Friday, July 24, 2015

Enjoy Life with 13@rts

Good Friday friends! How has your summer been so far?

Today I'm up on the blog with a cute little wall hanging which I altered with lots of 13@rts products. I was inspired by the pink and purple lupins I saw when I visited New Zealand during summer. A friend was telling me that one bunch of these costs a bomb in Europe, whereas these grow like weeds in the South Island! The meadows, riverbanks and roadsides would be bathed in beautiful pink and purple and needless to say, I came back with a hundred photos of the same thing.

Anyway, here is my project:



More details in the close-ups:



I first primed with a simple layer of white gesso. I then made a thick paste with it and lots of Magic Powder and scraped it over a stencil, giving my poppies a lot of texture. Then I misted and painted from the bottle with Pearl Pink and Chalk Lilac mists. This was finished off with some script stamping using Matt Paint in White, which gives a gorgeous embossed effect.



I primed this sweet flower chipboard (from Blue Fern Studios) as well and first painted a very thin layer of Raspberry matt paint. Then I scooped up some white sand grit with modeling paste and patted them down in the centre. Then it was layering more colors in Lavender matt paint and Vivid Violet paint. For the stalks, I used Green metallic paint and layered them thick in some places for a darker look.



Decorating the banner with some glass beads, silver microspheres and pink sand grit. Then adding on color with Pearl Pink and Pearl Violet mists, and also Chalk Lilac mist.




Another chipboard piece of a little bridge which I colored with Old Silver metallic paint. I also tucked in a little resist butterfly piece which I colored with Pearl Violet mist. There were also a couple of flowers in the background with I colored with Pearl Violet mist and as I let the color run with water, it separates into a gorgeous purple and teal.

So that's all I have for today. Enjoy your weekend!

love,
 


Thursday, July 23, 2015

A Perfect Day with Maja Design

Hello friends!

Have you ever fallen in love with a collection of papers so much that you just cannot keep your hands off of it? Well, I am looking at the new Summer Crush collection from Maja Design and there is this mad impulse to make loads and loads of stuff from it. I guess that's why it's so aptly named "Summer Crush"!

This is my second project featuring these papers and I'm focusing on the pink this round after working with the teals in the previous post. It's remarkable how easy these two colors are to work with, either together or on their own. Here is my layout, a rare one of me and the boys at the park since I'm always the person behind the camera. It's not often I play rough with them, especially since I'm pregnant now but you can tell that we were having a lot of fun here! More like they were having a lot of fun tickling and climbing over me....It is a pleasant reminder that it's not a must to capture the moment, but more important to live in it.  But make sure your camera settings are right so that the husband can do the capturing instead.



Now in the collection, one of the sheets actually came exactly like the background you see here. However it was too flat for my liking so I trimmed out the centre teal portion and mounted it onto another sheet with the pink checkered design. This way, I can distress the edges of my teal paper and make it more dimensional and outstanding. I would have done some stitching as well along the edges if I wasn't such a klutz with the sewing machine. Once again, my background mixed media work was kept close and tight to the main cluster so that it doesn't cover up the gorgeous images Marie has drawn over the page.

If you look closely, almost everything on this page is a square of some kind. The papers I used for layering are all squares of different sizes,  my chipboard frame is square, my two main sheets of patterned paper are squares, the stamped design is square... and I even found two square buttons in my stash! Now what's up with the squares you say? I really have no idea other than it's fun!

Some close-ups:




I just cannot get enough of those straws! In my previous post I demonstrated how to make these cute little babies and this round I've used the hearts and chevrons to complement the whole mood of the layout.



Layering the patterned papers and also a die cut doily to create some additional detail in my floral cluster.



The info strip which I used as a subtitle.

That's all I have for today. Hope you like what I have shared!

love,

Monday, July 20, 2015

All Things Pink with Made With Love

Hello friends! How are you doing?

Today I'm up on the Made With Love blog and I have a post full of background techniques to share with you. If you have visited before, you would know that tags really stump me but I'm grateful to my DT co-ordinator Aida for always challenging me to step out of my comfort zone.

Here are the three tags I made for this month:



I've kept the embellishments on the first tag the simplest to show what I have done in the background. Basically it's blending three different colors of Distress Paints on a stencil over a gesso-primed manila tag. Keeping the stencil in place, I brushed distress crackle paint over to get the cracks over my painted portion. To make the cracks more obvious, I stamped the Distress Stain bottle down hard to create pools that would seep into the cracks and give a beautiful splatter pattern at the same time. Lastly, it's to brush some Art Anthology Sorbet paint over another smaller circle stencil.



For the second tag, a lot more work was involved.



