YLA2013 | May class, part 2

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook

Tags

Mixed Media Layout, The Crafter's Workshop, Yearlong Album, YLA2013

Sorry it’s so late – today had some unexpected happenings and news – but here is the second finished LO from this past Sunday’s class.

With this one, I layered a couple of mist colours and let them drip, plus I spattered shimmer mist to create sparkly water drops. I also smeared modeling paste over the stencil in such a way that most of the words/paste picked up colour and blended into the background. I did this on purpose so that the word “happy” stood out in white on the photo itself.

Finally, I layered stickers, paper scraps, circles, and stamps under the picture.

Lots of colour and movement here – perfect for a busy four-year-old boy!

She’s a Crazy Angel…

12 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by Sara in Art Journal, Mixed Media

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Art Journal, Dyan Reaveley, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, Luminarte, Splash of Color, The Crafter's Workshop

This is the latest Art Journal page I’ve been working on – lots of shimmer as I continue my ~~obsession~~ love affair with Luminarte products.

For my angel’s background I painted several colours of Silks and slightly blended them. I wasn’t sure where I was going with it but now it looks like an ocean to me – and I love her floating in it! I have to go back and do some more blending of the colours, make the transitions more seamless between the colours.

Once that dried, I pressed InkaGold and Perfect Medium through some stencils, pressed down the negatives, then dusted Perfect Pearls powder over the medium. My love of shimmer crosses manufacturer lines, I don’t mind cheating a little!

Finally,I stamped one of the Dyan Reaveley girls on vintage book pages and fussy cut it all out, along with some wings. She got painted in with more Silks, though I used Twinkling H2O’s for her crazy hair – love her eyes and blue they turned out! And I really love the gold shimmer in the orange Twinks!

Lots more left to do with this page, but I’m loving it’s beginning!

What have you been working on lately? Any fun shimmery things? 🙂

Something exciting….

28 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, Yearlong Album

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Ronda Palazzari, Stencils, The Crafter's Workshop, Yearlong Album

…happened to me about a week and a half ago.

I tweeted sneak peek pics of the Yearlong album cover for the class participants to get an idea of what we would be doing in class.

Ronda Palazzari, who designed the awesome Confetti stencil I used, saw the pics and sent me a direct message through Twitter, saying she loved it and could she please include it in a blog post about her stencils?

Umm, let me think about that, YES!

So today the post is up on her blog and to be included with artists such as May Flaum and Marjie Kemper is a total thrill!

And thanks Ronda, I’m so glad you like the album!

By the way, Ronda also teased me, saying that her new stencils (coming in July) were even better than this past release! I offered to give them a test run, make sure they worked ok and all, but I don’t think she’s going for it – sigh. 🙂

Be BOLD.

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Art Journal, Mixed Media

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Tags

Art Journal, Dina Wakley, Donna Downey, Dylusions, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, Mixed media, The Crafter's Workshop, Unity Stamp Co.

As soon as The Paperie received the Sally Carly stencils by Dina Wakley for The Crafter’s Workshop, I had to give them a test run – along with the Tiny Circles and Pie Chart stencils designed by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and Ronda Palazzari, and a couple of Dylusions ones too.

To begin, I re-enforced my journal seam with gold chevron washi tape and I love, love, love how it resisted the mist on the gold parts! That was completely unexpected because I just grabbed the first washi tape at hand and stuck it on – awesome surprise!

I used both the positive and negative pieces of the stencil to get different layers of colour with Dylusions Ink Sprays and black gesso. I also did a lot of outlining with my white Uniball Signo Gel Pen, some stamping in black archival ink, and layers of white gesso, Inka Gold, and shimmer mist through the other stencils.

I love how all the layers turned out , especially the Tiny Circles on the head of the first girl:

And the Perfect Pearls Mist through a Dylusions stencil on the second:

Finally, I added Donna Downey phrases from her Art & Possibility set, available through Unity Stamp Co. This may be my new favourite stamp set – the sentiments are fabulous!

All in all, I’m pretty happy with the results – and I really love all the stencils and media that came into play!

What fun things have you done this week? Link me up in the comments – I’d love to see it!

I saw the moon more clearly….

21 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Art Journal, Mixed Media

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Art Journal, Dyan Reaveley, Dylusion Ink Sprays, Dylusions, Gesso, Mixed media, Ranger, stamping, Stencil, The Crafter's Workshop

I have to say, this art journal page didn’t turn out as I envisioned. Probably because it started out all wrong, and then got covered up, and then…… You know, everything snowballed and the end product was vastly different from what I had originally been going for.

