NZ Papercrafter Mega Card Swap

I am a member of a Facebook Group called NZPapercrafters and we are involved in a card swap at the moment.  We are using very large playing cards purchased from Mitre 10 Mega.  These card are A5 in size so give us plenty of room to work with.  The idea is to make four cards each time, keep one, swap three and get three back from other people. These can then be bound into a book.    The rules are simple, any style we like, include a quote and our name somewhere on the card.  Here is my first card.

My name and details are hidden in the little tab on the right.  And here are a couple of close ups.

The Mirror Crack'd Mask Challenge

The theme for the August Challenge at The Mirror Crack'd is "Masks"

Our theme for this month is Masks

Susanne is hosting this challenge and she will be choosing our Winner and Top 5

This challenge is sponsored  sponsored by

WOODWARE CRAFT COLLECTION

With a prize of £12.00 to spend at your favourite Woodware Stockist, either in store or on line.

 

Woodware are a Yorkshire based family owned business, as well as distributing Dreamweaver Stencils and Stampendous Stamps we have a wonderful range of stamps designed for us by Francoise Read and Jane Gill. We also scour the world for new and innovative products for the crafty card maker, and have a great range of punches and tools of the trade, to find stockists in your area or to see the range visit the website www.woodware.co.uk.

Our design team are playing along with the challenge so check out our blog, which is there for inspiration at www.woodware.co.uk/blog.

The theme of "masks" can be interpreted in many ways, not just a masquerade mask. It can be masks in stamping, painting, mixed media - well you get the ides. So get your thinking caps on and head on over to the blog to post your project. We all look forward to seeing them.

 

Here is the mask I made for the challenge.  

 

 

 

To begin I started with a plastic mask that I had brought some time ago from the local $2 shop.  It already had a lot of texture on it so I thought it would really lend itself to what I had in mind. I painted the mask with black gesso.

Then I began glueing various bits and pieces that I had lying around to the mask. I did not really give this too much thought I just grabbed pieces as I went.  I have used paperclips, game pieces, metal embellishments, charms, chipboard die cuts, buttons, beads and pieces of old jewellery.

I then gave everything a couple of coats of black gesso making sure everything was well covered.

 

 

Once the gesso was dry I sprayed it with metallic paints and then drybrushed it with more lumiere paints.

 

 

 

 

The pictures do not do the piece justice as there is a lot of shimmer and shine on the project that the camera does not capture. I am really happy with how this turned out and I hope it will inspire you to join us over at The MIrror Crack'd to see what the other talented Design Team members have made and also to make a project of your own and join in.

Southern Girls DT-Anything Goes Challenge

This fortnight over at Southern Girls Challenge blog the challenge is "Anything Goes".  This leaves the challenge wide open for all sorts of projects so please jump in and join the challenge , we would love to see what you come up with.

My project for this challenge is a recycled book cover with lots of texture, paint and other good things. Here is the cover showing all of the texture. 

I took the cover of an old hardcover book and covered it with tissue paper, texture paste through a stencil, and other miscellaneous bits and pieces I had in my stash. I then painted everything with black gesso. Once the gesso was dry I sprayed the cover with Lumiere paints and sealed the whole thing.

Here are a few close ups showing the texture, unfortunately the camera has not really picked up the shimmer from the paints or the subtle colours.

I then bound watercolour paper signatures into the book and added a closure consisting of two spring clamps and a piece of chain, to the front and back covers and the journal is finished.

Please check out the other Design Team makes over at Southern Girls Challenge blog and I hope you feel inspired to try your own project.

 



Mixed Media Canvas

I am really excited to let everyone know that I have been chosen to be part of the Design Team over at the The Mirror Crack'd challenge blog.  This is a mixed media challenge blog with monthly challenges and I am looking forward to being part of their team which comprises some very talented artists.

Over at The Mirror Crack'd blog the challenge for July is "Canvas"  I have made a piece that incorporates canvas both as part of the background and as a base for a doily flower I created.  The small canvas also serves the purpose of lifting the doily flower up off the background giving it more dimension.

