by Karen Endress | Nov 1, 2016 | Mixed Media
While cruising the clearance aisle at Michaels one day I saw some canvas letters. I didn’t need a leftover ‘Q’ or a ‘Z’ or ‘V,’ so was about to give them a pass when I spotted an ‘I’. I decided for only $.20 it would make a nice little canvas 🙂
It’s only 8”x2 ¾”x1” and the “Scatter Joy” vellum (see complete quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson here) piece fit onto it perfectly. I had that vellum in my stash for a long time along with some clearance napkins from Joann Fabric. I used the top layer of the napkin for the main background of white, blue & green floral and stripe patterns, positioning it so the blue pattern appeared on either side of the canvas.
The next layer was Golden fluid acrylic in green gold spread through The Crafter’s Workshop “Art Is” stencil. I also brushed the same acrylic onto the rest of the canvas and rubbed it off in several places with a baby wipe to let the background show through. At this point I also added some gesso to tone down parts using my finger rather than a brush.
Other layers included Golden molding paste through sequin waste on the top left and bottom right as well as some Tim Holtz Botanical Remnant Rubs rub-ons (flowers & music staff) in the opposite corners. I tore positive affirmations from Christy Tomlinson’s She Art coffee filter sheets text and placed them around the canvas.
Last was the quote, which I trimmed closely around the letters and used a very light touch with some of the green acrylic around the edges to integrate it. I smudged a Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pen from this set to add a bit of shadow around the quote.
I used Liquitex Matte Medium to adhere all the elements, including to seal on the rub-ons. It has always held everything for me with no problem but for some reason it just didn’t want to work on that vellum. I had a terrible time trying to get the quote to stick! Perseverance 🙂
Scatter joy! Karen
by Karen Endress | Oct 10, 2016 | Coffee & Tea
OK, so here’s what I did with those yellow scraps I had from the second housewarming card!! This one got pretty detailed and I’m not entirely happy with how bottom heavy it turned out, but overall I think I can send it to one of my tea-loving friends and they will enjoy it 🙂
I used a mostly monochromatic color palette with a cardbase of gold Recollections cardstock layered with the DCWV Mi Casa scrap, a doily from my stash (that’s an actual doily from an actual restaurant, I told you I “collected” things!), Distress inks in Scattered Straw & Frayed Burlap, VersaFine Toffee ink and tea cups cut from two different yellow and gold patterned cardstocks.
I used the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Mini Tea Time die for these, but not recently so I can’t tell you what the papers are. I’m always anxious to try new tools and products, but don’t always have a project to use them on so that’s how a lot of those bits & pieces end up in dishes on my desk!!
The stamps I used were: TPC Studio “Coffee Cafe” (Tea Time), Peddler’s Pack (tea bag), Stampington & Co. (tea packet) and Graphic 45 (spoon, which I stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed with Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder). The inside sentiment “Makes Everything Better” is from the MFT Hug in a Mug stamp set.
For the tea bag, I sponged some ink on the part that’s supposed to look like it has tea in it and used the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher to staple the tag to some string I had lying around. Even the Tiny Attacher staples were a little too big to look realistic for this tea bag. Maybe drawing the staple onto the tag would have worked a little better?
I adhered the doily, tea packets and tea cups flat to the card with Tombow tape runner. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but I scrunched the tea bag a little and used some Stampin’ Up Stampin’ Dimensionals to try to make it look like the tea bag had been taken out of the tea and squeezed. The last thing I did was round the top left corner to try to bring at least a little something to the top part of the card! Whew! Describing cards is thirsty work! Time for a cup of tea 🙂
Happy crafting! 
by Karen Endress | Sep 18, 2016 | Encouragement
Hello again! Thought you might like to see the card I made for my husband a few days ago. I knew the “believe” would be a perfect set up for the inside sentiment, which would mean absolutely nothing to anyone but him 🙂 He loved it!
The cardbase is my usual Neenah Solar White 80 lb. covered with royal blue glitter paper (DCWV mat stack), layered with patterned paper from DCWV’s Summer Dream Stack, another oldie but goodie. I wanted the dark coral strip to mimic the blue paper’s mottled pattern, so I ran a piece from the DCWV Brights Border punch strip stack through Tim Holtz/Sizzix Bubble embossing folder, then sanded the raised areas with an emery board.
For even more interest, I inked the sanded portions as well as all the panels’ edges with Distress inks in Chipped Sapphire and Abandoned Coral, then punched one edge with the Fiskars interchangeable border punch cartridge Up in the Clouds. I used the same punch on a scrap of the glitter paper and layered them onto the card.
The chipboard die cut is from this Recollections Color Splash collection embellishment pack I found in the 80% off clearance bin at Michaels. I’ve already used three of them (card posts to come 🙂 and have plans for the other two! That’s the kind of bargain I just love!!
My bargain embellishment pack–or what’s left of it 🙂
One of the embellishments after watercoloring!
I used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers in deep blue & Persian blue to try to get an ombre effect. They didn’t blend as well as I had hoped, either because the surface was of a lower quality or I just need more practice with these markers.
I didn’t care for the dot on the ‘i’ so I cut out a tiny heart from one of the elements of Lawn Fawn’s Stitched Journaling Card die set to finish off the card. Next post—where I used one of the other words from that embellishment pack 🙂
Hope you have a crafty week!
