Be True

Hello my lovelies!

Today I have for you one of my favorite things to create- mini canvases.

Ah they are so much fun and so very sweet.

This project also uses one of my favorite charms sets- Vintage Birdcages.

Supplies:

Mini canvas, fancy napkin, acrylic paint, Mod Podge, epoxy sticker, beads, charms (bow and bird)

Heat gun, tooth pick

Vintage Birdcage Piccolos

Enamel Adhesive Fluid

Aged White enamel powder

Gold & Copper enamel gels

E600 glue

First things first- separate the layers of your fancy napkin.

Coat the canvas with mod Podge and stick the top (fancy) layer of the napkin onto the canvas.

Once it's dry, tear off around the edges. Then paint the edges with acrylic paint.

Randomly plop some enamel adhesive fluid onto the canvas and add Aged White enamel powder.

Heat to melt the powder and activate the adhesive.

Coat the solid background for the birdcage with enamel adhesive fluid and then Aged White powder.

Heat it up!

Now coat the fancy part of the birdcage with enamel gels.

Gold on the swirly heart on the door, copper on the rest.

(I went back and did a second coat of the gold once it was all dry).

Once the cage is dry, use a toothpick to put E600 glue onto the back of it and adhere it to the cage background.

Add the birdcage to the left corner of the canvas.

Use the E600 to add a bow to the cage (this bow was a charm that I cut the loop off of).

Randomly spread some E600 around the bottom of the cage/bottom edge of the canvas 

and drop beads onto it.  

Add your epoxy sticker and a bird charm, and it's all done!

Spring Steampunk Metals with Emboss Enamel

 Happy Wednesday everyone! leslierahye here to share with you a Steampunk Spring Card that I made and embellished with yummy Piccolo Enamel Powders! All pieces of the card were die cut out of black and brown shades of card stock and then heat set embossed using Enamel Powder Adhesive Fluid. I love the textures created by the various powders. The gears and wings were cut out of Bazzill Black textured card stock. Vintage Copper, Vintage Bronze, and Real Rust were used for the gears. 24K Gold was used for the wings. Aged White was used on the egg and on the frame of the Hexagon Background. Mermaid Tears was used on the hexagons. 

I hope you enjoy my project!

Globecraft & Piccolo Products used

Enamel Powder AGED WHITE*

Enamel Powder VICTORIAN BRONZE

Enamel Powder 24k GOLD

Enamel Powder REAL RUST

Enamel Powder VINTAGE COPPER

Enamel Powder MERMAID TEARS

Enamel Powder Adhesive Fluid

*=new release item

SweetStamps Products used

Gears Die set of 9 B340

Wings Die B359

XL Stackers FRENCH SCALLOP FLAIR Dies XL13

Egg Nest Die Set XM18

Card Die HONEYCOMB FRAME A2 size FRM145

Silver Stackers FRENCH FLAIR Dies L12

I hope you enjoyed my project! Thank you for stopping by today!

Ruby red Bow earrings

Morning everyone, it is Tuesday which means it is my turn to show you what I have been creating. 

One of my favorite sets Is

 Lil Flowers Leaves Birds Bows Accents

It is such a versatile set, and I do love those bows ! 

I am not a jewelry maker...in fact I have never made any, but to me those bows are screaming out to be made into earrings. 

I had some old broken up earrings and decided to use a little gem spacer with these. 

What do you think...

I instantly knew I had to use Ruby red slippers embossing enamel powder, and i am so glad I was right. 

This was such a simple and fun project and ideal if you are looking for some different earrings....and with all the different colours of embossing enamel just think how many different pairs you could have ! 

Items used- 

 Ruby red slippers embossing enamel powder

 Lil Flowers Leaves Birds Bows Accents

Enamel Powder Adhesive

French Loop earring wires

Upcycled Gem spacers 

Don't forget to check back the rest of the week to see the rest of the teams beautiful projects. 

Challenge #159 Spring Flowers

Hello crafty friends! We're in Arizona and the other day's rain brought out some beautiful flowers, so for everyone in the frozen north (and south), hang in there, spring is coming!!! 

And to help you feel "springy", our challenge theme this week is....

SPRING FLOWERS

Take a look at these beautiful flower creations from our DT sweeties:

Annette Andersson

*Calypso Bastian*

Carolyn LaBille

Denise Paxton

Donna K

Erika Winterlia

Irena Kowalczyk

Irit Shalom

*Jacqueline Hill*


*Kendra Sand*

Lisa Lahiff

Monica Edwards


Roxie Glaza

*Shelly Schmidt*

*Tamara Morton*

We'd love to see your spring flower creation (cards, scrapbook pages, mixed media, ATCs, etc.), 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 Monthly Technique Challenge is Fun Folds and runs through March 15th. Come join us and check out what our DT Sweeties made! View ALL the monthly challenges here.

