Altered Pringles Can

On AFTCM we did a swap where we altered a Pringles potato chip can with a steampunk theme.

For mine I covered the can with some scrapbook paper. For the top portion I embossed some flashing tape then added some alcohol inks to give it some color.

 I had some Graphics 45 steampunk papers and cut out several images and attached them with double- sided foam tape. I added some tiny roses to the two ladies heads.

Glued some cogs, a watch face and some other items around the can. Stamped a ticket and a sentiment and attached it.

I covered the lid with the same scrapbook paper that I had used to cover the can.

I had discovered a video on Youtube using the Tim Holtz movers and shapers mini clock die ( sorry can't find the link right now) and decided that I would do a steampunk version to put on top of the lid.

I cut the die 6 times out of some medium weight chip board then painted the outside portion black. Colored the hands with a silver paint pen and embossed the "bells", top and legs with copper embossing powder.

I cut the legs off two of the pieces and sandwiched them in the middle. I inserted a piece of acrylic and some scrapbook paper behind the front piece and another piece of acrylic and a pocket watch face on the back piece. Then I glued them all together. I added some tiny cogs on the outside of the front. I glued a large cog to to a piece of popsicle stick then atached the clock. I then added some large gears to hide it and help keep it in place and finished it with a couple of gold dewdrops on the side.

File Folder book

On AFTCM we are doing a swap where you use an 8 ½" x 11" file folder and turn it into a book.

I had originally started making one with a butterfly/garden theme, but after receiving my partner's name I decided she might not like that so I made another one for her.

In my stash  I had some beautiful double-sided Bo Bunny black and white scrapbook paper and that was my jumping off point for the book.

I took a manila file folder and folded it  using a tutorial by splitcoast stampers. I coloured the edges of each portion of the page and the tabs with Blackbird fluid chalk ink. I cut the scrapbook papers to fit both the inside of the pockets and the folded edges, alternating the colours to create contrast and adhered them in place.

On the back I used the same paper on each end and some Bazil script paper.

The travel theme evolved when I was looking through my stamps and came across three that fit a French theme.  From there I remembered my set of PSX Pixie Expressions which have several travel sentiments.

On the book cover, the Inkadinkado Eiffel Tower is done on acetate and embossed with pewter embossing powder, with a piece of cardstock coloured and attached behind to make the word "Paris" more visible. I added a touch of colour to the Paper Inspirations Tender Embrace image just to add a little accent and match the acetate piece.

I added various travel themed items on the bottom portions of the folder. A hero arts stamp with International landmarks, the Pixie Expressions sentiments,  Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) sentiment and  little antique car and Autumn Leaves clear stamps set of Arrows.

For the tags I continued with the travel theme and did a collage on each tag.

For the first one I used an ocean cruise theme, using the Shipboard Crossing stamp by Rubber stampede, Now Boarding by Inkadinkado, Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) ticket and sentiment, and more of the Pixie Expressions. To complete it I outlined the tag with a black marker.

Tag 2:  I stamped the Inkadinkado Envelope stamp and the Hero Arts Skyland stamps, masked them and stamped the Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) script stamp over portions of the tag, then added the city names with another Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz stamp.  I stamped and embossed the ticket and antique car (Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) ) and the Inkadinkado camera. cut them out and adhered them to the tag. To complete it I outlined the tag with a black marker.

Tag 3: I stamped the PSX World Traveler, added the birds  by Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) and a couple of the Pixie Expressions sentiments. To complete it I outlined the tag with a black marker.

For the last tag, I stamped a train stamp, masked it and stamped a Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) background over it. I stamped the Impression Obsession Eiffel Tower over the top of the background. Stamped and embossed the Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz) film strip, cut it out and attached to the bottom of the tag.

Altered CD

For the month of March we are doing an Altered CD on AMCA with the theme of Vintage Women.

 I took some scrapbook paper and cut it to size and adhered it to the CD with some YES glue. I then stamped a script stamp with a second generation of Memory Brown ink.

I stamped the image of the Eiffel Tower in the same colour of ink and coloured the Paris portion with a Tombow marker. I wanted it to be more dimensional so I stamped and embossed it again on some acetate and attached it to the CD with Glossy Accents.

I dabbed some clear embossing ink around the edge of the CD and covered it with Stampendous Aged Wine Embossing Enamel and heat set it.

I attached the image from Moonlight Journey to a scrap piece of cardstock and cut it out and adhered it with some double-sided foam carpet tape.

I had some flowers (which are actually sticker like things for a lap top) and coloured them with some Inka Gold and glued them to the right of the image. To complete it I added the clock charm.

The piece you see jutting out at the bottom is an easel that I made from cardstock so the CD can be put on display if the recipient should desire.

circus wagon

On AFTCM there was a swap to create a circus wagon.

