Gearing Up!

Howdy, howdy!

I know it's been a while, but I was dealing with some different stuff that needed my attention. I know, I know... what could need my attention more than this?! Truth be told, nearly two weeks of my absence was spent watching everything Netflix had to offer while I lay on the sofa, snuffling and wheezing away a cold. For some reason it's difficult to feel creative when breathing is an issue.

Anyway! I have been and am a Guest Designer this month for Gina's Designs. Gina's does all kinds of really cool laser cut things, such as the gears pictured above. If you haven't followed me around on various social media platforms, here are the links:

When Whippoorwills
and
We Danced

Less than a year ago I fell madly in love with Gina’s Designs laser cuts. I was introduced to them via Rubbermoon when I was on their Design Team. Ever since then I've been a little addicted to using them in my projects. I find that they fit perfectly with my collage style of art work. As with so much of my work, I love to give chipboard that aged, distressed, vintage feel. For me, that’s part of what makes it so much fun to work with - the fact that I can use layers of stuff and multiple techniques and the chipboard stands up to my “abuse”. So, when Gina asked me to be a Guest Designer, I was thrilled.

But not quite as thrilled as I am today, 'cause... guess what?!

I just found out that I'm going to be a more permanent member of the Design Team for Gina's Designs! I actually found out the other day, but I couldn't tell anyone until they'd announced it. So, I've been giddy with excitement and just about exploding from holding back the news. I'll be posting every Monday on Gina's Design's blog, so save the link and check back. In the meantime, check out what my fellow crafty Design Team friends are doing over there, because they are one freakishly talented bunch!

The quick tutorial for today is me telling you to play. Just play!

I started with the Gears Shape Set, which, like all the other laser cuts, comes in plain old kraft brown. See?

I wanted them to look like well used metallic bits, so I got out every metallic-y substance in my arsenal and started playing... sponging, spraying, slopping, glopping. I'm tellin' ya, that's where the fun is.

Just play. You'll be amazed where it takes you. And here's the other thing about that. I hear all the time from people who tell me they try doing something, get frustrated when it doesn't go where they want it to, and give up. Well, if you're just playing, none of that pressure is there. You're freed to just let it happen the way it wants to happen, which is where all the very best art of any kind comes from.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play.

Triangle Treat Box

Triangle Treat Box

First of all, a little business. I'm sad to say that my stint as a Design Team member for RubberMoon has come to an end. It was a wonderful whirlwind of a few months and I still stand by their product as being something fun and different in terms of style, as well as excellent in terms of quality. I got to be good friends with the owner and my teammates. Kae Pea, said owner, is going to allow me to guest post on occasion. So, at least I won't be very far away.

One of the wonderful connections I made on that Design Team was with a woman who helps run Gina's Designs. Gina's Designs does all kinds of crazy good fun lasercuts. Until I was given some as a sample to play with, I kind of poo-pooed the idea of them. For a rather intelligent lass, I can be sort of ignorant sometimes. Because... SO much fun! Now I have a difficult time visualizing my creative life without them.

Which leads me to... I have been asked to be the Guest Designer for March at Gina's Designs, so you'll be seeing a few posts here that feature their nifty products. As part of that, I hooked up with their Facebook group where I'm finding all kinds of kindred crafty spirits and some pretty stinkin' amazing inspiration.

Which brings us to... the picture of that pretty little triangle treat box featured at the top of this post. One of the leaders of the group had received a gift box of different teas for Christmas. She thought the triangle shape of the boxes was too cool to simply toss them. I agree, and I love knowing another person who looks at "trash" that way! Anyway, she offered up a challenge to the group and I jumped at it. Here's a picture of the pile o' fun stuff that she sent me to play with.

Pile o' Fun Stuff

Here's a better angle on the triangle box.

I won't tell you everything I went through to put this box together. For one thing, you'd be sitting here reading all day which means I'd be sitting here typing all day. Ain't nobody got time for that! Plus, a girl can have some secrets, can't she? I will tell you how simple it was to take Gina's Designs Garden Fairies and make them sparkle. I used bright pink acrylic paint for the "glue" and while it was wet, dusted it with pink glitter.

