February Ezee Pzee Design Team Projects

The February kit came filled with all kinds of goodies, the main one being a bird house that we had to decorate and "build".

I started by painting all the pieces of the bird house in nice bright colours. For the front I took an old plastic doily and applied embossing paste, then when it dried I highlighted it with yellow paint.

For the flower on top I coloured it with Smooch ink and added a little pearl as the centre. The little birds were stamped and attached with foam tape.

For the next project I took an acrylic tag and embossed it in my Cuttlebug and inked it with green Stazon, then highlighte some of the areas with copper Goldfinger wax. I covered the Ezee Pzee flowers with some book text and coloured it them with Distress Ink. I painted some  washers and painted them with  copper paint and glued them to the centre.   The  Ezee Pzee bird was painted with copper, crackle finish and red acrylic paint.

The next project is a little chipboard square that I had in my stash that was painted and covered with various embossing powders.  I coloured the Ezee Pzee flower with orange paint and Perfect Pearls, and added a pearl to the centre. The Ezee Pzee  butterfly was coloured with orange and green Perfect Pearls. The letters were originally pewter so I coloured them with a gold Krylon leafing pen.

The second Ezee Pzee butterfly was covered with Be Creative tape, then I cut around it
and removed the backing. I punched out some flowers from the backing tape and placed them on the butterfly. I covered the whole piece with Glitter Ritz, then removed the flower pieces and added a second colour of Glitter Ritz. To complete it I added some gems and a piece of copper wire for the "feelers"

For the last Ezee Pzee butterfly and flower, I decided to make an Artist Trading Card. I took a piece of a worksheet that I had used to spray Smooch Spritz on previous projects and attached it to an ATC blank. I stamped a Magenta image first in black ink then with Brilliance Silver, and edged it with a silver Krylon leafing pen. The flower was coloured with Smooch Ink and some Perfect Pearls. The butterfly is coloured with Pearlex. I aded some micro beads for the body and a piece of black tie down for the "feelers". I coloured a little saying embellishment with the Smooch Ink.

The Kit also included an acrylic piece with a bird on it. I chose to incorporate this into a card. I coloured the background with pigment inks and stamped the Impression Obsession  cover the page stamp in Versafine ink and edged it with a marker. I added circle coloured in orange and attached it to simulate the sun. The acrylic piece was coloured with alcohol inks and attached over the "sun".  I then stamped the Hero Arts saying on another piece of cardstock and edged it with the marker. I placed a scrap piece of the background on the card and attached the saying; adhered the panel to the card.

The final piece is the last Ezee Pzee bird I decided to do a tag for an upcoming swap in my AFTCM group. I started by inking the background with a Magenta stamp using Cathie Allan's stamp smoosh technique using 3 different colours of fluid chalk inks.

I stamped the Diamond stamp (Hero Arts) in a darker blue at the top and bottom of the tag.

I had some wooden birdcages by Kaisercraft and took one of them and painted and embossed it using a technique by Shelly Hickox from her blog which has a tutorial on it.

I coloured the Ezee Pzee bird with the lighter and darker blue fluid chalk inks and stamped a text stamp over it with Versafine onyx black, then embossed it with clear embossing powder. I added some Judikins Diamond Glaze to the branch.

The little Ezee Pzee circle was coloured with a dark blue pigment ink. I coloured a piece of cardstock, stamped the Crafty Secrets word sing then placed it on the circle and embossed it in clear ink and embossing powder.

Prior to attaching all the elements, I edged the tag with a blue marker.

Gothic Arch

The latest swap on AFTCM is a Gothic Arch with the theme of "Under the Sea".

I started by making my template on a piece of cardboard, then traced it on to a piece of 130lb cardstock.

I coloured the background with some dye inks then stamped the Postal Shell stamp in dark blue.

My idea was to make the piece look like an underwater cave, so I added embossing paste and gold mica flake paste around the edges. I then, coloured it with metallic blue paint and some mica watercolours.

I stamped the seashell stamp again on acetate with white Stazon ink and added some glitter to the back and attached it to the arch with some Glossy Accents.

I coloured some cardstoc with dye inks and stamped the fishes in Ancient Page Coal, then cut them out and attached them with some double-sided tape. I made some water bubbles by dropping glossy accents on a sheet of label backing paper (shiny side up) then when they dried, removed them and added them to the arch above each fish.

