Don't Make Mud

'Color Saturation' was the title for the April Stampotique facebook group trade.

What sprung to mind was how we all ... you, probably you too ... have made mud on your projects. All colors that mix together turn brown ... Its a lesson/learning curve we all travel on.

To make the background I used glossy cardstock, dropped a few drops of alcohol ink onto the card and blew it with a straw. If felt so childishly wonderful to do. lol. I made the mud with molding paste and acrylic paint, and when I applied it to the atc I added the texture to make it look mud-like.

Twinkie had a little arm surgery to make him fit onto the atc ... He was stamped, colors with copics, embossed, fussy cut and then dove straight into that mud.

Hope you like it xxx Please leave a comment so I know you visited xxx

Making honey ...

I was so inspired by this wonderful chipboard piece from Southern Ridge Trading Company, its a hexagonal 5.5" x 5.5" pattern (PAT-274), my first thought was .... honeycomb. The thickness of the chipboard really gave the dimensional look I was hoping for, especially when you hear what I did with the hexagons .... Here is a pic of my finished project :

My bee loving friend is having a birthday and I have this really great itty bitty stamp by Unity called 'All Hail the QUEEN Bee', so it made its debut ....

The chipboard was so easy to cut into a shape more fitting to the 5x7 card I was making. I painted it in acrylic paints, a home made pale orange/gold.

While that was drying I covered the mixed media paper in black and white origami paper - my current squeeze, and a light coat of gesso. I used my gelatos to add just a hint of color, blue and orange. I sprayed the color to get a pale drip effect.

I securely adhered the honeycomb and painted the inside of each hexagon with gold Adirondack acrylic paint.I then put a large dollop of crystal effects / diamond glaze into each hexagon and spread it around. I LOVE how it looks wet, and golden just like honey.

The bees were stamped in black, embossed and cut out. I stamped the whole image in versamark and embossed in Tim Holtz spiced marmalade distress embossing powder. I paper pieced the black bees on, made their wings from velum. This was layered onto a torn background piece in co-orinating gelato colors. The crown is also in the stamp set, I stamped this and embossed in gold. That strip is raised to give some dimension.

This is how the honey shines :

This project worked out wonderfully. I hope you found some inspiration here and that my friend LOVES this card :)

Colloquial Sayings atc

For my local group of atc traders the title for April was colloquial sayings. I googled it ... OMG so many, some weird but lots of them that I use regularly. But then had to think how I was going to suitably decorate my atc. After much ado I settled on the famous closing line from Gone with the Wind, 'Tomorrow is another day' - thanks for those little pearls of wisdom Scarlett O'Hara, yes, even if today was cr**, you can start again tomorrow ....

This stamp is from Rubber Necker Stamps, its so serene and peaceful. Her swim suit is paper pieced, the rest of her and her hat colored with copics. The sunset sky is sprayed with Lindys Stamp Gang starburst sprays, the sun is actually clear embossed on gold cardstock, its a  Stampscapes symmetry sheet #1 'Suns & Moons'. My sunset gazer is sitting on cork sand ...

Close up of the setting sun :)

Thanks for visiting, please feel free to leave a comment ...

Monster Birthday

I felt inspired to spend a few hours on a Birthday card. I actually got started, got really quite absorbed and having fun, next thing I know it was bed time and no-one had done the dishes etc. LOL. Oh well, thats life ...

This card turned out so cute, I am really happy with it.

The monsters are from a retired Close to My Heart Stamp set (B1333 Merry Monsters), black and white origami paper and the balloon is from a retired Stampin' Up! set called Party this way. Coloring in was fun .... I used my Faber Castell artist pit pens for the two outside monsters, copics for the middle one. Just trying things out, comparing the finished look etc :) The balloon was stamped in island indigo, then white gel pen to highlight the numbers and diamond glaze/crystal effect over the top. The shaped base is cut with a My Favourite Things die, monarch border.

Hope you like it and get some inspiration here ... please leave a comment, feedback is so great. Makes us bloggers feel like we're not alone in cyber space .... hello .... is there anybody there ..... hahahaha

Had to do a close up of the balloon, look how the white signo gel pen blended with the diamond glaze, and you can just vaguely see the patterned paper through it ....wonderfulness, sheer wonderfulness ....

Rocky Horror Picture Show atc trade

I have seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show so many times over the years, and I even remember one day watching this movie back to back about five times. I know every line, every word to every song .... So you could say I am a bit of a fan .....