It's not very obvious here, but I did a gel image transfer for my background using one of the patterned papers that came in my DT kit. Briefly, I brushed gel medium on my tag and adhered my patterned paper on with the side I want facing down, bearing in mind that everything will be mirror-imaged. When the gel medium has dried, I spritzed generously with water and rubbed off the patterned paper to reveal the image below. After that, it was dabbing the edges with different colored Distress Paints to blend them in and finishing off with a translucent coat os Art Anthology Sorbet paints.



My third and last tag has much fewer steps. I simply blended different colors of Art Anthology dimensional paints together along the length of the tag to get a gradated color wash, starting with the lightest shade from the bottom. Then it was stamping with embossing ink and heat setting gold embossing powder to get a nice raised image of a doily heart. Lastly, I brushed some AA sorbet paint over a heart stencil to give the effect of heat-embossed transparent glitter powder - it's a lot faster and less messy too!

So these are the background techniques I used for my tags. Hope you find them useful!

Supplies (available at Made With Love):

Art Anthology paints (Mi Bella, Big Dip O'Ruby, Cotton Candy, Buttercream, Splash)
Distress Paint (Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, Victorian Velvet)
Distress Crackle Paint (Rock Candy)
Distress Stain (Brushed Corduroy)
Distress Glitter (Pickled Fence, Seedless Preserves)
Sizzix mini rosette die
Prima doily die
Prima Marketing Inc flowers, stencils and stamps
Blue Fern Studios chipboards
Kaisercraft patterned paper 


love,

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Summer Love with Maja Design

Hello friends!

Summer is upon us! Although here in Singapore, it's nearly summer all year round. Right now, I'm enjoying a nice, cold bowl of iced fruits in syrup, catching up on summer dessert recipes, and attempting to bake a cake for the little one's birthday in a couple of days.

While all that is going on, I've a sweet, sweet treat from Maja Design to share with you. Marie has drawn up a gorgeous collection for summer and it's unbelievably cute! Today's project is one of the many that I've made from her Summer Crush collection and I can't stop making more. Here's a step-by-step on how I made the layout.

Step 1:
Summer is all about fun right? So I had these mini rosettes made using papers from the Summer Crush collection with one of my Sizzix dies and they are just too cute.



Step 2:

For some reason, straws came to mind as well and I rolled these up. Just lightly spritz with water to make the heavy patterned paper easier to roll and glue down the edges with Glossy Accents. I then brushed the ends with gel medium and dipped it into gold embossing powder.



Step 3:

I primed these chipboards from Blue Fern Studios and painted them. For the title "Love", I used 13@rts' Metallic Pink and Raspberry matt paint and blended them. For the arrow, I applied Shimmerz Texturez in Patina and went over with a layer of Silks Glaze in African Jade.



Step 4:

Assembling my paper layers and embellishments together so that I can start working on my background.



Step 5:

Spread a very thin layer of gesso over the area where I wanted to work on, followed by some stenciling with modeling paste to follow the general flow of my layout. I constantly placed my paper layers down as a guide over the stencil to see where else I should add the modeling paste.




Step 6:
Misting with Tattered Angels' Glimmer Mist (Trunk Bay) and watering it down. Some parts I painted straight from the bottle for gradations in tone. Finish with some random stamping, and start gluing everything away!




Here is the completed page:



Love the summery feel this piece has! But I have a confession - I cheated on the photo because it was taken in fall during our Perth trip. But it was the perfect kind of weather which I wish Singapore would have in summer (or throughout the year for that matter!) - balmy temperatures, refreshing breeze, blue skies dotted by little white clouds, and that amazing picnic in the park... I deliberately chose the patterned paper with the sunburst because it adds to the composition - sun rays radiating out from my main cluster and that pattern is repeated in my mini rosettes.

More details in the close-ups:


Lots of touching up with mediums.  I made more splashes with 13@rts Light Turquoise chalk mist all over the page, followed by Acrylic Splash! Ink in white. 



Everything was also given a dab of gesso for a vintage washed out look, followed by African Jade Silk glaze. And lastly, a generous patting of a yummy paste made from Gold Pearl paint and 13@rts Magic powder.



Loving the patterns and colors from the Summer Crush collection.



Another floral cluster with a metal piece and some resins.

That's all I have for today. Thanks for dropping by!

love,

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Dare to Dream with 13@rts

Hello friends! How has your month of July been?

I'm in today to share a canvas for 13@rts which my husband has been bugging me to make for one of his major customers using their products. If you remember some time back, I was gifted a wonderful truckload of curtain materials and I made a canvas gift for a friend using those materials (you can read all about it here). The husband showed that canvas to the one of the directors of the curtain materials company and he loved it to bits. And of course, he casually remarked that such a piece would easily cost up to $200 in the market and let his words hang in the air. The hint was pretty obvious!