I had many ideas but finally settled on using some chipboard pieces that I had on hand, which are the front and back. For the bottom I used some heavy cardboard and for the top and sides, I cut out pieces of chipboard to fit.

I used some scrapbook papers from my stash, but felt they did not convey the circus theme well enough. However, I was able to get a few sheets of the Le Cirque Graphics 45 papers from the Inked Stamper, which had lots of great images that fit the theme perfectly.

After adhering all the various papers and image to the piece I wanted to add more embellishments to make it look more authentic. When putting away some rubber stamps and dies that I had bought at the the Great Canadian Scrapbook Festival, I realized that the window and door die and stamps from Heartfelt Creations would be perfect for the wagon.  I cut them out and used the coordinating stamp on the door. I also stamped the lanterns from the Decorative Metal Fixtures set, coloured them, added glossy accents and attached them to the side of the door. To complete the doors and windows I printed off some freebie images from Gaby's and Belinda's blog and placed them behind the dies with some acetate.

After completing the various elements, I glued it all together with wood glue.

For the roof I added some metallic coloured dew drops to simulate lights on the wagon. I found an old bottle lid on my desk and covered it with some of the Graphics 45 borders, then added the whirly piece at the top and glued it to the top of the wagon, thinking that it looked like a fan. I did not glue the lid in place, as I thought that the wagon could be used to store items inside.

I wanted to add some wheels on the base and to add stability I attached a clear acrylic lid from an old candy box. I cut up some wine cork and glued them to the base, then attached bottle caps into which I had inserted cardstock pieces and stickers, gears (coloured with inks and Perfect Pearls) and more Dew Drops.

As a final touch I made a tiny fortune teller sign to sit on the step.

The wagon is at it's new home, and I am pleased to hear that the recipient was very happy with it.

Fairy Tag

On A Mad Crafters Attic we have added some mixed media swaps, rather than just doing Artist Trading cards. This month is the first swap of this kind and we are doing a fairy or sprite tag.

I had bought some scrapbook paper that has several little jars on it and decided to use one for my tag.

I stamped a Hearts in Touch silhouette fairy stamp on the little jar piece, added some stickles around her to look like fairy dust, and covered the heart with some glossy accents. I cut a butterfly wing and added it to the image. Put this aside to dry, then covered it with a piece of transparency.

I had a piece of cardstock that I had used under a project when spraying it with Dylusions sprays and decided to use part of it as my tag base. I stamped some flourishes on it, then added opals embossing powders in some areas and stamped a star into the hot embossing areas.

I stamped some words from a Diane Reaveley  stamp set, cut them out and adhered them to the tag, along with the little fairy jar. Hope my partner will be happy with it.

A Garden Journey Book

On AFTCM I am participating in a swap where we are making a house shaped book themed " A Garden Journey". A friend on the group was kind enough to send me a template of various shapes for the house and I cut them out on some cardboard.

For the front I printed off a gate on a piece of acetate and cut it to size.

The first page is an picture of a door from my friend Adrienne from her personal collection which she shared on one of our groups. I cut out images from an old calendar which had various garden themes and worked them around the door image. For the peak of the house I chose a butterfly from a brochure - one of my favourite things.


The back of this page was covered with some scrapbook paper and again I used some flowers from the old calendar as well as a magazine page.  The image of the lady is from magicmoonlightfreeimages.blogspot.com. I added a border from an old greeting card at the bottom and the word sticker on the top.

Page 3. I coloured a piece of cardstock with Cathie Allan's Stamp Smoosh technique, and lightly stamped a music stamp all over, cut it out and attached it to the cardboard shape. I stamped and coloured the LaBlanche stamp of the little girl in the daisies, cut it out and added it to the stamped background. To complete the page I added a transparency which I recently bought and a little sunflower button to which I added a punched image and a dewdrop which I coloured with alcohol ink.

The back of this page was covered with scrapbook paper which really is not floral but I thought it would work well with some little dimensional plastic flowers that I had in my stash. I added gems to a couple of the flowers that had holes in the centre.

Page 5, I started by stamping an old favourite PSX stamp of a garden pond scene and coloured it with Lyra coloured pencils. I then added colour to the background with chalks then added stamped trees, rocks and grass. I printed off the bird image which is a freebie from Elizabeth's blog. I then stamped the "welcome" stamp coloured and cut it out and added it at the bottom.

The back of the previous page started off with what my friend Trish B calls "worksheet wonders"; basically a piece of paper that has been under a project while stamping or spraying. In my case this was a piece of cardstock that was under a project that I was spraying with Adirondack color wash. There were a lot of white spaces so I added Ranger distress stain over the whole sheet, which is transparent enough to allow some of the original colours to show through.

I stamped a Judikins Sunflower stamp on the background using distress ink and distress embossing powder.

