Anything Goes

What do you do with a leftover mistake?  A while back I had a matboard which I had slightly damaged and could not use for the original project.  I had the wild idea to spray it all over with some homemade color sprays and Perfect Pearl mists.  I thought it would make a good mat for a princess style She Art Canvas.  That never happened.

I cut the mat into smaller pieces and ran them through my Sizzix machine. I cut out three sizes of wonky hearts and then embossed them with a variety of patterns.  I added some additional touches with acrylic paint in purple, aqua and pale pink.  The purple was a metallic and I love the sheen it added to the matboard hearts.

The background of the tags are colored with Distress Inks, Stains, collaged bits of papers, stencils and stamps from Tim Holtz, Crafter's Workshop and more. I love the color combinations, the way I used lots of scraps from my craft table and how the wonky hearts look so great with the dry embossing. The hearts are all popped up

 with foam pop-its for a dimensional look.  Love them!

I am entering these into the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge this week. The challenge is to use any mediums to produce any project and that about covers this one. Thanks to the sponsors for the chance to win a gift certificate for more art supplies!

Gale C. Lewis

Masculine Tags

These altered tags are made with a set of paper dolls images I found online.  I manipulated and resized the images using my Silhouette Cameo machine, then printed and cut them.  I combined the elements to create several versions of the young man.

The backgrounds were created using a combination of dry embossing, stamping with paint and ink, stenciling with distress stains, etc.  The last two use some Tim Holtz Craft Resist paper and they all have some Distress Inks on them somewhere!

I made up sentiments and printed them on kraft cardstock.  I thought these young men should have classic names, timeless manners and be the epitome of gentlemenly youth.

Getting alot finished today!  These have been waiting for a while now.

Gale C. Lewis

Alcohol Ink Butterfly ATCs

Over at Frilly and Funky Challenge  Blog they are having an altered metal challenge. I think this tag will fit in nicely since I have altered the aluminum flashing tape by dry embossing it and coloring it with alcohol inks.  Stop by their blog and see the other projects submitted for this challenge.

These have been in the pile on my craft area waiting to be finished. I was inspired by the fantastic things that Tim Holtz creates using Alcohol Inks.  Little did I know how hard it would be to get a suitable result.  I did a lot of messing about with the materials and almost the whole time I thought, "These look like crap!"

However, these are good enough to share.  I found I got my best results as far as vibrant colors by applying the ink directly to the foil.  The background of these ATCs is chipboard covered in aluminum flashing tape, then embossed with various Texture Fade folders.  At first I tried pouncing the colors on using the felt and ink applicator, but the colors did not come out too well.  I worried about wasting

 the ink by dribbling it on the cards, but I figured it was also

wasting the ink to just let it sit in the craft drawer.

The butterflies were also cut from chipboard and then gessoed with white.  I did pounce the colors on with alcohol inks which also included some gold, copper and bronze fixatives.  I did finally get a finished color I enjoyed.

ATCs are Artist Trading Cards, small works of art that are 2.5 x 3.5 inches. 

Lots of people trade and collect these. They are the same size as baseball or

playing cards.  I will probably give these away.

Gale C. Lewis

Altered Wooden "Books"

I found a set of faux wooden books at a thrift store for whopping $1 for the whole set. They range in size from about 5 inches tall to about 2 inches tall. I have seen similar wooden books at the craft stores.

I started off by adding some black paint along the binding edge then covering the books with strips of dictionary paper and Tim Holtz Tissue Tape.  This is the first time I had really used the Tissue Tape for more than just a tiny accent and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it stuck to the wood. I Mod Podged over all that and let it dry.

I chose Conservatory paper by 7 Gypsies to cover the largest and third largest books. The edges were torn before being Mod Podged on and then I added lots of Distress inks and stains to grunge the books up. I wanted them to look as old and dingy as possible.

These two books are covered with torn images from the Steampunk Debutante 6 inch pad by Graphic 45. I did the same distressing as on the first pair. I finished them all off with a coating of Workable Fixative to seal in the Distress colors.  They are delightfully grunged up.

With this project I learned that you can take something practically worthless (ie, old thrift store craft junk) and transform it with lots of layers of paper, tape, inks and good old glue (Mod Podge.)  These will probably be adbandoned in sets of two. 

 I hope somebody enjoys them!

Gale C. Lewis

6 Inch Mixed Media Canvases

I want to start entering my work in challenges and so here is my entry for the Simon Says Stamp and Show Layers Challenge.  The challenge was to use layers, any kind of layers.  Here I have layered papers and colors to create the background for this mixed media collage. Then I added layers of stamps for added interest.

There are lots of nice projects featured on the Simon Says blog,

so head on over and check them out! They are even offering prizes

for the challenge winners.  Yay!

I used several different papers to layer all over the front and sides of the canvas, including part of the phone book, old dictionary pages and printed scrapbook papers. I applied watercolor washes over the papers in a sort of rainbow scheme.  I used Workable Fixative to seal the watercolor layer so it would not run when I added the bird cutout.  The stencil designs are from the Mixed Media stamp set by Tim Holtz.  I used some of my markers to add shadows and outlining around the bird.

Here is a detail shot of the chicken wire stamp by Tim Holtz. 

I used Staz-On black ink.

I covered this canvas with 7 Gypsies Conservatory paper which I then added color to with Distress and Pitt Markers.  The goldfinch cut out is Mod Podged on top and I added more color and outlines with markers.

I covered the front and sides of the canvas with four patterns of scrapbook paper. The flower petals are hand cut from dictionary paper and yellow scrapbook paper.  The center design was a detail on the sheet of scrapbook paper that I used for the petals. I colored over the dictionary pages using watercolor paint.  I added definition to the petals by tracing with black markers.

I finished up this flower canvas by stamping with a circle stamp around the flower and on the sides using Staz-On ink. I added color to the circles using Distress and American Craft markers.  I love the way the circles contrast with the geometric designs of the background papers. 

Using the 6x6 inch canvas is an interesting challenge. You do not have as much space to fill with design, but you are also limited by the size of the elements you want to add. I bought 8 of these at Walmart, so look for more to come.

Gale C. Lewis

Mixed Media Tags and ATCs

These three tags were created using some leftover backgrounds I had done with various techniques. From the left, dry embossing with Sizzix folder, tissue paper decopauge and ink, and dry embossing with heat embossing over it and then additional stamping over all.  The images are all found as free collage art on Flickr. I printed them out and cut them using my Silhouette Cameo machine.

I used markers, glitter glue and lots of colors of Distress inks to color the "joins" where the images are glued to the background.  I am so pleased how pretty these turned out!

These are ATC sized, cut from watercolor paper over which I had decopauged many layers of papers, paints and sprays to created the backgrounds.  I added the printed images and then embellished around them to tie them into the background. The fairy was a paper doll, her outfit is glued over her body.

This is an example of the first dozen ATCs I made.  I used photos cut from a discarded book, crowns cut from Aluminum tape, alcohol inks, glitter glue and Distress inks.  I added funny captions with Glossy Accents.  I don't like how these came out so much, but it was an experiment to see if I liked making smaller art projects to abandon.

Well, gotta get ready to teach summer school. No more time for blogging today!
Gale C. Lewis