Prior to this piece, I made one which I totally hated. Wrong color, wrong texture, wrong composition and I had let my failure sit there for almost a year. Until a recent conversation with some close friends did my husband bring up this again and I felt I had to deal with the idea of failed projects. So I grabbed a new blank canvas and started from scratch.

Here is the finished product, which I'm a lot more pleased with:



The background was such a joy to create. Basically I had gesso as a primer and painted on 4 layers of Ayeeda matt paint - Lavender, Berry, Cobalt and White. Using a baby wipe, I slowly revealed the color below in the places I wanted to and the effect was stunning.

More details in the close-ups:


I mixed gesso with lots of Ayeeda Magic Powder till it gave a thick paste. I used most of that paste over a floral stencil from the Cozy Evening collection, and the remainder around the edges of my canvas. 30 minutes later, a beautiful cracking effect emerged. For the chandelier, I primed with gesso, followed by gel medium and a layer of distress glitter for texture. To enhance the shimmer, I painted randomly with silver glitter paint.



This was an unintended but gorgeous effect I got as a result of dry brushing the Ayeeda matt paint. My final coat was white and I had layered it thick on some parts. It wasn't obvious the day before, but when I took the photo the next day these cracks started showing up! 



The title piece from Blue Fern Studios which I colored with a mix of Vivid Violet paint and some iridescent medium, followed by a random layer of silver glitter. The flowers were white petals which I had painted with a mix of Pastel Lavender, Pearl Violet mists and Cobalt Blue matt paint, watered down to blend into each other.


Keeping texture simple. I have three different curtain fabrics here - a cotton blue, and two soft mesh with gold embroidery (one Champagne and one gold-toned blue) under all my flowers. On top of the fabric, I have silver microbeads, gold strips and distress glitter sealed together with gel medium. Then I painted from the bottle with Violet Pearl mist. 



Layered doilies cut out from Mental Vacation papers, painted lightly with Lavender matt paint and highlighted with Old Gold metallic paint.

That's all I have for today. Thanks for dropping by!

love,

Thursday, July 2, 2015

July Inspiration with Blue Fern Studios and a new paper collection!


Hello friends! How has your month of July been? The weather has been blazing hot and we're doing whatever we can to cool down.

It's my turn on the Blue Fern blog today and I have two creations to share with you. The first is based on the fabulous July sketch. Here is what it looks like:


I've kept the orientation of the sketch, as well as the dark background and my papers came from a mix of Sanctuary and Love Story to create my layout.


My mixed media background was created Birdsong Melody from Sanctuary, with a lot of paint dabbing with 13@rts matt and metallic paints, and layering with watercolors, as well as textural details using microspheres, dew drops and microbeads (also from 13@rts), as well as some string and stamping. I love it that Blue Fern tries in sneak in a few dark colored patterned papers into their collections for us to create our very own backgrounds.

Some close-ups:


The La Plume chipboard which I first painted with a light brown, followed by UTEE embossing for resist and layering with more browns. Beneath are paper layers made from scraps I had left over from Love Story collection.


The Notebook Edges chipboard, which I first heat embossed and then colored with different shades of blue. To add texture to my layers, I mixed chipboard, paper, lace and trims.


A close-up of some of the textural details I have in my background.

I hope my sample has inspired you to create a project of your own to participate in our monthly sketch challenge!


And now for my video tutorial. For this project, I revisited one of my all time favourites from Blue Fern Studios, the Ombre Dreams collection. 


I used only "Susan's Dream" because the images on the paper fit my composition perfectly and had the exact type of watercolor imagery I had in mind to create for my background. I also used scraps from Dream Cards and Charlotte's Dream to build up my layers.

Some close-ups:


A die cut from Dream Cards which I used as my title, and a Bohemian flower piece tucked into my cluster. You can also see the half-tone stamp which I used to add minute details to my background.


I love the big chipboard pieces because they are simply value for money and so fun to play with. Here, you see Medley Border which I have cut up into four pieces and tucked them everywhere to maintain the flow of my composition, as well as to break up the monotony of paper layering.


Interspersed in the layers is also the Notebook frame which I had added some texture to.

Here is the start-to-finish video. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I have creating the project.




And before I sign off, Blue Fern Studios has a fabulous new paper collection with matching stamps and chipboards, and I can't wait to show this one off to you!

Here's the collection:



and the full reveal can be seen here.

So that's all I have for today. Keep safe and keep cool!

love,