I printed off a poem and put it under a cute little frame that I bought for a couple of dollars at Michaels. The bird image is a thin sheet of self-adhesive cork precisely laser-cut from Magenta which I coloured with pigment inks. Finally I added a butterfly, a little rainbow and a grass sticker.

Page seven, I covered with a floral themed paper. I had some chipboard pieces left from my Ezee Pzee design kits and decided that the tree would be my centre piece. I coloured it with acrylic paints. I found some apple and squirrel stickers in my stash and added them to the tree. I also had a smaller Magenta cork bird that I had already coloured and added it on one of the branches. The little pink cat was from a stash of embellishments and I thought he/she would be perfect sitting under the tree, perhaps hoping the squirrels would come down?

At the top I added the acrylic daisy and the Escape stickers  to finish off the peak.

The opposite side of page 7 started off with a piece of a brochure with a floral design at the edge. I printed a poem/quote and coloured over it to make it blend into the background, but the edges still showed so I added some sticker borders around it.

The bird image is from Elizabeth's blog and the 3-D bunnies were a gift from my friend Tracy. To complete the peak I cut out a large flower from the old calendar to make it look like a roof. The little bees are from a free sheet of images from vintagepaintworks.com. I am not sure if these are available anymore as I could not find the site when I recently did a search to link to them.

For the back cover I cut a piece of thick vinyl and stamped a saying at the bottom in Stazon ink. I had some wooden bird pieces from Kaisercraft which I painted with acrylic paint and glued to the cover.

This will be on the way to my partner later this week. Hope she likes it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Mini Memory for Rhonda

Rhonda is the Mini Memory recipient for the month of March in my DCI group. Her choice was Children/childhood and her colour choice was cream/gold/white.

I started with a coaster from Outback Restuarant and covered it with gesso. I then added some Golden Gold Mica Flake, then when it dried painted over it with cream coloured acrylic paint.

I printed off the image of the little girl from Elizabeth's blog and cut around it. I placed this on top of some scrapbook paper. I took a frame that I bought at the dollar store and coloured it with a gold Krylon leafing pen, added a piece of acetate and placed it over the picture.

I spelled out Dream with some scrapbook letters, added some brads, german scraps and for the final touch glued on an old brooch  from which I removed the back.

Dream Vacation

One of the current swaps on CCSwaps is Dream Vacation, where we make an item based on a country chosen by the swap hostess; this month it is France.

I had an extra address book so thought I would alter it for this swap.

I started by covering the book with some scrapbook paper,  then stamped some text (Tim Holtz) postage franques (Hero Arts). I stamped on a piece of cream cardstock using an Inkadinkadoo stamp by Jill Meyer and lightly covered it with distress inks. I added a tag that I bought at my local scrapbook store. I stamped the Eiffel Tower stamp (Inkadinkadoo) twice and embossed the second one, cut them out and layered them. I then applied distress ink over the top and coloured the Paris part with twinkling H2O's.

I colourwd some Fleur-de-Lis chipboard pieces with ink and Perfect Pearls and attached them to the side. I was worred that the hinge part of the book might start to crack with use, so I inked a piece of self-adhesive hinge tape with distress inks and covered the edge of the book.

ATC booklet

I belong to a group which is strictly for ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) and each month all the cards uploaded are entered for a prize draw with all the members voting. The list owner then sends out a small prize to the winner.

Since it was the Christmas season and there was a close second, I volunteered to send something to the second place winner. Since the group is all about ATC's I decided to make a booklet to hold them.

I started by taking a piece of my handmade backgrounds and cut it to size for the back and front covers. I added some embossed flourishes, then I attached some patterned papers to the inside of the covers. I then took a little vellum envelope and attached it to the front inside cover and put a few small images inside for the recipient to use on her ATC's or other projects.

The front cover was completed by adding an image from moonlightjourney.com, a quote from quietfiredesign.ca and some "jewels"using colours which coordinated with the image.

For the ATC holders I used heavy weight badge holders, then bound the whole piece together with my Zutter Bind-it-All.

Use it or Lose it

A current swap that I am participating in on CCSwaps is to use items that we received for Christmas to make an item for our partner.

Some of the craft items I received were a small paper cutter, some beautiful Fibermark paper (http://www.fibermark.com/details.php?productID=278&appID=&page=2), new stamps and alcohol inks so I used these for my swap item.

I cut some 130lb cardstock into 6" X 6" pieces, and decorated several of them using various background techniques. I left the inside pages blank so my partner can use the book in whatever manner she pleases. I covered the back page with some scrapbook paper to coordinate with the front which is covered with faux leather Fibermark.

