The Freaks Come Out at Night – layout for Creative Embellishments

I’m up today on the Creative Embellishments blog with a Halloween layout to share using some of their fabulous laser cut chipboard and wood cuts. 😀 These are pics of my son, Alex, wearing his first “scary” costume, taken a couple of years ago. He decided to go as the grim reaper and was very excited about wearing something different from his usual cutesy costumes. I altered all the pieces using acrylic paint, gesso and webbing. For my page this week, I was also inspired by a sketch from Flying Unicorn. Here’s what I came up with:

The Freaks Come Out at Night LO

Materials:

Creative Embellishments Ghosts Wood Cuts
CE Going Batty wood cuts
CE Web panel
CE flourish set 7
CE The Freaks Come Out at Night title piece
CE Zombie Graveyard border piece
CE Harlequin lattice panel
American Crafts cardstock
Krylon webbing
May Arts trim
gesso
Acrylic paint
cheesecloth

TFL! Don’t forget the November Creative Embellishments Special…FREE SHIPPING on all orders of $25+! No coupon code required

The CE November Challenge can be found HERE.

“LIKE” Creative Embellishments on facebook and enter the daily (Mon – Fri) giveaways all month long. 😀

Boundless Imagination – Canvas board for ScrapThat

I had so much fun playing along with the Scrap That sketch challenge last month, that I decided to see what they have going on for this month. For July, they again have a sketch challenge, but they also have a “create a canvas” challenge and a round robin (sign ups are currently closed)…for the round robin, I’m team 4 – week 3 and I reveal my lift tomorrow so be sure to check back. 😀

For the canvas, the only criteria was to show dimension. I didn’t actually add a bunch of physical dimension…I did add chipboard fairies and lifted their wands and wings a bit from the canvas board, but I don’t think that shows very well in the photo. I tried to create more visual dimension with this piece instead.

To create the layers of color and texture in the background, I first blotted the canvas board with forest moss distress stain where I knew I was going to be adding grass and streaks of walnut stain and black soot where I wanted the trees to be. I let that dry completely then went over it with acrylic paint. The great thing about distress stains is that it reacts with water even after it’s been dried, so you can get a variation of color in each brush stroke that wouldn’t be there otherwise. It helps create a really cool texture that I love. 😀

Now unfortunately, I messed up the next step…I’d wanted to create a couple of translucent glowing orbs but my mixture was too opaque. I mixed a thinned out blend of iridescent medium, blue and white acrylic paint and that didn’t work out the way I’d anticipated. I guess I should have blended in more gel medium. In an attempt to thin it out, I made the circles on my painting too large and they’re still way too opaque. I hadn’t actually intended to cover up the trees in the background. 😦 Since that part didn’t turn out the way I’d wanted, I was then focusing on damage control and decided to add swirls of glitter radiating from where the fairies’ wands would be. To do that I used Stickles and spread it with a small soft brush. To create the other glittery specks on the page I dabbed iridescent medium randomly on the piece and then applied a drop of Stickles on top of it once it dried. Here’s my finished canvas:

Materials:

8″ x 10″ Canvas Board
Distress Stains
Distress paint
Folk Art Acrylic Paint
AC Moore Acrylic Paint
Iridescent medium
Stickles
StazOn opaque white ink
Petaloo chipboard fairies
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Stamp

TFL! If you’d like to check out the fun challenges at Scrap That, CLICK HERE!

Big Bro – layout for Paper Stories June sketch

So I’ve been trying out new things again and this time the Paper Stories June Sketch (created by Pagedrafts) inspired me to create a different kind of mixed media background for this page. The 2 photos I selected have a crisp image of Christian lounging in his ride-on car while Alex, who is pulling it with a string, and everything else around him is a blur. That inspired me to create a blurry, painted background. To achieve this affect, I used a Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plate and used the 3rd print on a sheet of textured white cardstock. Here’s what I came up with:

This is the awesome sketch I worked with to create it:

Materials:

American Crafts white cardstock
Webster’s Pages Sweet Notes paper
WP Palm Beach paper
WP Citrus Squeeze papers
Acrylic paint
Unity Stamps
Freckled Fawn wood hearts
Freckled Fawn star and arrow clips
Prima wood gears
Dusty Attic chipboard title
Tim Holtz washi tape
Darice washi tape

Adhesives:

Scotch ATG
Helmar 450 Quick Dry

TFL! If you’d like to check out the challenges or other entries at Paper Stories, CLICK HERE.

Peace – Art Journal entry for Tracy’s July challenge

Nearly every Monday, Tracy Weinzapfel has a live show on Ustream (she also records the shows, if you want to go back and check them out), where she creates wonderful art journal pages, works on canvas or creates something unique. Unfortunately the last few months, I’ve only been able to catch about 25% of them live. Why’s that bad? Part of the fun is chatting with the fabulously funny Monday night crowd! 😀 Be sure to tune into the next show and join in on the fun! You can find her Facebook artist page HERE where she posts upcoming live shows.

Early in July, she threw down a challenge…a dare really…to create a project using your favorite color pallet AND include your personal “Word of the Year” on your project. And the option to add the quote she used on her example, which was, “once she stopped rushing through life, she was amazed how much more life she had time for…”

You can find all the details about the challenge HERE on her blog post. The current challenge ends tomorrow evening, but the fun new August challenge will be posted on her blog later today! 😀

Here’s my take on the July challenge:

My current art journal is a 9″ x 12″ Strathmore spiral pad (coil at the top) with 140 lb cold pressed Watercolor Paper.

The quote reads, “peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.” The author is unknown.

Materials:

Decoupage Paste
gauze
gesso
acrylic paint
Dusty Attic chipboard
Prima script stamp
The Crafters Workshop template/stencil
modeling paste
Stazon ink

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