Creative Medium Butterflies

I have a thing for butterflies. I have complete admiration for a creature that goes through an extreme metamorphosis to become something delicate and beautiful. For me, butterflies are the epitome of Mother Nature's magic. My inspiration for this card came from an afternoon spent at the butterfly exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. I no sooner walked into the exhibit when a butterfly fluttered near only to land on my hand. It stayed there for the next 45 minutes while I walked around admiring the foliage and the various species of butterflies flitting around. Definitely magical.

I began this project with a 4 x 5.25 piece of purple cardstock. Using a stencil and a sponge dipped in silver Delicata ink, I created the square maze for the background.

Stencils are so easy to use and offer up so many possibilities in the crafting world.

I love the shimmer that the silver Delicata ink lends to the background. It's a rich, thick ink that really stands out.

Next, I used a different stencil and Imagine Crafts Creative Medium in iridescent purple. I used painters tape to mask off parts of the stencil to avoid accidentally stenciling where I didn't want to.

Creative Medium is wonderful stuff! It's and acrylic medium, about the consistency of peanut butter, that spreads on easily with a palette knife.

Once done, I carefully lifted off the stencil and there were three iridescent butterflies!

I let the butterflies dry and then repeated the stenciling process using the stencil, my palette knife, and the Creative Medium. You can see how the butterflies have begun to dry and really show that iridescent sheen, while some of the wet circles still look a little more like paste.

I wanted to give the piece movement, so I made another butterfly to give the piece some air. I began with an old scrap of sheet music which I spread very lightly with the Creative Medium to carry that same iridescent shimmer.

When it was dry, I stamped it with a butterfly using StazOn Gothic Purple ink. 

Then I cut out the butterfly and attached it to my background piece.

All that was left to do was to mount the piece on a card backing and send it flitting on its way to brighten someone's day.

This card took a couple of hours to complete, but only because of the drying time needed. Actual time spent making it was about 20 minutes. This is something that a beginner could easily do!

Imagine Crafts / Tsukineko Products Used

• Creative Medium - Iridescent Purple
• Delicata Ink Pad - Silver
• StazOn Ink Pad - Gothic Purple
• Palette Knife

Other Products Used

• Stencils by The Crafter's Workshop
• Sponge
• Purple cardstock
• Sheet music scrap
• Beacon 3-in-1 Glue
• Butterfly rubber stamp by Finnabair

Experimenting with Creative Medium

I have to tell you about the fun I've been having! A week or so ago, I got a big box of happy from the fine folks at IMAGINE Crafts. They carry all manner of Tsukineko products as well as their own relatively new line of acrylic mediums, inks, and sprays, etc.

One of the things I've had fun playing with is their line of Creative Medium. Creative Medium comes in a variety of metallics and iridescent colors. It's a somewhat thick consistency that works well for adhering paper bits when making collages, or it can be slathered on with a palette knife like thick paint, with or without the use of a stencil.

For this piece, I used Creative Medium in gold and a stencil by Tim Holtz. I simply placed the stencil on my canvas (in this case, a 5 x 7" panel) and spread the Creative Medium over the top just like soft, creamy butter! I carefully scraped the excess off of my stencil and then, just as carefully, pulled the stencil away from the canvas, resulting in the image you see below. The stencil cleaned up easily with soapy water and a rag.

Once the Creative Medium had dried, I went to work giving it all the abuse I could think of. I really wanted to test this stuff and see what it could do. Boy, am I ever impressed with how it holds up! I dripped ink (from re-inker bottles) on it and spritzed it with Ink Potion No. 9 to make it blend and drip and run. Once it dried I dribbled more ink on it and spritzed it with Windex (which gives it a more puddled, mottled look). I let everything dry well and smeared white acrylic paint down the "blank" side to mute the color a little, and then stamped* gear images and wording and butterflies on it.

For the butterfly, which comes from Gina's Designs: Butterfly of Gears, I used IMAGINE Crafts' line of irRESISTible Pico Embellishers. I colored the gear side with gold and the wing side with bronze and the butterfly body with Tuxedo Black. I traced the wing on clear acetate and used StazOn Studio Glaze in Gothic Purple to color it. While it was still sticky, I simply used the glaze that was already on it to adhere it to the wing. As you can see a little bit in the picture below, when the light hits it right, it has a stained glass effect. I did use a spacer to adhere the butterfly to my background just to give it more air and light that would highlight that stained glass effect.

