Cheshire-inspired journal page

Hello! Tracy here with another tutorial! I wanted to continue with the Globecraft and Piccolo June Design Team Challenge to create a background layout using G&P products but I decided to turn it into one of my art journal pages! The art journal pages I have been creating lately contain little snips of stories or themes that inspire me. The Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland is a favorite of mine and I have always seen the cat as philosophical in nature, a perfect subject for a journal page!  



Tracy Alden
Art Resurrected

 Supplies:
Bookboard Fashion Cat Earrings
Bookboard Fashion Cat Charm Set
Piccolo Enamel/Embossing Powder Adhesive
Micro Black Embossing Powder
24K Gold Embossing Powder
Cranberry Wine Embossing Powder
Mardi Gras Embossing Powder
Pink Rose 3D Enamel Gel
Purple Mist 3D Enamel Gel
Mars Black 3D Enamel Gel Piccolo Easy Grip Tweezers
Glastique Matte Finishing Glaze
Heat Gun
Floral, vines and boarder stamps
Black ink
Sticker Gems and sticker gem swirl patterns
Cardstock
Cosmetic sponge
Pigma Micron Ink Pen

I inked my chosen floral and vine stamps with Piccolo Embossing Powder Adhesive and stamped around the edges of the the cardstock. I used different edges of the stamps to give a varied look to the stamped images. I wanted to get the look of growing plant life. I then sprinkled on the Piccolo 24K Gold Embossing Powder and heat to set.

Carefully I separated the two cat Piccolo Bookboard sets from their backing. Using the backing as a stencil I cut out pieces of card stock in the shapes of the cats. These will become the backing for the cat Piccolos.

I cut the front flap off of a precut card and wrote Cheshire in ink. I then used a blotting motion to apply G&P Pink Rose and Purple Mist 3D Enamel Gel to the card stock with a cosmetic sponge. I repeated the same blotting application to a printed out snippet of text from the Alice in Wonderland book.

I applied Piccolo Embossing Adhesive to the front of the two large cat, mini cat, cat face and the inner swirl Piccolos the pieces. I coated all of the cat pieces with Micro Black, the swirls with 24K Gold and the cardstock cat shape cutout with Cranberry Wine Embossing powders and heat to set.

I glued the cat Piccolos to the now embossed cardstock with Glastique Matte Finishing Glaze.

Carefully I glued the Piccolo cats, swirls and sponged cardstock in place with Glastique Matte Finishing Glaze.

Using the Glastique Matte Finishing Glaze I applied little sticker gems to the cat Piccolo eyes and pink sticker gem swirls to the page.

Using the ink pen I put in little swirls and doodles around the edges of the cardstock and between the stamped embossed flowers.

Now it is ready to be placed into my art journal! :)

Jump on over to my blog Art Resurrected for the inspiration for this post and for more craft tutorials!

Until next time, safe travels! 

Tip: Enhancing your papers

Hi, it's Candy and I have a new tip for you today ...

Did you know you can use Instant UV Resin and Glastique Gloss to add dimensional shine to your paper?

It is extremely easy ... you just select the area you want to be raised and shiny and apply the product of your choice directly from the bottle. If you use Glastique Gloss, you will need to set it aside to dry.

Candy Spiegel
Candy Scraps

If you use Instant UV Resin, you will need to sit it in a sunny window or under a UV lamp for 3 minutes to let it cure.

The UV Resin will provide a slightly higher and glossier image than the Glastique, as you can tell from the photo above.

You will notice that the area with just UV Resin appears darker than the rest of the eggs on this paper. Apparently, when you apply UV Resin to a porous surface, like paper, it soaks in a bit as it cures. It actually makes the paper transparent (as you can see from the photo below when I held it in front of the window) ... so whatever is underneath, in this case my desk, alters the color of the paper.

That may be a really cool technique for some projects, but for this one I wanted to keep the eggs the color they were. So, applied a very light coat of Glastique Gloss with my finger and let it dry. This only takes a minute because the Glastique was so thin. Then I coated it with the UV Resin for the perfect little chicken eggs.

Roses with Guest Designer Elizabeth Hart

Hi, its Elizabeth from Maryland bringing you flowers from SweetStamps. The first stamps that I bought from SweetStamps were flowers (fuchsias). And since flowers are my favorite thing to color I was thrilled that this challenge was about "Roses".

Then came the really hard part - selecting a stamp with roses because SweetStamps had so many and they were all so lovely! I finally selected this one (vertical roses/7035H) since it really made the blossoms a prominent feature.

I used lots of shading techniques with Copic Markers to color the roses and make them realistic. I also cut them out and remounted them to provide more depth.

So join us this week with your rose creation. And, of course my special heartfelt thanks to the SweetStamps team for the warm welcome and the opportunity to showcase their fabulous stamps this month. 

- Elizabeth H

Roses with Guest Designer Donna K

Hello Sweet Stamp friends!

Donna K with you today sharing my card using 

Roses 

as part of this week's challenge here at SweetStamps.

When I saw "roses" as the challenge I immediately went looking for rose stamp images and then I came across this gorgeous tea cup ... with roses on it! I knew that was "the" stamp for this project.

I used the Tea Cup Medium 866 stamp, die cut it into an oval shape and added the coral scalloped matte. I used 3D adhesive to pop up the die cut image and Copic pens to shade the roses in the perfect shade of coral to match my embossed background papers and ribbon.  

I kinda love this delicate, feminine look and I hope you do as well.

Be sure to link up your Rosy project to this week's challenge too!!