To begin I recycled a small canvas that I had lying around.

I then found a baby wipe that had been used to wipe up some excess ink from another challenge.  I glued the baby wipe to the front of the canvas.

I then took five crochet doilies and using paverpol glued them together and formed them over a jar to create a flowerlike shape.

I covered a circle of chipboard with a piece of the baby wipe, punched two holes in it and threaded some blue yarn through the holes.

I then coloured the "flower" using sprays and paints in various shades of brown. When the first coat dried I highlighted the doilies with gold paint and Viva Gold Ice Blue.

I painted the sides of the canvas with Lumiere Halo Blue paint and then I glued the flower to the canvas.

I then found an old wooden placemat that I sanded and painted with white gesso.  I tore strips from an old canvas I found to add some texture to the background and I also tore strips from a corrugated cardboard box and glued them to the painted side of the placemat.  I love using these placemats as substrates and canvases because they are so cheap and they are really strong and so easy to find at second hand stores and garage sales.  I also added some more chipboard circles with coiled string glued to the front and some mesh tape and painted the whole thing with white gesso.

To add the colour to the placemat I started by painting everything with Lumiere Halo Blue gold paint.  I then used various sprays in shades of brown and yellow and when everything was dry I drybrushed some rusty paint over certain areas.

Once I was happy with the colour of the background I glued the canvas with the flower on the front to the placemat.  I finished the piece off with zippers, zipper pulls, flower diecuts and some hexagonal diecuts left over from another project.

For the flowers I glued some book paper to a piece of card, coloured the whole thing with Adirondak sprays in blue and green and when it was dry I die cut the flowers using a Couture Creations die.  After I had cut the flowers I ran them through a cuttlebug Swiss dots embossing folder.  I sanded the pieces lightly to expose the dots and then attached them to the canvas using domes for the flower centres.  I used the hexagonal offcuts from another die to add around the flower to give it a more finished look.  

Now that the piece is finished I just need to add a hanger and it is finished.

I hope you enjoyed this project and it would be great if you popped over to

The Mirror Crack'd blog to see what the fabulous Design Team have created and maybe enter your own project.   The winner of the July "Canvas" challenge will be offered a Guest Designer spot for a future challenge.  

Art Journal Swap

I am currently involved in an art journal swap on Facebook with some very talented ladies.  Each person created an art journal and completed one double page in the journal.  Then the art journal was posted to the next person in the swap and they completed a double page and so on until all of the ladies in the swap have completed a double page in each journal.  We have been putting up sneak peeks of each completed journal page on Facebook as we will not be revealing the whole page until everyone has their journal back. So I thought I would share the sneak peeks of the pages I have made to date.  


Sneak peek of my first completed double page for my own journal.

Sneak peek of my page in Paula's journal.

Sneak peek of my page in Fiona's journal.

Sneak peek of my page in Brenda's journal.

Sneak peek of my page in Sonya's journal.

Sneak peek of my page in Karen's journal.

Sneak peek of Kath's journal:

 

 

Sneak peek of Joan's journal 

 

 

Sneak peek of Frances journal:

 

 

 

Sneak peek of Louise's journal.

 

 

 

 

 

Mixed Media Faerie

Here is the piece I made using products from Imagine If NZ.  I am really proud of this piece and I am excited that I will be teaching this as a class at SENZ in Auckland this year.  I especially love classes because everyone can start off with the same inspiration and every single piece comes out differently. Roll on SENZ.

Book of Secrets

This project was started last year and I have finally got around to finishing it.  It is quite cathartic to be getting these projects finished, although I am not sure what to do with them all as I am rapidly running out of room and I can't keep them all.

Anyway here is the project.

Again I used a recycled book cover to make this project and I have sewn in signatures of plain watercolour paper so it can be used for writing in or as an art journal.

I have entered this project into the challenge over at Haunted Design House and Left of Center Challenge