Happy Fall Equinox

Back to playing with collage techniques. The theme for this month's lottery over at PAO is Fall, so I thought I'd make a fall themed collage. I started with scrap paper in fall colors and then added paint around the seams. A little gesso to soften things up and then more paint with stencils. Got my chalk inks out and added texture stamps, then a die cut clock and birds nest and a nice fall quote. Then I stamped the birds leaving for the winter with archival ink. I made some pinecones with the TH pinecone die (LOVE IT) and added them along with some fall leaves. A little more paint and ink around the new glued on items. Finally, added some Distress Stain dots with picket fence.

 

 

Happy Quarter Century Paul!

Wishing my son Paul a very happy 25th Birthday today!!! Hope you have a wonderful day, Paul! And just for you a little walk down memory lane..............

 

Collage Play

I've been checking out some collage videos on pinterest the last few days and thought I'd try my hand at making one. It really was fun to get out all different mediums and just play. I used paper scraps, gesso, paint, stencils, stamps, diecuts, inks, gelatos and sandpaper. And this was my first use of the homemade gesso recipe I found on pinterest as well. Worked great and was a whole lot cheaper than the real stuff!

Tattered Florals Leaves

Don't you just love how Pinterest sucks you in and the next thing you know 2 hours have gone by and you haven't accomplished a thing?  I was determined to actually create something from some of my pins the other day and decided that the Tattered Florals die was the chosen guinea pig for my creative juices. The pin I chose lead me to 3 different tutorials from which I chose to try 2 of them. The first one is here and my examples are below. I love the centers of these flowers, made with the skinny petalled flower on the die.

And the second one is here  with my examples below:

I also made some roses with the Pinecone die, which I absolutely love!

Then I decided that I needed some leaves to go with my flowers, but I don't have a leaf die and I left all my punches in Arizona. What about the Tattered Florals die? Could I make leaves by cutting the petals? Let's give it a try.

Start with some patterned paper or misted paper or whatever kind of paper you'd like. I chose some waste cardstock and spritzed with greens, blues and purples. Cut out several of the large, medium and small flowers with the die. Scrunch them up and then unfold.

Cut the petals apart into leaves. I shaped the wide end of the leaf a little by rounding it and narrowing it. If your leaf tears a little, that's ok, just smooth it out with your scissors. You can make the leaf a little narrower or shorter, after all, no 2 leaves are the same anyway.

To finish the leaves fold in half to the point making a nice vein down the center and unfold. Use a tooth pick or bamboo skewer to curl the edges a little. Pinch the end into a nice point and you have a leaf ready to glue onto your flowers.

I used these on my Pinecone Roses. I think I need something bigger for the Tattered Florals flowers that I made.

And here is a finished art piece using some of the flowers and leaves I made this week.

Hope you enjoyed the Tattered Florals Leaf tutorial and have a great week creating!

Waxed Paper Embossing

Saw this on Pinterest the other day and had to give it a try. Started off with plain white cardstock and waxed paper. Added some collage bits and several layers of mod podge.

After it dried I ran it through the Big Shot with some different embossing folders and did some sanding to distress them.

Next I did some inking and more sanding. Inking and sanding, about 4 or 5 times for each one.

I added more embellishments and mounted the one with the musical theme to another piece of cardstock.

Really, a fun technique and I'll definitely be doing it again!

Got Crab?

Wow! It's almost been a month since I've posted on my blog. Where in the world did that month go? Lots of family visiting and then visiting family, that's where. And mom and I had a great time getting the genealogy papers out and adding info and gaining headway. But that story is for another time and blog (got an idea for that and just need to sit down and do it) Stay tuned it's gonna be fun!

So, we got home to Florence on Tuesday and according to the weather report Wednesday was going to be calm wind and warm temps leading to blowing winds on Thursday. Guess which day we decided to go fishing? That's right, Wednesday. First day, this season, poles in the water hoping for one of those early, confused, salmon who forgot to wait for the starting gun on the run at the end of the month. Decided to just take 3 traps with us 'cause if you don't catch a salmon the next best thing is fresh Dungeoness crab, YUM! Well, not a single bite happened and the fish finder only yielded sporadic blips that might have been a fish on it's way, but when we started pulling the traps up to head on in, we got 5 keepers in the first and another 5 in the second, we were thinking, yeah! at least there's crab for dinner. Pulled that last trap up and Roger couldn't even lift it into the boat. I had to pull on one side and that was a struggle as well. The trap was literally FULL of crab. And get this, 16 keepers!!!!

We were thinking it might be our first ever limit in a trap (limit is 12), but 16? This may be a hard record to break. We actually had to have a crab fashion show on deck and throw back a few little keepers to get back down to our limit. Whoo hoo, we're canning crab today!

Stretch Your Stamps Day 2

I signed up for an online card class called Stretch Your Stamps and had to jump right in and try one of the techniques from Day 2. This one is focussed on collage stamps. I'm also playing in Club Scrap's summer camp psl and it's stamp week so we get a 2fer out of these. Yeah!

This one uses the Papillon collage stamp from Club Scrap along with some Refresh paper and a Nature's Wonders sentiment tile.

Again, from Club Scrap, I used a Nature's Retreat flower and quote stamp on Milestone's yellow green paper then mounted on the back side of Academy red.

And last, another Nature's Retreat stamp mounted on Nature's Wonders paper and 3 NW tiles up in the corner.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!