However, I did get to play a lot and what’s not fun about that? 🙂

The original page had a lot of Dylusions Ink Sprays, which I love, but it just went all wrong. So I covered it all in gesso, played with the texture a bit – ran a fork through, that type of thing – and then let the gesso work its magic as it dried:

And I ended up with the same colours I started with, just much more subtle and with a lot more interest and texture.

I added some Viva Decor Ferro, which my kiddies say is like mud, so they love it, through a Dylusions Letter Jumble stencil:

And I used a Pearl paint dabber sprayed with gold mist for the moon and quote:

I also stamped some of my favourite leaves, added some more mist through the Dotted Flowers stencil, and paper pieced some houses on vintage book paper.

All in all, I’ll live with it. After all, isn’t experimenting the main thing here? I also learned to put tape on my journal seams, as you can see from the colour that seeped through from a later page.

Luckily, I don’t mind the extra pop of colour here but I won’t be taking that chance any more and am having fun now playing with different washi tapes. You’ll see some of that next week!

What have you done this week? Any fun things to link me up to and show me? You know I’d love to see it!

YLA2013 | Album Cover

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, Techniques, Yearlong Album

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Album cover, Luminarte, Mixed media, Ronda Palazzari, Silks, Stencil, The Crafter's Workshop, Yearlong Album, YLA2013

This may be one of my favourite projects ever. The colours, the texture, the dimension, the shine and, hello! That stencil.

Seriously people, that stencil may be my favourite of all time, maybe even edging out the Pomegranate one. Yes, it’s that good. It’s so good that I could even say I’m in love with Ronda Palazzari for designing it and Jamie at The Crafter’s Workshop for making it. I love it so much that I made sure everyone in my Yearlong class got the 12×12 one as well.

Moving along, this lovely project also happens to be the album cover we are making for the Yearlong 2013 class. Obviously, as it is a mixed media album no one will have the exact same cover but I’ll be teaching all the techniques I used and showing how I got that awesome texture (hint: teabags may have been involved!).

I also used modeling paste which made the hearts pop:

And gave fabulous dimension to the spine:

The paints I used were Luminarte Silks to give it that awesome shimmer and shine:

And for those who don’t have Silks yet (I stress the word yet, they are a necessity!) I’m working on a way to use your regular acrylics and make them into a faux shimmer glaze. If it works, I’ll do a tutorial some Tuesday soon.

If you can’t already see the reason I love the Confetti stencil, here’s why:

It’s like paint spatters, and blobs of molding paste, and quirky hearts all thrown together with great, but still imperfect, border to tie it all together.

And here’s a closeup of the front so you can really see how it all came together:

The back is very similar, but the paints blended a little differently. Plus, I still think I’m going to add a small camera stamp and my signature:

I had truly planned to do an album title and some decoration but I couldn’t bear to cover this up so… I guess we’ll have to go with Happy as an album title! 🙂

I’ll be back next week with the LO for this month, so look out for that later and keep an eye on Instagram (#YLA2013) for sneaks of it!

KP Weekend!

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Cards, Classes, Techniques

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Distress Ink, distress paint, Distress Stain, Dyan Reaveley, Dylusions Ink Spray, Gesso, Kelly Purkey, Perfect Pearls, Ranger, Stencils, The Crafter's Workshop, Tim Holtz, tissue wrap

This past weekend, The Paperie hosted Kelly Purkey and we all had an awesome time!

Krista and I were lucky enough to share the teaching floor with her and do classes so there were lots of different styles and projects for participants to make. Kelly taught a LO class, plus a mini album from scratch. Krista did a completed Dear Lizzy Daybook mini and I did a tag technique workshop. Since I don’t have any pictures on LO’s or in albums yet, I’ll show you the tags I taught and be back another time with the other goodies!

First of all we played with Dylusions Ink Spray and gesso, plus the Tim Holtz Easter Blueprints stamps (CMS144):

I love the texture the gesso provides!

