Its beginning to look a lot like...

Hello crafty pals, did you miss me? ^.^ I sure hope so, but not too much! I hope you guys had a great labor day weekend and maybe caught some good labor day sales, I know I sure did! This week has been super busy, as my little rugrat started school today. This week was spent mainly in preparation for her first day, making sure she had everything she needed. Today I put my little munchkin on the bus for the first time ever and I almost teared up, however, she didn't even look back! They really do grow up so fast. The only good that came out of her being away at school was that I got a little crafting done. Everyone keeps saying that it's supposed to start snowing earlier than last year, by the end of this month unfortunately, so like it or not I'm starting to get into the Christmas spirit. My first order of business, a card featuring an altered stamp from The Greeting Farm

Hat: Cheeky Xmas

Head: WS Nala (Roll Call Kit)

Body: Skyward Anya

Christmas cards are so fun to make, especially with stamps that aren't traditionally for Christmas! This week's FFF Challenge is to use your Favorite Embellishment. My favorite embellishment is bling, in just about any form! I rose to the challenge and this little girlie is decked out in wink of stella, stickles, liquid pearls, and pearl flourishes. The image I used is actually a few different TGF images put together colored with my copics. For the hat I used Cheeky X-mas, the head belongs to the adorable Wild Sprout Nala from the Roll Call Kit (retired, sorry!) and the body is the exclusive Skyward Anya. I love playing around with TGF stamps, seeing who's head looks good on who's body to create a whole new stamp is just so much fun. The DP I used was something from my LCS' open stock. Both the sentiment and the cork tree embellishment was created by me using the accent stamp from the Cheeky X-mas set stamped in SU! Real Red. The tree was stamped on DCWV adhesive cork paper and punched out with circle punch. Can't wait to join in the challenge over at The Farm

Flying High

Howdy! OMG I know I say this all the time but guys, I'm seriously excited about my project for today! I spent the weekend working on a few mixed media projects since I wasn't all that impressed by my last one and came up with a couple of beauties. One of which actually ended up hanging on my living room wall because my hubby liked it so much he wanted everyone that came over, to see it! So since TGF's FFF Challenge is Anything Goes, my little canvas goes great!

Skyward Anya

I used a mix of acrylic paints, gelatos, Memory Box dies, and book pages to create the background and the sentiment is from part of TGF's Anya Lifts set, cut apart for my project. The flowers are prima and the rhinestones are from my stash. I had soooo much fun making this and even made my own embossing paste and used the remaining cardstock outline from my die cut clouds as a stencil to give the canvas some texture and depth. The hot air balloons were cut from a scrap of paper from my Bo Bunny Enchanted Garden pad and blinged out with wink of stella clear. Skyward Anya was colored using my copic markers with a touch of Eucalyptus stickles on her scarf and some Diamond glaze on her goggles with a white gel pen for highlights.

This was my second mixed media project using a panel canvas instead of the wooden frame type canvases I'd used previously. The Image is Faith the Fairy from Stamping Bella Uptown Girl series. The flowers are from I am Roses, originally all white, I used my homemade spray paint/glimmer mists to dye them the colors I needed. I used gelatos for the base colors in the background and the chevron stenciling in the background was made by me out of a re purposed piece of chipboard packaging cut with an x-acto knife and sprayed through with some of my DIY sprays. The butterfly in the corner is a Joy! die and the rest are stamps I've had forever.

 I absolutely love the way these turned out and I hope you guys give making a mixed media project a try, its a great stress reliever for me and gives me a chance to let loose and have fun because making cards actually stresses me out sometimes when I have a hard time creating a layout. I hope this inspires you to give it a try too, see you tomorrow!