For the front, I took a piece of acrylic and coloured it with some new alcohol inks that coordinated with the colour of the image I chose, then edged it with a silver Krylon pen. I attached a piece of white cardstock with vellum tape, to have the colours show through. I then layered a different piece of faux leather on top then a piece of some homemade background paper edged with a Tombow marker.

I took an image from Moonlight Journey.com and attached it to a piece of cardstock to make it sturdier, cut it out; applied some Judikins.com Microglaze to waterproof and protect it. This was attached to the panels with double-sided foam tape. I added a little quote tile and some corner pieces.

Artist of the Month

For September the A.O.TM. is Claudine Helmuth. I have not signed up for the swap yet, but thought I would play with the technique.

I took a sheet of watercolour paper and painted it with watercolour paints. I glued the head and shoulders on then cut a skirt out of scrapbook paper and glued it on. Painted the top of her dress and then made some shapes with a pen. Cut some balloon shapes out of other scrapbook pieces and attached them then drew the strings. Found a dog image on the net and painted the body and attached him and cut out a hat for him

Drew a fence, houses and some trees in the background along with some clouds.

I am not sure I am entirely happy with this and think it is the flowers that are not "quite right". Will leave it for now and maybe do a different one, then decide if I want to do the swap.

June Quote of the Month

The June quote was: "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship."
Saint Thomas Aquinas.
A friend who used to teach at my local rubber stamp store invited a bunch of us over for an open house for stamping products and we did a couple of projects, one being a note card holder. I decided to use the idea for this month's Q.O.T.M.

The holder is simple and is just a single piece of cardstock creased and folded to hold the note cards. I then took another piece of 130 LB cardstock and colored it using direct-to-paper with pigment inks and overstamped it.

I stamped and colored the little girls and attached them to the front piece, then added the quote with a little frame. The holder is held together with a piece of ribbon.

Since I do not have an envelope die cut I used one of the envelopes from my sample and cut them out of fancy paper and edged them with decal scissors. I stamped little note cards to fit inside the envelopes.

Envelope Book

Another swap I am participating in is to exchange envelope books. It has been a while since I have made one, and since I signed up at the last minute, I decided to keep it simple.

The cover is a piece of card stock which I again did the "stamp smooshie" technique and Colorbox fluid chalks using a new bold stamp I recently bought. This time I did a final part by blending the background with a fourth colour and a Colorbox Stylus foam tip, then I stamped the leaf in a darker colour. I added some scrapbook paper to the inside, then used the Score-it Board to score some fold lines.

I stamped the Penny Black flowers with a dark brown fluid chalk ink. The little tag was cut from a piece of Cuttlebug embossed paper, and then rubbed with fluid chalk and distress inks; outlined with a brown marker. I adhered the image (herminesplace.wordpress.com) and a butterfly and added the cording to the tag and attached it to the front of the envelope book.

The envelopes are coin envelopes and I cut off the tops and glued them to each other in the middle and then attached them to the back and front of the folder.

I had some string clasps which I attached to close the book and added some gold cording to them.

Board book Spread 3

Step 1: Tore up various strips of leftover scrapbook papers and attached them overlapping each other and lighty gessoed over them after the glued dried. Rubbed Vintage distress inks over both pages to age it a bit. Step 2:Ripped a wide piece of masking tape and stamped a background image on it with black stazon ink, then attached it to the left hand page. Made a heart shaped image out of airdry clay and stamped it with a text stamp. When dry I added red paint and then gold paint over the top. Attached a piece of magic mesh and attached the heart. Printed off a Heart quote and added it to the left page. Now there were no instructions to add anything else, but since this is my book I decided to add some images to go with the quote..guess I am just a rebel at heart!!

Playing with my cuttlebug

I was intrigued by a technique on Annette's blog (http://goannafive.blogspot.com/ using Cuttlebug embossed pieces and tissue paper, and decided to give it a try.

I had previously done some embossed pieces in various colours of cardstock and so got them out and ripped them into different sizes.

I stamped the image from Coronado Island on the tissue paper with the Graphite Black brilliance ink.

I used 130 LB cardstock, and added some scrapbook paper in the centre. I then glued my cut embossed pieces with gel medium, painted with gesso twice. This was the hardest part for me-waitng for it to dry. I painted the image with Twinkling H2Os and glued it in the centre, and added dictionary pieces and some script paper and tissue paper on the prepared embossed piece.

I watered down some orange and red acrylic paints and painted over the embossed areas. when it was dry, I used some of the rub and buff wax on it. I think I may do a bit more with it and then decide what type of project to use it on.

Another Leonardo Tip in page

This page was done with fluid chalks in the background and a Leonardo script stamp was used to give some depth to it.

I stamped and coloured it  the old man image.  Added the images from the internet, and the faces are from a Da vinci scrapbook paper. Stamped the word Leonardo on a piece of cardstock coloured with the fluid chalks.