Altered Playing Cards/ ATC

Sorry for the lack of posts but now that it's spring break I have lots of time to do some crafting. So I made these two pieces on playing cards. I have 104 playing cards that I got for 62 cents. The cards make great bases for the tiny pieces. So for the one above I used alcohol inks on the card. The alcohol inks work really well on the cards because they are a little glossy. Then I added some shear ribbon as a base for the e.
To make the e I took a chipboard letter and did the alcohol inked tin foil technique. The three gems were just clear but I alcohol inked them too.

This is the other piece I created. First I glued a picture of my grandma and her family on the card. My grandma is the one sitting properly on the chair. Then I distressed the edges with vintage photo distress ink. Then I took some glitter glue and mixed it with re-inker for a more vintage look. I scraped the glitter on the sides to frame the photo. With some dictionary paper I wrote family and attached that to the side with some coloured staples. I added a few more staples to make it look like the picture is attached with staples.

To finish it off I distressed a prima flower and tucked it behind the playing card. I really distressed the flower so it would match. The flower used to be white and pink.

Here is a close up of the glitter and staple.

Mixed Media Monday: Party Animals

For this week's Mixed Media Monday I made this pop art piece. The picture was from google images and I just painted over the four squares around the dogs. For the party hats I used alcohol inks on glossy paper. You might think that the inks only look good blended with other colours but the colours of the inks alone are very pretty. So I cut the alcohol ink paper into triangles and added a rhinestone to the points. Oh and the base is just cardboard.

Alcohol Inks on Tin Foil

Here is a really cool technique using alcohol inks. If you have used alcohol inks before you know they work on gloss/shiny surfaces. Using tin foil is really cool to use because the colours are really sharp on it.
To make this start by covering a piece of tin foil with alcohol inks.

Then let it dry and adhere to card stock. Finally cut down to size and adhere it to a card.

For this card I added just a little bit of ribbon. I didn't want to add too much to it because I didn't want to take away from the cool design.

Mixed Media Monday- It's not all Black and White

I have chosen to participate in my first online challenge. This week's Mixed Media Monday challenge was to create something black and white with just a hint of colour. For my project I made an art journal page. First I painted the page all black and then made some white lollipop flowers. To add in the hint of colour, I sponged the edges of the circles in purple ink and used a purple button for the center. To make the leaves, I tied some white ribbon in a knot. For added interest I cut out some stamped butterflies and adhered them with a glue dot. To make the butterflies look like they are flying I bent up the wings. The flowers looked a little boring just flat so I used foam tape to give some dimension.

Stamping Technique

In this post I am going to show you how I created this lovely stamped image.

You will need a stamp, paper and two or more inks. Make sure one is drastically darker than the other.

Start by inking the stamp in the light colour. You can ink the whole stamp at this step. It doesn't matter because the darker shade won't get contaminated with the lighter shade. I don't know if it matters but for the darker colour I used a pigment ink, for the lighter colour I used dye based.

Now dab the darker shade onto some places of the stamp. It will help to have a small ink pad. Now do you see why you MUST go light to dark? The second ink will pick up the first, since it's darker though it doesn't matter.

Your stamp should look something like this.

Now stamp and you're done!

This could look really cool on flower stamps if you use one colour for the petals and one colour for the center or stem.

There are many different colours and patterns you could do so have fun making your own unique stamped image.

Paper Ornaments

I made these hanging ornaments yesterday to act as a room divider. My aunt gave me the idea. Her Blog is http://alteredbookstudio.blogspot.com/.

To hang them I used fishing line and masking tape. I used Martha Stewart's classical botanical paper stack. This paper worked really well because it is double sided so you don't see a plain white side.

It's Clean!

So I finally cleaned up the craft corner! Here is what it looks like now.
It's so much easier to craft now!

Everything is sooo clean!

It's clean here...

... and here!

I have tons of space to work in now

I can actually cut things without cutting into some random paper falling into the paper cutter.

Even the inside of these drawers are clean!

Even this end table is tidier.

The floor was a disaster so I brushed all the "mess" into one big pile. Then I looked to see if there was anything worth keeping. Finally I tossed all the worthless junk.

Now the floor is nice and clean! You can imagine how many pieces of paper I tracked upstairs because it was getting stuck to my socks.

Now I just need to tackle the huge mess under the back table...

The Craft Corner Needs a Clean Up!

Here's an overall view of the craft corner. It doesn't look too bad from this view but let's take a closer look.

This is my back table. I have my paper trimmer and lots of random stuff on this table.

In all this mess, out of a 6 foot table I have this little space to actually work in.

Here's is the start of the mess

The mess continues.

More MESS!

I think I am going to start cleaning tonight. I will make a post of the clean craft corner when I am done cleaning.