As you can no doubt tell, I had all kinds of fun playing with my new goodies! Here is the background for another piece that I did. This will give you some idea of how absolutely striking the Creative Medium iridescents are against a dark background.

I began with a canvas (again a 5 x 7") to which I applied various colors of blue, green, and white acrylic paint. I let it dry and cure thoroughly over night. Then, same as before, I used a stencil (this time from Stencil Girl) and my palette knife to spread on the Green Iridescent Creative Medium.

I let it dry overnight and... Voilà! As you can see, the "white" paste magically dries to a beautiful, shimmery green against the dark background.

I wish I had a way to show you how much the iridescence makes the piece "move" depending on how and where the light hits it. You'll just have to take my word for it... it is gorgeous!

This is only the beginning of all the things I can imagine doing with my IMAGINE Crafts products. So, stay tuned, because I have all kinds of other things I want to show you.

Until next time... here's to wild imaginations and crafting!

*Stamped images are: Gears by Stampin Up! and Butterflies and Curiosity Definition by Tim Holtz

Eye to the Telescope

It's a new year. The holiday decorations are put away. The house is quiet. The laundry is done. Something warm is burbling away on the stove, scenting the house with dreams of dinner stew.

These are the good moments in life. The ordinary moments for which we often forget to be thankful. But this is it... real life. And right now it's pretty damned good.

So, I'm thinking about love. Sure, the card maker in me is thinking about Valentine's Day, but my inner aesthete brings it back to love.

This is a technique that I like to use. I call it telescoping, but I've heard it called by other names. It's a simple technique, but I like how rich it feels.

I began by printing out two each of Fitztown's Valentine 1 and Valentine 12. You'll see the second finished card at the end of this post.

I then cut one each of the two different images that I'd be using for my main background and set it aside. (It doesn't matter what size the other two "working" images are.)

I stamped "Love" on the main image using a stamp from Stampin' Up! I also used a sponge to lightly ink the outside of the image.

I used a blender pen and ink pads to color in just a portion of the "throw away" image. There was no need to color everything since I only needed a 1 1/4" circle.

Moving on, I used a 1 1/4" punch for the image, and a 1 3/8" punch for the contrasting cardstock layer, and punched out both of those. (I love saying I punched something out. "What did you do today, Honey?" "Spent the afternoon punching out stuff." And that's how I get control of the TV remote.)

The only thing left to do was glue the layers together, being careful to line up the circle image to the background image.

Here's the other card that came from my telescoping adventure. This one I edged in Delicata gold ink and used the Anais Nin quotation stamp from Stampsmith.

The Whimsical World of Art

There is a word that I love (just one of many, if you know me at all).

That word is:

whimsical
/adjective

1. spontaneously fanciful or playful
2. given to whims; capricious
3. quaint, unusual, or fantastic

It's a word that doesn't get used nearly enough.

In the art world, in my humble opinion, it's a concept that doesn't get used nearly enough.

Don't get me wrong. I admire "serious" art, and especially the skill it takes to produce it. However, as someone who appreciates art, it's always the more whimsical stuff that draws my eye.

After all, where else in our lives can we completely give ourselves over to whimsy if not in art? In art, it's acceptable to have a chartreuse sky, swimming camels... anything that doesn't quite belong in all the most amusing ways.

Truly, art should be spontaneously fanciful and playful. Art should be capricious and given to whims. Art is at its best when it is quaint, unusual or fantastic. Art ought to be whimsical.

So it is there that my love of RubberMoon's stamps is based. They make it easy to wander the whimsical path.

The card above was made using RubberMoon's Squeak, "Oh, Rats!", and Black Cattitude stamps, along with Tim Holtz's clock stamp.

The concept behind this card perfectly, yet oh, so whimsically captures my behind-the-eight-ball frantic feeling with regard toward getting everything done between Halloween and Christmas.

Hey, what day is it? Wait. What time is it?! Oh, rats!!

The rats race around the clock (rat race... get it?) as if trying to keep up with time, capped off by the wry look on the cat's face as one of the rats gets away.

Here I am at my last post on this blog for 2014, with holiday presents made and gifted, cards made and sent, cookies made and eaten, well-wishes bestowed upon beloved family and friends...