I wanted to add something else and found a mermaid that fit my colour scheme perfectly, printed it off; adhered it to cardstock and cut it out and attached it to the edge of the "cave".

To complete the arch, I added some starfish gems that I found at my little Dollar store, and some seashells that I brought back from a trip to Scotland a few years ago.

Canvas ATC"S

In my Art-Ventures group, Carol S proposed a swap for ATC's on canvas. Luckily I had a couple of canvas ATC bases and joined the swap. As it turns out only 3 of us joined in so I had sufficient to complete the swap.

I decided to do the same technique but in different colours.

I painted the bases with gesso and let it dry. I coloured the first one with green paint, let it dry then added blue over the top. I let it dry a bit then spritzed it with rubbing alcohol and then dabbed over it with a cloth, allowing some of the green to show through. For the second one, I painted the base with orange, let it dry then added a burgandy red over it and followed the same procedure as the first, allowing some of the orange to show.

After they dried completely, I embossed them with a dreamweavers stencil and embossing paste and set them aside. When they were dry I used leafing on both. On the the orange/red one I applied a variagated orange colour, then I added some green apple smooch ink to the vines and to cover some of the areas missed by the leafing I coloured with Pumpkin Smooch ink.

On the blue one I  coloured the vines with the Green Apple Smooch, but the silver on the flowers was a bit glaring so I coloured over them with some Ocean Soul Smooch ink, let it sit for a few seconds then gently wiped them with a kleenex.

To complete the cards I printed and cut out two images from Moonlight Journey and placed some little frames over them. Both were coloured with some metallic rub-ons in coordinating colours to match the backgrounds.

Mini Memory for Jackie

Jackie is the February recipient for the Mini Memory swap in the DCI group and she chose vintage with earthy tones and gold as her theme.

I took a canvas and gessoed it then added scrunched up foil, cheesecloth and added some embossing paste with a stencil. I painted over the whole piece with various colours of acrylic paints to attain the vintage look.

I printed off  a vintage picture of a woman from digitalcollagesheets.com and glued it to the canvas. In my stash I found an old picture frame, which I touched up with paint. I cut out a piece of acetate and covered the picture, then attached the frame.

Added some vintage buttons that my friend Annie sent me awhile ago, a piece of paper tape and some book corners to finish the piece off.

Altered Container

I also joined up for an altered container swap. I chose to alter a little flip-flop box that I had in my stash.

I started by painting it with Gesso. On the top I used an old plastic doily and embossing paste to give it dimension, then painted it and added some gold acrylic paint on the highlights. Added a charm (that my friend Chrissy gave me in a 12 days of Christmas swap) which I coloured with alcohol inks, then glued some jewels to the top portion of the flip-flop band.

I painted the bottom a sunny yellow since I was thinking of warm weather, although it is not as cold here as it was in December and early January. I added some words to the bottom that I stamped on white tissue paper.

The inside is also painted and I added a piece of a page from an old book to the bottom.

June It-Girl

Margaret is the It-Girl for June and here theme is Cemetery Angels. I decided to do canvas for her. I covered the canvas with Gesso then added a napkin to the middle. I colored the whole thing with blue and purple acrylic paint.

When it dried I added embossing paste and acrylic gold Mica flakes then stamped some impressions in the canvas when it was partially dry. I then went over it with USA artquest Mica watercolor paints.

The colour palette came from this gorgeous picture that I found on flickr (Onkel Wart) which I know is not an angel but it just spoke to me, so I hope Onkel will not mind that I used it for my canvas. I printed the picture off three times and then glued it to 100 lb cardstock and cut them out and used double-sided foam tape to give it dimension. Attached this to the middle of the canvas with 3-M 465 transfer tape.

Above the image I put pearl embossing powder on and embossed it then stamped "eternity" with pewter pigment ink. Below the image I stamped the saying on a piece of acetate using Stazon black and adhered it with glossy accents. Finally I rubbed some Goldfinger copper around the image and some gold on the top.

I hope Margaret will like this piece even though it is really not an angel, but it is from a cemetery.

Next Generation Art Lottery

This month's theme for the NG Lottery is Fairies. I decided to make an ATC for this month. I printed off an image from Dover Art and attached it to the ATC blank with Golden gel medium.

I took some embossing paste and added it around the image with a popsicle stick. Once it dried I stippled on the various colours of acrylic paints. I added the little sticker at the bottom and the stars on the top.