***Don't forget to check back later this week for more inspiration from our monthly Guest Designers!***

You may have noticed some "new" items on some of our DT's creations from Globecraft & Piccolo {a division of SweetStamps.com}. Click here to jump to the G&P blog to check out some of the DT posts, they are a great addition to any crafting project!

Next week our theme is LUCKY. Happy Stamping! Have a super sweet week!

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Faux Stained Glass - Take 2

Happy Monday!

Last week I shared with you the Faux Stained Glass card using Enamel Powder Ultra Thick Clear. What I didn't share was my first attempt using the Gloss Glastique! Have you ever had an idea and somehow it didn't quite work out the way you wanted? My first idea with the Faux Stained Glass was to glue the accent to the vellum cardstock and fill in with the 3D Enamel Gels and the Glastique. When it was dried, the vellum had wrinkled and the gel had moved with it. Ugh.

While it wasn't too terrible, I wasn't able to use it on the card...but I did save it and made the tag! So, here's what you need to make one, too:

*Floral Eggs

*3D Enamel Gel Daffodil Pearl

*3D Enamel Gel Rose Pearl

Flourish from Keys to My Heart Accents (A114)

3D Enamel Gel Titanium White

3D Enamel Gel Satin Gold

3D Enamel Gel Turquoise

Glastique

E6000

leftover frame (you can find these in several of the Piccolo Accents

* these are items from the Spring Release

Other Supplies:
Distress Stain Vintage Photo

manilla tag

word/sentiment/type stamp

washi tape

seam binding

non-stick craft mat

spray bottle

Start by gluing the accent to the vellum cardstock and filling in with the gel and Glastique. Let dry.

Spritz the mat with water. Dot on the gels (white, gold, turquoise) and add tiny dots of Glastique. Lay the tag on top of the dots and turn the tag while it is still facedown. Lift the tag, reposition and repeat until all the gels have been picked up onto the tag. Let dry.

Once dry, stamp over the tag with a permanent ink and your type stamp. Let dry. (When dry the areas with the gels and Glastique will be non-porous. Notice the sheen and subtle shimmer!)

Trim off the excess vellum. Use the E6000 to adhere all of the pieces to the tag. Trim off the excess frame and save it for another project.

Apply 2 thin, uneven coats of Titanium White to the frame. After it's dry, swipe Vintage Photo over the frame. Let dry.

Color the flourish using the Rose Pearl gel. Attach to the frame using the Glastique. Add bits of matching washi tape. Using your finger, wipe the Rose Pearl gel along the edges of the tag. Make dots of Titanium White 'here and there'.

Tie on the seam binding to finish it off!

It wasn't until after I started this project that I realized that I don't have any of the green gels...but I will be taking care of that this week and will go back and fill in the leaves. The Avocado looks like a pretty spring green! Which gels do you like best?

Inky hugs,

Angi

Butterfly and Flower ATC

Sandy here with you today to share an ATC I created from the Piccolo Butterfly Flurry Flourishes set.  For a background, I cut a piece of card stock the same size as the frame, adding Light Blue 3D Stamp Paint with a dauber which gave it some great texture.  Here you can see the parts of this chipboard set.

I embossed the frame with Siam Silver Enamel and the ATC Bubble Background with Temple Stone Enamel. 

I used the newly released 3D Enamel Gels - Daffodil Pearl for the butterfly and Rose Pearl along with Orange for the flowers adding Mars Black for the body of the butterfly.  The stem was colored with Avocado 3D Gel.  I gave everything a coat of Gloss Glastique Finishing Glaze before gluing it all together.  This helps to protect the finishes and keep them shiny.  And I still have three butterflies and two flowers left in the set for future project.  Be sure to check back each day for more inspiration from the design team.

Hanging Snowflake Altered Art

I love to make use of items that I’d normally throw out and the main components of this project contain exactly that.

Hopefully you saw my two previous projects using the Globecraft & Piccolo Bejeweled Snowflakes accents set, if you need a refresher you can find them here (Snowflake Votive) & here (Happy Winter Card).  For this project, I used the little snowflakes that are in the set and my "stencil" that I made and used for the Happy Winter Card.  There are 6 adorable snowflakes, measuring about 3/4", that I had left in the set, so I used them up!  

Before I get into the tutorial, let me tell you about the products I used:

Small Snowflakes from Bejeweled Snowflakes   

Stencil I used in making the Happy Winter Card (from Bejeweled Snowflakes)   

Vintage Silver Embossing Enamel 

Embossing Powder Adhesive Fluid 

E600 Adhesive 

Glasstique Gloss Finishing Glaze 

Frame, 7” x 7” square

White Gesso

Distress Paint in Stormy Sky

Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue

Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black

Fishing Line (or other clear string material)

Oval Word Charms

Piece of White cardstock

Sentiment “Warm Winter Wishes” by Quietfire Design 

I know it seems like a daunting amount of stuff but most of it you use only once.  First thing I did was work on the snowflakes.  I had originally wanted to have one side glitter and one side embossing enamel but that didn’t work out very well. 