In a facebook group I encountered Serena Bee (check out her Youtube channel) and we have a shared love of the movie so organised an atc trade using Octopode Factory digital images. I made her an atc featuring her favorite character - Magenta, and she made one using mine - Frank-N-Furter. 

Here is the atc I made for Serena :

 Here is a close up of the background ... very interesting layers .....

To make this atc I first used the Tim Holtz burlap stencil with some modeling paste. When it was dry I sprayed the background with red and orange Dylusions. When it was dry I did a little light spraying with white dylusions. See how the white sits on top of the color, but absorbs it a little - how cool is that ! When everything was dry (isn't that just the bore of mixed media art! lol), I used a retired Stampin' Up! background stamp called Canvas, inked it with black versamark and lightly touched the atc and inked stamp pad together, so that the ink only went onto the raised parts. I then embossed with clear embossing powder.

Magenta was colored with copics. Her hair was certainly a challenge as I dont have many reds. I studied her hair in google images ..... discovered it was magenta and brown so I went for a combination of R29, E55, E57 and a hint of RV69 around her face. I colored her face with E53 and then went over it with a white prisma pencil - if you've seen the movie you 'll know she wears lots of white make up. 

I printed the words from my computer, mounted them on film strip washi - it is a movie inspired atc after all ! Put a little orange Dylusions over the text and outlined Magenta in white gel pen to make her pop off the background. Finishing touch was my Wink of Stellar pen - love that thing - put it over the words and her red lips .....

Here is a pic of both mine and Serena's atc's together - How wonderful are they.

Thanks for visiting, please leave me a comment :)

April crafting ...

April crafting ...

Made a really cute 3x3 mini book from one sheet of paper, as per Tim Holtz and many other videos on YouTube. These were my favourite videos', she makes them step by step :

The first video is the scoring and cutting,  the second concerns the assembly and cover  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQmRiNhhJoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9WCrvUuj8U

Grrreat Birthday

Loved this card I whipped up with  a little assistance from the retired SU stamp set 'Under the Stars', washi and copics. It is a simple one layer card, but there's just something I really liked about it. Hope you do too :)

Let it go ....

Its quite a topical expression at the moment, with the famous song from the movie 'Frozen', but this expression has a deeper significance. To let go of whatever is holding you back and bogging you down. I wanted to make a canvas that I can look at and be reminded to do just that. The canvas is a 5x7".

For the art, I wanted to make a stark comparison between the background and the gold embossed  leaves (NAT-306) and flower (FLW-001), new in the store at Southern Ridge Trading Company. The background is made with acrylic paint and thick gloss gel. I wanted it to shine and hold the texture I put into it.

The leaves, flower and lettering are embossed with a number of embossing powders in layers. Gold, antique copper and aged ivory from Stampendous. The flower centre is an embossed silver metal button, with embossed gold brad centres. Isn't gold 'in' right now ... I love it. You can see the detail and colors here :

Hope you like my canvas, appreciate the sentiment and are encouraged to, if you can, to let it go.

Hugs, Nikki x

Time Warp atc

An interesting title for this months Stampotique atc trade over on the Stampotique facebook group - 'Time Warp'. As much as I LOVE the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I decided on a Dr Who themed atc and dressed up 'Heart boy' in Tom Baker-esque scalf. Yes, I admit it, a long term Dr Who and Stampotique fan here !  So great to combine them in art.

I had so much fun with this background and love the effect. It is meant to mimic the darkness and bleakness of space, black holes, moons, planets and never ending darkness. I heavily sponged the mixed media card stock with barn door distress ink, then went over it with black soot distress ink. Then in a bowl I whisked until really frothy water and dish soap. Holding the atc carefully I pushed the inked side into the bubbles, removed it and dried with my heat gun. I love the effect, especially the white residue the bubbles leave and how some of the red showed through. It really gives the feeling of depth and infinity ....

'Heart Boy' is colored with Copics. I made the scalf with white sweater trim and lumiere paints. It was a messy job to color the sweater trim, I painted and then rubbed it in with my fingers. In 'Heart boys' hand is a sonic screwdriver, a vital piece of kit for a time traveller ....

The title 'The 14th Doctor' was inspired by the debate : Will Dr Who be able to regenerate again. It is only meant to happen 12 times, which means the current, 13th Dr would be the last. I would be so upset if the show ended, so I created my own Dr, based on the 4th Dr - Tom Baker, with his stripy knitted scalf.

Thanks for visiting ...