4th of July Any Holiday Challenge

Hi everyone it is now the 4th Saturday of the month. Where did May go? That means it is time for the Any Holiday challenge over at Hiding In My Craft Room.Hiding In My Craft Room This week the challenge is being sponsored by MelonHeadz Illustrating. One lucky person will win either a black and white or colored bundle of images of their choice.

Drum roll please!

The flag background is from the Silhouette Store. I used black gesso I thinned using water and with a sewing tracing wheel did my faux stitching. The faux stitching is not perfect but does look like what my sewing machine has been doing lately. LOL! 

The image on the bear's suitcase and the children are images from Graphic Fairy. I colored the image with the children using color penils.

After printing and cutting out the bear I used black Radiance Neon Amplify for the nose and paws.  I used ribbon from Walmart along with a toothpick to create the flag for the bear to wave.

Thank you for stopping by. Hope you stop by again. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

  

Splat Felt Flower Card

Hi everyone I will be honest I'm not really into splats and really messy looking art. However my goal this year is to try new things and stretch myself more using mixed media. When I saw the mixed media challenge over at Happy Little Stamper (challenge details can be found here: http://www.happylittlestampers.com/2017/05/hls-may-mixed-media-challenge.html) I decided to see what I could do. I'm also entering this in the water color challenge at Happy Little Stamper. Details for that challenge are here:
 http://www.happylittlestampers.com/2017/04/hls-april-watercolour-challenge.html

My other inspiration was seeing cards created using felt. Since I have a ton of felt squares bought at a yard sale years ago I thought it was time I did something. I'm really pleased the way this card turned out.

I decided to see what I could do using my air brush without markers or paint inserted. I didn't have gold paint but do have Precious Metal. However, I quickly discovered it was too thick to fling onto my card stock. I then thinned it with water but discovered it was drying too quickly. One hand with the paint brush the other with the air brush I quickly flung paint and moved it along with the air brush. Good thing I'm ambidextrous,  Then my mind got to thinking to see what would happen if I sprinkled Brusho powdered pigment and dropped water on it and used the airbrush. I love the results I got on my white card stock and will definitely be doing the sprinkling and dropping water then moving the color around with my airbrush again. If you don't have an airbrush canned air would probably work.

I bought a bunch of felt squares at a yard sale I won't say how many years ago but have never been able to get rid of them. I decided to see if my flower layer die would cut it. Using variegated craft thread I hand stitched. Then sewed a button on. The back has a paper clip which goes through a slit in the panel so the recipient can take it off the card.

After printing my butterfly with the sentiment on patty paper. I took my air brush and a Sharpie and held the machine higher than normal to get speckles. Lol! Not as messy as flinging paint and the speckles are more uniform. I then colored the black with a Sharpie. I used a clear dot to adhere the butterfly since the patty paper is not as opaque as copy paper.

There you have it. You still have time to join in either of these challenges and stretch your creative muscles.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Masculine Challenge #301

Hi everyone today is a masculine challenge over at Hiding In My Craft Room.This challenge is sponsored by The Cutting Cafe. One lucky person will win three cutting files. These cutting files are in zip format with a lot of cutting files.

 When I was sent the file to use from The Cutting Cafe I started pulling out my hair trying to figure out how to use them for this challenge. Don't worry I'm not bald as I still have a lot of hair. I have a difficult time doing masculine projects in the first place. I"m pleased the way the background turned out but I will also tell you what I learned NOT to do. I'm still trying to salvage my embossing folder.

I airbrushed my card stock and this is where I made my mistake. I brushed melted wax over it and then embossed. The wax stuck to the folder and lifted off in places. I then went and ebrushed again with Spectrum Noir markers. I would either melt the wax after embossing or ebrush the card stock and then glue wax paper on top before embossing.

Except for the sentiment the images are from the Cute Critters #3 set. I created my collage of images together using Silhouette Studio. After printing I colored with Sakura clear glitter pen and color pencils. For some reason my cutting machine has been cutting wonky so I had to go back and do some hand trimming.

Hope all is well in your world. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Thinking Of You

Hi everyone today I played with creating this card as a sympathy card but depending on what it written on the inside it could be used for letting someone know who may be miles away that you are thinking of them. *Sigh* The photo doesn't do the card justice.

When I used this folder previously ink transferred to the folder. I went ahead and took a wet paper towel with alcohol ink to wipe a lot of the ink off. Then I took an almost dried out pad of Stazon Teal Blue and swiped it over the folder on the recessed side. Then after I embossed my piece I took Gelly Roll gel pens to color. I decided that there were places I didn't want to color some of the embossed places completely.

I decided to add the sentiment on an image of the sun.

Think you for stopping by. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Masculine Sympathy Card

Hi everyone I have a difficult time making sympathy cards much less one for a man. I didn't want anything flowery yet I wanted my good friend to know I'm thinking of him. His mom died last night after having a stroke just before Mother's Day. 😢 After much struggling this is the card I finally came up with.

I took a green piece of foil card stock and wiped Forest Green Stazon Ink over it to tone down the green. Then I ran it through my embossing machine with a Darice embossing folder.  I then used Versamark embossing ink  over the embossing and heat embossed using antique gold embossing powder. Then I rubbed Teal Stazon Ink over the embossing. I cut the embossed part out.

I made my tag a little too large but decided to go ahead and use it by tucking under the embossed piece.