I know I could of made this work, but I didn't really like the glitter

The detail in the flakes was a wee bit too defined for the glitter I had so I switched to embossing both sides.  

These are only embossed once - like my fingerprint?

I embossed both sides about 3 times (don’t forget to roll your jar of embossing enamel – it blends all the granules and colors perfectly!), which was tricky because each time I embossed a side the other side grew hot as well and would end up either slipping off or making a finish that I didn’t like.  My solution was to go slower and use a lighter touch with my heat gun; I also wonder if the fact that I have a Weller Heat Gun which is actually made for industrial applications may have caused the powder on the other side to keep reheating so much. When I find my regular crafty heat gun, I will do an experiment and see if the heat was too hot.

Once the flakes were embossed to my liking I set them aside to completely cool.  At this point, I wasn’t sure how I was going to hang them but I had a very vivid picture in my mind of how I wanted the assemblage to look – I thought about threading fishing line through each flake, of tying each flake to cord, using fibers, and a few other ideas.  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of having the flakes hang invisibly – so I used fishing line! 

In the picture, you can barely see the fishing line stretched across one of my homemade art boards (cardboard covered with wax paper) and held in place with painters tape.  I then glued each snowflake to the line with E6000.  I made sure I used plenty of line and I matched up the snowflakes so they would all be in about the same place.  I let them dry overnight.

Way too dark!

I went to work on what I think is the focal point of the assemblage, the “stencil” I made from the Bejeweled Snowflakes set – the stencil is actually made out of the waste leftover after all the items are punched out.  This is the third project I am getting out of just one set.  When I made the Happy Winter Card, I had spritzed the stencil with Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue to make the image on the card.  The stencil was really saturated with the spray ink and much darker than what I wanted for this project so I painted some gesso over the London Blue and got the perfect, icy baby blue color I wanted.  Then to give the stencil a bit more stability I painted over it with Glasstique Gloss FinishingGlaze.

Perfect!!!

The frame that I used came from a picture bought at the Dollar Store and had gotten ruined – and the frame was originally black. So I gessoed over the black, twice to be sure it was covered completely and then colored it with Distress Paint in Stormy Sky using a paint brush dipped right into the bottle.  I finished it off with a few light spritz of Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue, let it dry a few seconds and swiped it very lightly with a baby wipe. 

I had already stamped the sentiment on a piece of white cardstock using Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black; all I need to do was trim it up a bit and it was ready to go!

All the pieces ready to be assembled!

Now that all the pieces were done the fun part – putting it together!  This is when I discovered my fishing line refused to stay straight and kept curling up on me.  No fear! I dug into my charms stash and decided that these oval word charms would fit the bill nicely.  I attached one to the bottom of each snowflake line and they worked like a charm (pun intended), in addition to tying the fishing line, I also added a dab of E6000 to each knot.  Now that my curling issue was fixed, I moved on to getting the stencil ready to be attached to the frame.  First thing I did was poke 3 holes into the stencil and thread the fishing line with the snowflakes through the holes, being careful to make sure all the lines were even with each other, then I flipped the stencil over and used E6000 to glue to fishing line to the back so the rows of flakes would stay put.  I let that dry overnight.

The finishing touches are easy – I glued the stencil to the inside of the frame & then attached the sentiment.  It took a bit of thinking and problem solving but I think this is an awesome winter decoration.  I hope you had as much fun reading about it as I had making it!

Another view

Next week I officially start spring, regardless if the weather cooperates or not.

Thanks for reading and I hope you & yours have a fabulous week!

Christi

Vintage Lady - Julie Warner Guest Designer

Hello and thanks for stopping by! Today is my last post as the February Guest Designer and I can't tell you how much fun it's been! I've had such a wonderful time working with these beautiful images and adding to the fun challenges each week. I've saved this lovely lady for last....to use my favorite color..GREEN. I love all shades of green and I especially enjoy contrasts so I added dark pink and peachy shades to play off the greens. After coloring Margery with Copics, I die cut her with a mega oval then embossed her with the oval from the Radiant Rectangles set then added her to the green die cut from the same set. The designer paper is from Prima and I used it because the vintage style seemed to go with my vintage lady. But...the paper didn't have quite enough of the peachy pink colors so I used a Copic to add more of these colors to the paper. I also used the bisque & sardonyx Copics to color the seam binding I used for the wrinkled bow. The finished card is 4.25 x 5.50 and these are the Copics I used. And in case you're wondering, the blue violet was used for the shadows on Margery's skin.

Thanks so much for stopping by

Supplies:

stamps: Sweet Stamps - Margery

paper: X-Press It, green dp (Basic Grey-Wander ), printed (Prima - Almanac)

ink: Memento tuxedo black

accessories: Copic markers, pearls, Spellbinders mega oval & radiant rectangle dies, seam binding, mini bowdabra