Thank you so much to the amazingly talented Design Team of SweetStamps for having me the past few weeks.  I have really enjoyed posting with you and each challenge has been a fun, new adventure for me. 

~Donna K - Created by Donna K

Embossing Powder Stones

Hello, it is Laura here with another way to use Globecraft Embossing Powders to create some background (haha) elements for your scrapbooking pages.  I love the color choices available.  The technique I used today is one I learned over at Dreamweaver Stencils, where they call it the Double Glitter Technique.....but, no glitter used here today.  Let me explain....



Materials:
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Real Rust
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Temple Stone
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Brownstone
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Mermaid Tears
Crafting Heat Gun
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Micro Black
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Cranberry Wine
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Girls' Night Out
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Siam Silver
Piccolo Embossing Powder in Vintage Silver
Piccolo Enamel/Embossing Powder Adhesive
Piccolo Easy Grip Tweezers
Dreamweaver Stencil LG 611 Stone Wall
Dreamweaver Stencil LL 394 Feathers
Dreamweaver Double Stick Mounting Paper
Handmade Hawaiian Soap (from Dreamweaver) or some other natural, soft, bar soap
Large Stencil Brush
Small Paint Brush
Paper House Papers from the Country Stack
Scotch Adhesive Tape
Art Glitter Designer Dries Clear Adhesive
Die Cut Cardstock Letters (I used the old Quickutz Chandelier Letters)
Non Stick Craft Sheet

Directions:
1)  Rub the bar of soap on the back of the Stone Wall stencil.  It will create a cloudy sheen over the metal, as seen in the picture below.

2)  Notice the little bits of soap that are left behind on the stencil.

Use the stencil brush to carefully brush off these soap bits.

3)  Remove the backing from one side of the Double Sided Mounting Paper by "snapping" it open.

4)  Place the metal on the exposed adhesive surface SOAP SIDE DOWN.

5)  Pour the embossing powder over the sections that you would like to be that color.  You do not need to use a lot.  I used Real Rust, Temple Stone, Mermaid Tear, and Brownstone.

6)  Press lightly with your fingers and blend powders into any areas that need additional coverage.

7)  Flip the project over and carefully peel the adhesive paper off of the stencil.  Be sure to leave the stencil flat on a hard surface as you remove the paper.

8)  Use heat gun to emboss the powders.

9)  After the embossing powder cools, pour Micro Black over the project and rub in with your finger.

10)  Use the stencil brush to brush off any excess powder.  This is also a great way to distress the black a little if you brush aggressively.

11)  Heat set. 

12)  Repeat steps 1-11, as you will need two to create a frame.

13)  The technique for the feathers is almost identical to steps on through 11.  The powders used are Siam Silver, Cranberry Wine (on the edges of the feathers) Girls' Night Out and Micro Black.  The pinks are placed into position by using the outer one (light pink) first and pushing into place.

14)  Before adding the Miro Black, be sure to trim off most of the extra (rough cut) with scissors.  This will save you some of the powders.

15)  Heat set and trim closer to the image.

16)  For the letters, simply apply the Embossing Adhesive directly with the dauber on the bottle.

17)  Cover with the Vintage Silver Embossing Enamel.

18)  Heat set on craft sheet.  Use the tweezers to hold the card stock steady as you heat.

18)  Repeat steps 15-17, so that you have two layers of embossing powder.

19)  To apply the letters, use Designer Dries Clear Glue.

20)  Create the silver edge by using a paint brush to apply the Embossing/Enamel Adhesive, cover with silver and heat set.

21)  To create the frame, first cut the size you want the frame to be and adhere the picture inside.

22)  Cutting around the "stones" whenever possible, cut the images to fit your photograph.  Save the extra to use around the page.

23)  Remove the backing paper and adhere to the photo and mat.

24)  Trim around the outside of the frame, making a "rocky" edge if possible.

Here is another look at the finished product.

That about covers it! Thanks for checking out my post.  If you want to come visit me, my blog is www.rememberlifesmoments.com.  I would love to see you there!

Challenge #123 Roses

It's been a traveling week! So far, we've been in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina! Almost to our final destination: Orlando, FL. (If you're in the Orlando area, be sure to stop by StampFest this weekend!)
Now onto this week's challenge...

 Roses

I think we have quite a selection of beautiful rose images in our store (along with other floral images). Check them out here.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday to see some more rose creations by our June guest designers: Donna K and Elizabeth Hart!

Here to inspire you are some rose beauties from our DT Sweeties: 

Annette Andersson

*Calypso Bastian*

Carolyn LaBille

DeNetra Bates

Denise Paxton

Erika Selander

Irena Kowalczyk

Irit Shalom

*Jacqueline Hill*
Jackie made a GORGEOUS card, but it's a new stamp she drew that hasn't been released yet, so you'll have to wait a little while longer before we can share it with you - and all the other beauties she drew - trust me, it's worth the wait!

Karrie Snider

*Kendra Sand*
I've kept Kendra busy with behind-the-scenes stuff for our DT girls,
sorry to deprive you of her creative talents, but she is focused on getting the new releases set up so we can share more with you :)

Lisa Lahiff

Monica Edwards

Roxie Glaza

*Shelly Schmidt*

 

*Tamara Morton*

We'd love to see your rosy creation (cards, tags, scrapbook pages, and altered art are welcome), so come and join the fun! You could win a $20 shopping spree for goodies at SweetStamps.com's online store by playing along in our challenge! Click here for our complete Challenge Rules.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our current Monthly Technique Challenge {Chalkboard Technique} runs through July 14th. Check out the monthly challenges here.

 Happy Stamping! Have a super sweet week!