saw it! i've had it for some time now just waiting for the right project to come along to make something with it. i used a box i had and covered it with some of the paper for the container that the blossoms are growing in. :) i added felt cut outs and metal hearts and bugs to embellish with. i also "antiqued" the edges of all the paper pieces to add to aged look of the paper. i need to add some shredded brown paper or moss on the top of the container to hide the foam. i didn't have any handy and i was too excited to wait to post this.

I didn't feel well this morning so i didn't do much today other than this project. poor brian even had to get his own dinner today.

i have a few more projects rolling around in my head so i hope to get them done soon and get them posted.

talk soon,

Michelle

New Header Design

WOW!!! Erin surprised me by designing a header for my blog home page. it's so fun! She is so talented. Thanks Erin!!!

She has started a recipe blog now - here's the address:

http://www.erinsrecipestoshare.blogspot.com/

soon she will have her crafty, artsy personal one up and running again. as soon as i know that address i'll post it too.

trust me - you want to follow her postings on either blog. she's a great cook AND she comes up with some of the coolest art and craft ideas i have ever seen.

i made 21 blank greeting cards today. i make/sell them with my friend Gail. she is able to display them at her place of work in three different locations in the office. we split the money and it helps support our craft habit (s). i'm hoping to post finished craft items for sale every now and then so check back often for ideas for yourself or if your not a crafty person i can make you something.

i made pulled pork for dinner. i made Erin's recipe for homemade hamburger buns and we ate them warm. OMG were they ever good!!! If Erin posts her recipe for the buns you need to try it. you'll never buy them again.

well that's all i know for now.

talk soon,

Michelle

snow day

the snow storm is over. i think the final tally of accumulation is about 8". brian and his brother doug shoveled in stages as the snow came down - every two to three inches. that way it wasn't so hard to clean it all up at the end. i'm so thankful for brian and his brother.

we made pepperoni rolls for dinner - we tried a new sauce recipe - it's a keeper.

i downloaded around 150 vintage images last night... lots of valentines, flowers and artwork. i've spent part of my day today photo editing some of those images. i'm so excited to use some of them in my projects. as soon as i figure out how to upload photos i'll post some of the projects i've made.

tomorrow brian and doug are going to a job for Empire that is an hour and half away. that gives me at least 3 hours to craft - then i can add actual time on the job to that. WOO HOO!

well, guess i'll go back to editing.

talk soon,

Michelle

today is the day after a long weekend of scrapbooking... Erin, Gail and Karen came on Friday and we scrapbooked until Sunday afternoon. We take turns making meals, we bring snacks and drinks and have a blast. we are usually up by 8:00 and stay up until 2:00 or 3:00. i worked on a scrapbook about the chili cook-off hoe-down we had here at the house last fall. it was a fun book to make.

i didn't get much done around the house today other than run the vacuum. - i was too tired. what i did do is sit with my little mac powerbook G4 and download free/royalty free images off the internet into Iphoto. i'll use the images on greeting cards that i make and on my scrapbook pages.

the weather man is calling for 5-9 inches of snow starting tomorrow morning - we've dodged a lot of bad weather so far this winter but i guess we aren't going to miss this storm. so i think i'll craft tomorrow - and maybe do a load or two of laundry.

as soon as i can figure out how to load photos on the this thing i'll start posting them. i tried to add an image of my garden last summer but it wouldn't let me. oh well - so far i'm only writing to myself anyway... hee, hee...

talk soon,

Michelle

my first post...

i've been wanting to do this for some time now - start a blog. it's more for myself than for any one else - but if you read it and get something out of it too - the better for both of us.

i'll post photos of my day, my craft projects and my family - talk about my thoughts and prayers, hopes and dreams.

i hope you'll share your thoughts prayers, hopes and dreams with me and comment on mine.

so...i guess the journey begins as soon as press "publish post"!

talk soon,

Michelle