...but for this final wish...

May you have a very 

Happily Whimsical New Year!

Making It Snow

IMAGINE Crafts and RubberMoon Art Stamps are excited to share with you the amazing projects that our design teams have created to kick off the Holiday Season! Over the next few days, we'll be sharing with you inspiration and techniques using IMAGINE Crafts' line of ink products featuring rubber stamps from RubberMoon. Be sure to visit the IMAGINE Crafts and RubberMoon blogs daily for more projects and ideas!

Can I just say? I have been having sooooo much fun playing with my stuff from IMAGINE Crafts and Rubbermoon! I thought I'd share a fun card with you today. 

For this, I started with a half sheet of watercolor paper, which I sprayed with IMAGINE Crafts GooseBumps Shimmer Texture Spray. I love the slight shimmer and the texture adds some nice dimension to projects. In this case, I was going for snow, and it worked so well!

If you look closely, you can see the shimmer! It's really difficult to capture in a photo.

Once the GooseBumps spray was dry, I used a couple of different colors of blue, an IMAGINE Crafts Ink Blusher sponge, and some Ink Potion No. 9 to fill in the sky.

I sprayed the Ink Potion No. 9 directly onto the cardstock. It helps the inks blend and made the perfect cloudy sky for my falling snow. As you can see, the IMAGINE Crafts GooseBumps resists the ink, making it look like falling snow.

Time to start stamping! For the trees, I used RubberMoon's Skinny Trees background stamp. 

Again, the GooseBumps resists the ink, so it looks like the snow is falling on the trees and just beginning to give them their wintery coats. 

To add to that effect, I sprayed the trees with a bit of IMAGINE Crafts Sheer Shimmer Spritz in silver.

Then I cut the cardstock down to size. Of course I saved the rest of it for later!

I added a few more trees to fill it in. 

I topped just one of the trees with a single gold star using the star stamp from RubberMoon's Dust Collection. (It's not like I won't use the rest of that set, but I tell ya... that star stamp alone was worth buying the whole set!) I stamped it using IMAGINE Crafts Delicata Golden Glitz ink.

I felt like it needed just a little something more, so using IMAGINE Crafts Delicata Silvery Shimmer ink, I added the sweet RubberMoon New Moon face in the sky. She has that peaceful look that I feel when the snow starts falling.

One final word about Delicata Metallic inks. I wasn't convinced that I needed more metallic ink pads. But! I love, love, love these! The colors are so vibrant and lush. I may never use any other gold or silver pads again.

PS.  If any of you IMAGINE Crafts / Tsukineko gods are listening... I'd love to have one in a nice bright copper. Pretty please!

A Crafter's Tribute to Veteran's Day

Tuesday is Veteran's Day. It is a day that I always feel deeply in my heart. Several of my family members and friends have served to defend and protect the country in which I am privileged to live. It is a debt that I am humbled by and can never repay, so I try to honor it and pay tribute to those brave people whenever I can.

That's what was on my mind the other day as I sat on my back porch, sipping coffee and watching eagles soar over the valley. And that's what inspired me when I came across this fierce looking eagle at Fitztown.

And, hey... is there anything more American than a pair of faded blue jeans? My beloved learned early on in our relationship to never ever throw away an old pair of jeans. I mean, come on! Old jeans are a crafter's cheap, but perfect playground! Am I right, or am I right?!

Along with a piece of denim from a pair of old jeans, I used an inexpensive, unfinished frame, and printed the eagle image out on  heavy watercolor cardstock.

I traced a line around both the inside and outside of the frame on the "wrong" side of the piece of denim. I made sure to use a bright color that I could easily see when I cut the piece. Once it was cut, I glued it onto the frame.

I used a multiple star stamp from Inkadinkado and, with craft ink, stamped stars in red, white, and gold directly onto the fabric.

Then I used a star stamp from Stampin' Up! to make the star cut-outs with red, white, and blue cardstock.

I arranged the stars and glued them down. For a little extra pizzazz, I added some rhinestone stars.

Time to move on to the eagle.

For this, I began by doing a quick watercolor wash with red and blue distress inks. I didn't worry about being precise because I wanted it to have that washed look so that the starkness of the eagle would stand out that much more.