For the overlay on the roof (which I initially painted with the same acrylic paint as the fairies), I used Gina's Designs Texture Sheet in Diamonds.

The rest was an afternoon's worth of playful experimentation. It's been quite a while since I "altered" something.

I leave you with views of the other sides of the triangle box, and with the admonition to look at "trash" through a crafter's eye. Can it be re-purposed in any way? Save it! If you're not a crafter, offer it to a friend who is. It took me a year to convince my beloved to not throw away anything that was the least bit interesting. Our relationship has flourished ever since.

Now, I'm off to fill the treat box with chocolaty goodness and send it on its way to a friend.

Whereupon my photography skills took a nose-dive.

When fairies daydream, do they daydream of other fairies?

Close-up of the fairy in the top picture

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!

Holy Shrinkin' Snowmen, Santa!

Hi, I'm Barb, and I'm the most procrastinating elf Santa's ever known. If that's naughty, then so be it. Some things are never going to change. Of course, that makes life... challenging. Especially when you're Mrs. Black's daughter and the one rule that you manage to adhere to is, "Never show up empty-handed."

We had a dinner to go to, one I knew about for a while. One I pushed out of my mind with an, "I'll deal with that later..."

Suddenly, it was later. Suddenly, my mate was saying, "Don't forget we have that di..." "OH, Nooooo!!!" Panic mode set in. I had nothing ready to bring. I had about fifteen minutes to come up with something.

Bring on the polyshrink and Fitztown's Winter Collection No. 1!

I raced to my computer, stuffed a sheet of polyshrink in the printer, and printed out two adorable snowmen.

I quickly colored them in using Derwent Inktense pencils and Sharpies. Then I cut them out.

Now for some Honey-I-Shrunk-the-Ornaments magic. Polyshrink, when heated, reduces to about 40% of its original size. Heat can be applied by using an oven (and a very watchful eye!) or with a heat gun. I didn't have time to wait for my oven to heat up, so I blasted 'em with my heat gun.

Once they'd shrunk, I used my white Pico Embellisher from ImagineCrafts and some glitter. After all, what's an ornament without bling?!

All that was left to do was to attach some thin gold braid so they'd be all ready to dangle.

With that, I sprang to my sleigh; to my team gave a whistle. And away we all flew like the down of a thistle. You probably heard me exclaim e'er I drove out of sight...

Merry Christmas to All!

(And to all, Good Crafting!!!)

This Is That Time of the Year!

Let's face it. The winter holiday season is the best time to be an arts n' crafts freak. 

Am I right, or am I right?

Of course, my winter holiday season starts in August - at which point I'm already about two months behind schedule! Alas, and thankfully, I work well (read: best) under pressure.

Anyway, now that the holidays are upon us, I can share some of my projects without fearing someone will throw a sweaty flip-flop at me!

I love the simplicity of this candle digistamp from Fitztown. I began this project by printing it out on ivory colored cardstock.

The first thing I did was to fill in the candle drips with IMAGINE Crafts irRESISTible Pico Embellisher in white. The ink from the Pico Embellisher stays raised and shiny, so it really does look like wax drips!

I let that dry - it only takes a couple of minutes - while I colored in the holly with a blender pen dipped in distress ink. I also colored the flame in yellow. 

To embellish both, I used a gold pen to do the inner markings and the outline of the candle.  I also added yellow Stickles to the candle for sparkle.

I colored the ornaments in blue, rose, and green and then added corresponding colors of Stickles or glitter.

I stamped Noel in green, using a stamp that long ago forgot the name of its manufacturer.

Then, to finish the piece and give it a little extra somethin'-somethin', I made some snowflakes out of blue cardstock using an ancient Marvy Uchida punch that I have had for-just-about-ever.

I glued everything together and then added just a bit of Waterfall blue Stickles to the snowflakes, because snowflakes need a little pizzazz too.

That's it for now, folks. I'm off to make something else. 

What artsy craftsy things are you working on for the holidays?

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!