Steampunk Valentine Frame

 Hello Friends!

Tonight I am sharing with you one of 6 frames I decorated. This is the 12th day of my 14 Days of Valentine's Craftiness. And there are still so many fun things left to share! But for now check out this cool frame!

I am submitting this frame into the following challenges: 

The Male Room: #147 Steampunk 

SanDee & Amelie's Steampunk Challenge: Steampunk Jan/Feb Challenge

Here's how I made it. These wood frames came from Hobby Lobby. And I will be honest-I looked all over Pinterest for inspiration and there was none. LOL. Maybe I looked it up wrong. So I started to gesso this frame and paint it pink.

Here it is gesso. Then I used some pink craft paint and what I saw was a bit of natural distress. If you look at the first picture again you can see white show through. That's the gesso. I could have painted over it-but I liked the distress of. And this was good because it was like the personality of the frame was starting.

I have pre-made clay pieces that I make when I'm watching tv. And it's great for times like this. I brought them out and sorted through them so see what would fit. So this cluster here is all prima moulds. I also painted them with black gesso and then used various finnabair waxes. This is definitely one of my favorite parts. I love the waxes!  I also took some of the matte wax and went along the edge of the frame. You can see it here behind the gears. Also, I hot glued this gears on.

This bottom cluster is also clay gears except the bottom is Prima and the top 2 are from Mod Podge. And the LOVE is a metal charm. 

This was made using a Tim Holtz stencil and vintage gold finnabair wax. I love this stencil. And you can see the pink paint and the white showing through and the texture it creates. and then the wax applied on top of that. So cool! :)

I didn't keep this frame-I mailed it to a family member. I put a picture of all of us together the last time we were together which has been a while. I made the pic black and white and it turned out really nice. :)

Thank you for stopping by!  Hugs!

Pineapple Mixed Media

Hello Everybody!

I hope everyone is having a good summer so far (given the circumstances).  One thing about summer is pineapple!  Not to mention pineapples seem to be sort of in style right now with llamas and cacti.  I think its awesome!  

So I had this idea to make a pineapple picture out of gears.  I love Finnabair products so I thought let's make this happen.  Ta Da! :)

I love how this turned out.  Here's how I made it:

8X10 Canvas painted with Golden Cerulean Blue Chromium liquid acrylic 

Molds-Finnabair Mechanica, Cogs and Wings, and the swirl decoration for the leaves and there are a couple of gears from a mod podge mold

Clay-usually an air dry paper clay that I get at the craft store

Paints-gear Finnabair Sparks Unicorn's Hair and the leaves are Sparks Fairy Wings

Wax-Finnabair Lucky Emerald-on the leaves to add a little depth 

I used the unicorn's hair around the edges of the painting to give a little definition

Hot Glue to make everything stay in place.  

Here's a side profile.  I like that the "leaves" kind of come away from the canvas.

Here is an up close of the pineapple gears and the leaves.

I am entering this fun Pineapple Mixed Media Canvas into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Play With Paint

More Mixed Media Challenge: Anything goes with +optional pastel

Not Just Cards Challenge: Anything Goes

Creative Artiste Challenge #62 Anything Mixed Media Goes

Thank you for stopping by today! Until next time my friends-keep enjoying summer! :)

Fairy House

Hello Everybody!

I am super excited to share with you my most recent project!  Like seriously excited! First, I have to tell you that this is the first time I have ever made a Fairy House (or any place for a mystical creature to live.) Second there are a lot of pictures.  So I am going to take care of business first-and then please feel free to proceed on if your time allows :)

So here is my before and after photos:

I would like to submit this Fairy House to the following Challenges:

Frilly and Funkie: Home Sweet Home


Mixed Media Warriors: #40  Old to New

I have to first tell you also where my inspiration came from.  I was scrolling Instagram like I do and came across this house that Adrijana at Paper Beauty AK posted.  And I like fell in love with it.  Crazy-I know but it totally inspired me to make my house.  So Thank you Adrijana!  

I have had this house for about 2 years.  I bought it at Goodwill in August 2017.  My husband and I used to go to thrift stores a LOT and I would collect wood things with the hopes of transforming them into other things.  I buy faster than I create LOL.  And it's been awhile since I made anything this big (usually I make cards and scrapbook pages).  