I waited a few minutes for that part of it to dry and used the Inkadinkado star stamp and gold ink to add stars to the "sky".

After that, it was a matter of coloring in the eagle, and what else would I use besides my beloved Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils?

It's funny. I poo-poohed the need for these amazing pencils for a long time. Now I can't imagine how I ever lived without them. And I want all 5 bajillion colors because... well... 24 just won't do, y'know?

Anyway, that's all there was to this project besides putting the eagle into the frame. Total cost (even if you take into account the purchase of the stamps and pencils and how many times I've used them) was under $5.00.

Just imagine the gifts you could make with a minimal investment, a little bit of thought, and a whole bunch of love. Stuff like this? This is why I love crafting.

This is where I'd normally tell you to go craft something, and you should. But first, go hug and thank someone you know who has served your country.

You Art Too

Rubber stamp: RubberMoon's Tall Tree

Whenever I hear someone say, "Oh, I could never... I'm not an artist." It makes me want to scream. Mostly because I've been there, thought that, and wasted years that could have been a whole lot more fun had arts & crafts been part of the scene.

I used to try to sketch tree branches and end up with a wastebasket full of crumpled paper. The only reason for it? I forgot to take a good look at nature. Nature, while it has a certain order to it, loves some randomness. Branches aren't, as I kept trying to make them, straight lines. They're squiggly and bendy and broken in places.

Branches are meant to be doodled, not sketched.

When I first held my new Tall Tree stamp (original image pictured above) in my happy little hands, I knew I wanted to do a winter scene with it. So, I stamped it in white on blue cardstock.

And I wasn't happy with it. I mean, I was happy with the stamp - I just didn't achieve the look I was after. I wanted a cold, snowy afternoon. The kind that always makes me think there's magic afoot.

That barren, stubby tree just didn't say "magic". So, I picked up my white gel pen and began to doodle branches. And I didn't stop until my little tree whispered "magic" to me. It took me maybe 5 minutes. Yep. Five.

But, the key here is that it was just doodling. Anyone can do it. Anyone. Even you, over there shaking your head and rolling your eyes. Squiggly lines. You can do it. Yeah, so much for that old oh-but-I-can't-even-draw-a-straight-line excuse. Because, guess what? Neither can I!

Give it a try. I dare you. It's true, the Guggenheim Museum will probably not make an immediate bee-line for your door, but you'll have tons of fun. Plus, you'll flex creative muscles you didn't know you had, and trust me on this, it will take you to some amazing places.

To see what else I did with the Tall Tree stamp, check out my post this week over at Rubbermoon: One Stamp, Three Designs.

I Want My Mummy!

"I want my mummy!" was the first thought to cross my mind when I saw Fitztown's Halloween 3 digistamp. Not because I was frightened, but because I can't resist a horrible pun.

The other, maybe only slightly more artistic thing that crossed my mind was that the Dead Nurse Zombie Mummies made me think of the women in those old Robert Palmer videos (think Addicted to Love).

So, I knew I was going to glitz them up as much as I was going to gore them up. Seriously. What's a Dead Nurse Zombie Mummy with out a little glitter?

I began by coloring the images and cutting them out. I glitzed up their nurse caps and shoes using Stickles Star Dust. I chose gray cardstock for my background onto which I stamped a spider web (no idea who made that stamp, sorry!) using white craft ink.

As you can see in the first image at the top of the page, I also distressed the gray cardstock by flicking different colors of ink at it. How? Just dip a paintbrush in a dab of re-inker and flick your fingernail against the brush or tap the handle of the brush against your other hand. It's something you'll need to play with to get a feel for what kind of force creates the look you're going for. I also swiped around the cardstock with a sponge dipped in a couple of different colors of ink.

My Dead Nurse Zombie Mummies looked pretty good, but I felt like they were missing something. I couldn't decipher what. So, I took a break, wandered away, came back, squinted at them, and in my finest cheesy Dracula voice, yelled, "BLOOD!"

Duh. Every Dead Nurse Zombie Mummy needs blood!

I didn't want to use plain old ink and have it soak into the paper and end up looking like plain old ink. I decided to go the mad scientist route and experiment with some mediums. What I came up with was a very simple, very satisfying solution.