-Krys

Coast to Coasters

Hey!
Extra excited as usual to share my latest project with you guys, but first, a backstory! Well a month or so ago I saw a project on TGF's Blog about making coasters out of stone tiles and it got the gears turning in my head. I decided to give it a try myself so off to home depot I went to buy a couple of travertine tiles. I only wanted one or two just for fun but Home Depot only sells them by the pack. I wasn't too disapointed though because a pack of 9 only cost about $4.30ish after taxes. I figured I could make 2 sets of 4 with one extra to practice/ruin/drop (whichever came first ^.^). In the tutorial, Melissa O used 4x4 tumbled marble tiles and stamped with Brilliance ink. Brilliance is actually a water based ink so I decided to try something different since I was planning to use these as coasters. After wiping down my tiles with a damp towel to remove excess dust and allowing it to dry, I then stamped with my Versamark pad and sprinkled Ranger's Ultra Fine black embossing powder and dumped off the, gently tapping it on the table to remove any extra powder clinging to random spots on the tile. Step 3 was interesting because I've never tried to heat emboss anything but paper so who knew how that would turn out LOL! Quick science lesson, natural stone actually holds and distributes heat really well and evenly...eventually...which is why baking stones work so awesome for cookies and especially pizza! AKA, heat embossing travertine, SUCCESS! I was incredibly proud of myself for this awesome discovery because as you know, copics and embossing powder work just fine together...unless its on travertine apparently o_O. Unfortunately my nibs are stained now but as long as they still come out the color they're supposed to I'm not too sad but fair warning, be careful not to color over the EP if you can avoid it, kinda like if you were using stazon. They came out great!

Up Up Bean (TL) C.C. Harlow (TR)

Flutter Anya (BL) Skyward Anya (BR)

Frappy Anya (TL) Birthday Anya I (TR)

Birthday Anya II (BL) Lolli Anya (BR)

I colored them all with my copic markers. For Skyward Anya I created a kind of halo/aura with my copics while I tried more of an inked border also using copics which was a little harder and didn't turn out as well, not so sure copics were meant to be blendable on tile. For the other two, I inked around the edges with stampin up Real Red and Tim Holtz Spun Sugar and it turned out much better. After coloring I added stickles here and there and glossy accents to the lenses of the girls' goggles and gave them a couple of coats of the same spray acrylic sealer I used for the Magnets I made a while back, to make them water proof! Hope you guys give it a try, for the bottom set I was going for a sweet treats pastel kind of look and I plan to enter these in the Use Pastel Colors Farm Fresh Friday challenge over at The Greeting Farm. Honestly mine were supposed to be gifts but they're so cute I'm not sure I can part with them now! I even went out and bought another pack of tiles to make a few more, I'm addicted! See you guys around!

-Krys

In Stitches

Hi guys as you know I've been experimenting with other uses for my adorable TGF stamps. Od course they look darling on cards but the wheels in my head have been in overdrive coming up with/ trying out ideas. I'm a bit under the weather so I won't ramble on today either. I found that you can create adorable little shirts using stazon ink, copic markers and rubber stamps and here are a couple of my finished projects so far:

Birthday Anya 2 (left) Easter Anya (right)

Skyward Anya (left) Up Up Bean (right)

Since stazon has a tendency to bleed into copics and vice versa, I highly recommend drying or ironing your shirt on high heat after stamping but before coloring with copics. If you are not careful to color inside the lines you will not only ruin your nib, but also cause the black stazon to "reactivated" so to speak, and run into your colored sections so be very careful. Another idea for coloring where images would be a permanent or fabric paint but I've yet to find a bottle of fabric paint with a thin enough spout for fine detail.  Well this is my two cent for today I'm going to lay down and try to feel better. Hopefully you guys will be feeling adventurous and will try and perfect this technique, if you do, I'd love feedback on how it can be improved!
-Krys

Spring Skies

Hi guys, the weather here is downright gorgeous and as much as I love card making, it just doesn't seem right to spend the day inside so I'm keeping this post light and airy! Speaking of air, I was absolutely blown away by TGF's Exclusive Skyward Anya stamp, so much so that I had to ink her up right away and put her on a card before I ventured out of doors and here she is!

Skyward Anya

The DP are MME I believe and darling Anya is colored with my trusty copics and a dash of waterfall stickles to add a little shimmer. I also used a bit of glossy accents on the goggles to make them pop. Hope you guys like it, I know I do and I can't wait to put this little lady on more projects soon! Happy Tuesday!

-Krys