Then we used Distress Ink and Perfect Pearls powder to make a great background that we layered with the Vintage Things Blueprints set (CMS152):

Hello, Perfect Pearls and silver gel pen:

We did a soft background using Distress Stains, the Sewing Room Sizzix Bigz die, and some tissue wrap:

Love the dimension the tissue wrap adds:

Finally, we all played with the brand new Distress Paints! We marbleized, stenciled, and painted:

And added some amazing mirrored sheet letters to finish it off! Unfortunately, I only have this one cell phone picture of this tag but I’ll update with better pics tomorrow when I get my tag back.

It was a bit hairy at the end of class, trying to get them all done but all in all, I think we pulled it off and everyone liked their tags – whew! Plus, they all got to take home a new Distress Paint and a 6×6 Crafter’s Workshop stencil of their choice, pretty sweet!

The weekend as a whole, starting Friday night with a wine & cheese, leading into classes all day Saturday and then a crop, ending with another full class day on Sunday, was fabulous! I think everyone was pretty tired by the time it finished but it was worth every moment. Plus, we got to get a jumping picture with Kelly at Signal Hill in front of Cabot Tower – the icing on top of a very good weekend, even if we did freeze our faces off to get it!

Mixed Media Guest Post!

21 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

canvas, Luminarte, Mixed media, Silks, The Crafter's Workshop

I’m guest posting over at Krista’s blog today – go check out how I made this beauty!

Happy Memories

Keep Calm & Love On

05 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Sara in ScrapBook

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Designer Digitals, Printables, SimpleScrapper, Sketches, Studio Calico, The Crafter's Workshop

I was taking a poke around the Simple Scrapper website (Krista used to be on their Design Team and introduced me to it) and I found a great printable that I just had to use.

As soon as I saw the “Keep Calm and Love On” card I laughed and knew the exact picture for it! I kept poking around, looking at some of their sketches and found the Template Jane sketch. I changed it up a little, of course – that’s the beauty of sketches! – and ended up with this LO:

Keep Calm and Love On

Used my Crafter’s Workshop stencils and Clay Mist, naturally, my faves, and a bunch of washi tape.

I layered on the Glossy Accents – remember my very first Technique post? – and the shine on the wood veneer hearts is awesome!

Glossy Accents and Rock Candy stickles – a girl’s best friends!

Finally, my favourite part, a real stroke of genius I think, my pumpkin!

shiny pumpkin!

That’s a wood veneer apple from the Studio Calico School Icons! Is that the best, or what?!? Patting myself on the back for that one! 🙂

Love how this turned out, easy to do, still looks like me even though it’s from a sketch, and the journaling is actually out in the open for once, thanks to Ali Edwards!

Do you use sketches? What’s your favourite place to find them? And do you love shiny hearts as much as me?

Things on Thursday

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by Sara in Things on Thursday...

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Dylusions, Lawn Fawn, Lego, Project Life, The Crafter's Workshop

1. I’m still keeping up with Project Life. Although I’m only in Week 7 right now, that’s huge for me! I barely made it through Week in the Life and two years in a row I quit a few days into December Daily. I’m planning to actually blog my PL spreads, it just hasn’t happened yet. 🙂

2. I love Lego and thankfully, my kiddies love Lego too! Whenever I buy them a new minifig or building set, D asks me if it’s for them or me….. It’s theirs, but only because no one will buy me my own set!

Love the Holiday Gift Shop and all the fun stocking stuffers and exclusives. And I especially love the 2012 holiday house – very fun!

Winter Village Cottage

3. I love this Lawn Fawn video – the pumpkins are the cutest and I have idea for Christmas now too! Plus, Chari has a couple of super smart tips she shares.

credit: Chari Moss

4. I’m seeing more and more bloggers and tweeters showing and using their Dylusions Journal and I”m sad, sad, sad that I have yet to hold one in my hands. Please tell they’ll be here soon, Paperie!

5. I was featured on the Crafter’s Workshop blog last week – very exciting for me since I love, love, love their stencils. After trying some other stencils, I love them even more – the designs and quality are, by far, the best out there. And, as a bonus, the owner Jamie is fabulous!

The Crafter’s Workshop class with Jamie Echt

I was lucky enough to meet and take a class from her in Orlando and she really is one of the easiest people to talk to and super friendly. Plus, you can tell she really believes in the product she’s putting out there on the market. And to put a cherry on top, she shared a little tidbit of exciting news with me during our chat at the Make and Takes on who may be a new stencil designer for them! 🙂

Looking forward to finishing up Project Life spreads this weekends, hopefully with some friends, and we have a 40th Birthday Party to attend – fun weekend ahead!