I mixed about a dime sized dollop of Judikins Diamond Glaze glue with a couple of drops of Fired Brick Distress Ink from my re-inker bottle. I mixed it together with a toothpick and, ta-da! Blood.

Using the same toothpick, I added drips and smears of "blood" to my Dead Nurse Zombie Mummies. It did exactly what I'd hoped for and dried to a shiny finish that still looks like liquid-y fresh blood.

Wait... Stop! Don't throw away that remaining "blood"! Get a piece of cardstock and schmeer it around. Let it dry and you have a funky, fun background to use for some other project.

I love my new technique. I plan to play with a few different colors to see what else I can come up with... aqua for water, pale blue for ice... you'll excuse me if I wander off to play, won't you?

All That Glimmers

One of my mother's favorite idioms to throw at us was "All that glimmers is not gold."

(I'll show you how to do those leaves in just a minute.)

Mom was right. It's also aqua, rust, maroon, green, silver. Okay. Now I can feel her giving me The Look for being sarcastic. Amazing how she can do that from 2800 miles away.

So, let's just talk about Glimmer Spray, shall we? Or you can call it shimmer spray, or twinkle spray, or Extra Special Sparkly Magic Juice if you prefer. Yeah. Let's call it that! You probably know the stuff I'm talking about though. You spritz a little on your paper craft project and Shazam! Suddenly your project shimmers like it fell into a vat of fairy dust.

Companies like to sell their name brands of Extra Special Sparkly Magic Juice it for big dollars. The well-kept secret is that it's very inexpensive to make your own. Not only that, but by making your own, you can get exactly the color you want. You can even tailor it to match your ink pads (presuming you have bottles of re-inker to match them, and why wouldn't you?).

Here's what it takes to make your own Extra Special Sparkly Magic Juice:

• Gum Arabic - available at any art supply store. I bought mine a couple of years ago for under $5 and I still have at least 2/3 of the little jar left.
• Re-inker -  any brand will do. In fact, I bought out a re-inker supply from a company that was going out of business. I knew I was going to use the ink just to play with and not to re-ink pads that I have, so it was a worthwhile and relatively inexpensive investment. I use re-inkers in all kinds of ways for all kinds of projects.
• Pigment Powder - I have several different kinds that I've had for several years. Pearl Ex, Perfect Pearls, etc. Go with whatever you've got. If you don't have any, for making Glimmer Spray, I recommend getting plain pearly white. It will blend fine with any color of ink and you don't necessarily have to match the powder color to the ink. 
• Small empty spray bottles - again, go cheap. Sure, you can get them from art suppliers and big brand names, but scout out the dollar store or dollar bin at your local pharmacy first.
• Water - straight from the tap will do.

The recipe is -

In a small spray bottle add:

• 1 part Gum Arabic
• 4 parts Pigment Powder
• Fill bottle about 2/3 of the way with water
• Add ink drops until you achieve the color you want.
• Shake well.
• Find all kinds of funtastic uses for it.

Note: Your homemade Extra Special Sparkly Magic Juice will keep forever, but you will need to shake it well before each use. Occasionally, the pigment powder can clog the nozzle. Simply run it under hot water to unclog it.

Really, that's all there is to it and the possibilities are endless. Oh, I should warn you that mixing up those Extra Special Sparkly Magic Juice potions can be a little addictive, not to mention using them. But look all the different things you can do with it!

You can simply spritz it on paper for a unique background. You can dip paintbrushes into it and use it like a watercolor. You can spritz it on your non-stick work surface or on a piece of plastic wrap, dip your stamps in it and then stamp on watercolor paper for a beautiful, shimmering image. Here's how I did the leaves pictured above...

Stamps used are from RubberMoon Art Stamps, from left to right: Carved Leaf, Oak Leaf, and Elm Leaf.

Oh, and once you're done dipping those stamps in and you have tiny blobs/smears of it left on your work surface? Don't just wipe it up - use it! I get some of the coolest backgrounds by dropping a piece of cardstock onto my "leftovers" and smooshing it around.

I told you, there's just no end to what kind of creativity you'll spark when you start playing. So, now that you know how to make your own Extra Special Sparkly Magic Juice, what will you do with it?

To see another example (pictured below) of how I used it in a project, please check out my post over on the RubberMoon Arts blog. It's scheduled to go "live" tomorrow, Friday, September 26th.