I'm entering this in the Mixed It Up Challenge Anything Goes plus Embossing

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

HIMCR Challenge #300 Super Scraps

I was so happy to be given Pickled Potpourri digital images to use for this challenge that I had to create three cards from three of the sets. Pickled Potpourri is sponsoring this challenge and one lucky person will win a $7 gift certificate.

My background is pattern card which has been taking up space for ten years because I thought the pattern was too large for a card.  The circle and hello are Silhouette cutting files which were freebies at one time. 

I decided to add a border from a pigment powder piece I did where the card stock I used rippled when it dried.  Instead of throwing it out I decided to

see how I could use pieces of it.

The flower is flower #1 from Botanical Mini  set. It is printd on patty paper. Colored with pencils and cut out.

I misread the directions for the card base but decided to go ahead and use it anyway. The background the owl is on is one of my photos. I added the moon and stars image to it before printing. I also under objects used the effects to change my photo of trees so it was more gray. After it was printed I rubbed two different cakes of blue chalk over it.  Then scribbled over it a black Pastel stick and blended to turn a daytime photo into a night time one. Mr. Owl was printed on a scrap of photo paper. Hint to print on scraps of photo paper make sure you tape it to card stock instead of copy paper as copy paper is too flimsy and will jam in your machine. After printing owl #2 I painted with Faber Castell pan water colors which are vibrant colors and require little water. To finish off my card I tied a scrap of raffia ribbon. The digital set used is You Who

My last card is from the Water Lily set. I was going to use a scrap of Monet Water Lily paper but I couldn't find it so maybe I used for another card. I found the scrap the water lily is on and thought it would work. Alas I don't know how I created the background on photo paper. The water lily is printed on a scrap of vanilla card stock. Then I used gelatos as paint to color it. The gem ribbon a scrap which I cut apart so there was a single line of gems.

There you have it my three cards using what was on hand. Of course while I was looking for the Monet scrap I found more scraps so will probably be using more on them even if it is not a Super Scraps Saturday.

I encourage you to get out your scraps and play along. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Challenge #3 Thankful

Hi everyone this is the last challenge. The theme is Thankful. Although I did a mini scrapbook page you don't have to do a scrapbook page. The sponsor for this challenge is Di's Digital. One lucky person will win a $15 gift certificate.

Since today would have been my dad's birthday I did my page in his memory.

Since I didn't have photos of my dad and I doing things together I used clip art images.

For my background I rubbed black Stazon on gold foil poster board. Then I embossed it with a cog embossing folder. After it was embossed I heat embossed with antique gold embossing enamel. Then rubbed Rusty Brown Stazon Ink over the panel. This was an experiment and I love the results even though I couldn't find my bronze embossing powder.

That is all for this week. I hope you have enjoyed reading my three blog posts today. Do come back next week for Super Scraps Saturday. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Challenge #2 May Flowers

Hi everyone I'm back with the second challenge over at Hiding In My Craft Room which begins now. The challenge is May Flower and doesn't have to be a scrapbook page. This challenge is sponsored by Scrap N' Dippity.  The winner will receive three digital images. I had so much with Abigail Sunflower Fae image which I was given to play with.

My background for this piece is a photo I took of Arrowroot  Balsam Leaf which is part of the sunflower family. Alas this variety is quickly disappearing due to over grazing by the wildlife where I took this picture. I took Kaleidoscope software to create the background using my photo of a single flower.

I printed Abigail out and then colored with Spectrum Noir markers as well as a gold glitter marker for the wings. *Sigh* The glitter marker was really juicy and got outside the lines so I cut her out by hand. I then used a Spellbinder die to cut out my circle. I adhered Abigail with Mod Podge gold glitter Dimensional Magic and then brushed over the circle trying to not obscure details with pieces of glitter. I love my faux enamel sticker look. As well as the fact that the glitter will not be coming off.

Thank you for stopping by. Do come back at 3 to see what the last challenge is. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Scrapbook Challenge #1

Hi everyone what an exciting day today is. Today is National Scrapbook day and Hiding In My Craft Room will have three challenges today starting at 1 p.m. central time. One lucky participant will get to pick out their choice of three digital stamp sets from MHK Designs for this first challenge.

MHK Designs sent me Serene Seaside for this challenge and I already had their Beachy Keen set so used both of them for my two ocean scrapbook pages.

I decided to go digital for my pages instead of doing hybrid pages. After playing with my seashell stencil in my embossing machine and using paint while the stencil was still on the page I took a photo. Now I have that piece for another project.

 For not doing scrapbook pages I think I did alright. Now that I found an album which I won't say how long has been gathering dust I'll make more pages for a friend of our trips together. It is fun looking at my ton of photos many of them which I've taken over the years and deciding which ones to use.

I've mentioned it before but I'll mention it again. Silhouette Studio a free software program for use with the Silhouette cutting machines. The software is a great way to do digital work even if you don't own a cutting machine. You can arrange your page and print directly from the program.

A tip I learned from a mixed media collage artist is to take photos of your play to use in other projects.  Even after I've used my stencil piece I'll still have the digital image to use as often as I wish.

I hope you will be able to craft on this day and join in the fun. Do come back and check out the next challenge at 2. You don't have to do a scrapbook page for that challenge. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Join In The Fun :-)

Hi everyone first off I want to say Happy May Day! I can't believe that it is already May where has the time gone. I'm excited to announce that instead of the regularly scheduled challenge on Saturday there will be three fun challenges with giveaways.

Saturday is National Scrapbook day.  For those who don't do scrapbook pages don't worry as you can still join in. I only had to do one scrapbook page for my inspiration piece. The other two could be cards if I wished.

I hope you will join in the fun. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!