                                        

It's funny because when I have shown a couple of people the before picture they say "oh that's cute."  And it makes me feel bad because all I saw was a project.  LOL  It's about an inch or so thick.  Before I decorated it-the house could stand on it's own.

I cleaned the dust off with a wet rag.  And started to gesso it.  Then I realized I didn't want the shutters-so I took those off.  The little nails were left behind so I left them there.  

I added Power Tex 3-D balls (some might call them art rocks) and painted the house white (Martha Stewart Paint).

On the right you an see the supplies and the finished paint.

Inspired by the other house-I wanted to use a nest too.  This is a Melissa Frances nest and those are Dollar Tree golden eggs.  You can find these kind of nests at Hobby Lobby also (like in the moss or fairy house section I cannot remember which).  I hot glued the eggs inside but not the nest just yet.

I painted the roof gray.

The roof makes me want to have a PayDay candy bar.  This is little gravel that came with a beta fish set.  I did not use the gravel for the fish because I refuse to clean dirty fish gravel.  So these are clean straight out of the bag and I used hot glue to apply them.  I only burned myself like 3 times.  ;)

I used my silhouette machine to make windows and a door.  The cut files came from the Silhouette Design Store.  I took clear extra laminating and applied yellow tim holtz alcohol ink.  Then I cut them to fit the window and glued them on with glossy accents.

I painted the underside of the roof a beige color.  It was gray before and didn't look right.  Then I added spring green paint mixed with white and dabbed it off with a paper towel.  This was cool because it created a lighter more organic feel.  The inspiration house is what gave me that idea.  That's one of the things I loved about it.

I wanted dimension and I figured an awning above the door would be a perfect way to accomplish that.  I took some light cardboard and cut it into pieces and curved them.  I covered them with these fake leaves I found in my stash.  I used hot glue to adhere and then I added more leaves to the front of the awnings.  

The door-I painted with tim holtz distress mustard seed.  Adhered material to the window using mod podge fabric glue.  That stuff is awesome for adhering fabric (me just sayin').  Bliss sign that came in a scrapbook kit and an orange brad for the door knob.

So here is what it looks like now.  Time for some greenery!  I added paper grass to the front and it's a Lawn Fawn die.  Then in my stash (gifted to me) are the green "bushes." I added moss (so fun!  and totally inspired) and then I found some little critters to put in places.  Also, I glue on the nest.

Ta-Da!  I painted a wood veneer butterfly pick raspberry (TH Distress Paint).  I bought moss from the Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby.  There are many different types of moss.  :)

Outside Picture

Side View

Other Side 

Inside Picture

And these are closeups of the little critters I found-that I didn't remember having.  LOL

And here it is again.  All finished.

If you made it this far--thank you and big hugs!  Until next time my friends...stay creative! :)

A Colorful Hello Card

Hello Everybody!

The challenge at The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge inspired this card.  The challenge is to use stars.  (And Seth Apter is a guest there this month--sssqqqeeeaaallll!  I've seen his work in the Cloth, Scissors, Paper magazine.  It's awesome!) :)

So I started off with a gelli plate card background.  I used an almanac book page and golden paints and craft paints (dreamcoat, craftsmart, etc).  To read more about my gelli plate backgrounds go here.

Then I stamped stars around the edges.  The stamp is a Stampin Up stamp from the year 2000.  Wow!  LOL :)  Then I added Diarylide Yellow Golden fluid acrylic paint so the "hi" wouldn't get lost in the background.  The "hi" and the star are red modge melts.  I used a the modge podge mold for the star and wrote out hi with the glue gun.  I used Beacon 3 in 1 to adhere the "hi" to the card once the paint was dry.  Then I added the yellow star paper clip.  (Many moons ago Staples had a paper clip and binder bar.  You could fill up a cup with what you wanted.  That's where that star came from.) :)

Here is a closeup of the sentiment:

Here are the challenges that I would like to submit this too:

The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge: Stars

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge:  Anything Goes

Great Impressions: Anything Goes

Inspiration Destination: #96 Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by today!  Until next time my friends...keep reaching for the stars! :)