Caged beauties

Happy Friday, everyone!  Today I have a greeting card to share with you.  All throughout July, Altered Pages and Leaky Shed Studio are partnering to bring you projects that fly!  Each day brings a new inspiration so check out both blogs often!  On the Altered Pages blog, commenting on posts this month means you are entered into a drawing to win this prize!  It's not too late to enter!  And I would really love for one of my friends to be the lucky winner so head on over and say hello!

Altered Pages / Leaky Shed Studio Prize Package

Today I am using this lovely chipboard bird cage from Leaky Shed Studio.  I have used my ink pads directly on the piece.  Gray, brown and dark red dye inks were used to give it an aged look.  I traced the shape of the cage onto the small yellow background square found on the Beauty In Yellow collage sheet.  The women in the cage and the young girl are on the same sheet.  I chose the two women for the cage because the way they were holding their lace shawl made the look (to me) like a two headed bird.  The women were fussy cut and adhered to the chipboard so that both of their faces showed through the bars and then the background was attached behind them.  The image of the young girl was also fussy cut and the edges of the image were brushed with the same Cat’s Eye ink pad I use for the background.

 

 

I chose to make a large card because the cage is such a wonderful size embellishment.  In the end, I decided I liked it best on a 8.5 x 5.5 card.  There are two additional panels and the size of the one used as my main focus was 8 x 5.  I precut a panel to the correct size using a very stiff piece of card stock. Choose something light, but the color actual color doesn’t matter because once you add the paper and ink it shouldn’t show. 

 

The background is made from a single 8 x 8 piece of paper from the Glitz Sunshine In My Soul pad.  The paper was torn into random sizes and shapes.  I chose a color ink from my collection that matched the best inked the edges of each side of every piece and used a glue stick to adhere them to the 8 x 5 panel.  Be sure to have your tears go beyond the edge of the paper so that when you trim them off the entire panel has scrapbook paper attached.  Use the ink pad and brush color all around the panel, including the cut edge of the card stock.  This is the perfect time to add color to any of the torn pieces if you think it needs it.

 

 Three butterflies from the Fairy Wings collage sheet were fussy cut and had their edges brushed with the ink pad so that none of the white paper shows.  Two of these have reddish coloring and since there was nothing else red in my design I added a rusty red ink around the edges of the main panel to bring them in better.  The bottom of the girl image was also brushed with the red so she would blend into the border.

 

The black vine on the card was one of the wonderful precut strips from Bazzill’s Just The Edge collection.  The swirly border was cut in half and used to both give the flowers from my stash a vine and to hold the key to the birdcage.  These lock and key metal embellishments have been in my collection forever, but Altered Pages also has metal charms.  The flowers were embellished with Dew Drops and a string of pearls from an old Mailbox Muse kit (Paris, I believe).

The little beads can be slippery once they're cut apart.  I used tweezers to glue them in place.

I hope you like it.  The collages and chipboard pieces have so many wonderful possibilities!  I hope you’ll use them and share your pieces with us on the Facebook Altered Pages page.

The right wing of the brown butterfly is held out with an adhesive foam square.

 

The list of products is below for your convenience:

Beauty in Yellow

Fairy Wings

Birdcage Chip

Glitz Sunshine in My Soul 8x8 paper

Dew Drops – use your own or find them here

Bazzill Just the Edge

Tacky Glue (on the embellishments and to attach the cage to the card)

Foam Squares (on the butterfly's wing)

Metal lock and key charms - use your own or find them here

Paper flowers – use your own or find them here

String of mini pearls cut into single beads

Colorbox Yellow Ochre Chalk and Roussillon Pigment Cat's Eye inkpads

Glue stick (paper pieces and images)

double sided tape (to attach panels to card)

Scan of Card






Until next time...Happy Crafting!

Up, Up, and Away in my beautiful...

Hello friends!  Today I have a tag project to share with you showcasing both Altered Pages and Leaky Shed items.  The two companies are partnering in July to bring you some fun and exciting projects.  My project uses two Altered Pages collage sheets, ephemera and art supplies and this wonderful Leaky Shed chipboard balloon.

Begin by finding a piece of mica large enough to fit inside the balloon shape.  Place the balloon face down on the sheet of mica and trace around the outside edge of the balloon with your craft knife.  You can decide later if you want to separate the sheets of rock or leave it whole. 

Separating them will make for a lighter color rock and is a good idea if you really want the background to show through.  Set the mica aside.

 

Apply the ink to the balloon directly from the pad.  If you are using pigment ink, you may want to either heat set or heat emboss.  I used a different color for the basket part of the balloon before embossing.  I really wanted a shine on it so I sprayed an even coating of clear Goosebumps texture spray over the entire piece and let it dry.  After that, I adhered the mica to the backside and used a gold paint marker to add some detail to the basket of the balloon.

To create the tag itself, I used the middle image on the Fly With Steam collage sheet.  I didn’t want to have the balloon in the image get lost behind the chipboard so I cut the collage piece in three sections and pieced the words together for the background.  I fussy cut the balloon and glued it to the bottom corner.

 

 

Ink was sponged around the outside of the tag and around the balloon.  Strips of German scrap border were attached on three sides.  I used a ticket stamp from my stash for another collage element.   Once those pieces were together I sprayed the tag with bronze colored irRESISTible texture spray.  I also sprayed a flower I found in my ribbon drawer while looking for these fibers to complete the tag.

The word “BALLOONS” is from the Steampunked Machines collage sheet and has a touch of the same ink on it as the tag.  The blue ink from the balloon was added to the torn edges.  A few Dew Drops and some fibers from my embellishment collection finishes it off.  And as the Fifth Dimension sings, “Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon!

 

See you next time.  Until then, be sure to check out the blogs for Altered Pages and Leaky Shed Studio Designs for daily inspirations!  I hope you'll also stick around for a while and look at some of my other projects.  Happy crafting!

Scanned tag

 

Fun Upcycled Cheese Box

“Have you laughed today?”  That’s the question that Laughing Cow cheese asks.  Hopefully, your answer is yes!  Laughing is so important…and in my world so is cheese.  Ha-ha-ha.  But what do you do with the box that these little yummy wedges come in.  In the past, I’ve tossed it into the recycle bin.  This time, I peeled off the labels and thought I’d play with it. 

 

There are two collage images from Altered Pages that I have been looking forward to using for quite some time.  One is a dragon in flight and the other is a beautiful Oriental background in neutral colors.  I chose the Spiced Chai and Emerald City StazOn inks and copper Maya Mist spray.  I rubbed the entire box with the brown ink and then added some green here and there.  The box had labels on top, bottom and all around the side which left rough spots on the otherwise smooth cardboard.  This gave the box a rustic look once the ink was added and I loved it!  I sprayed the copper ink liberally on both halves.  It’s a gorgeous color full of sheen!  When the ink was dry I took them out to the deck and sealed both pieces with a workable fixative to seal the mist.  The StazOn is already a permanent ink.

I sponged more brown ink onto the bottom since there were still white freckles.

 

The lid of the box has a slight lip so I measured the inner circle and cut the background using my circle cutter set to 4”.  The background was rectangular so I did not get a complete circle.  I tore the straight edge off to give it a little texture.  I added brown and green ink to the edges of the circle and to the torn area.  The scrap had two visible patterns so I cut them out, inked the edges and glued them to the background before gluing the dragon in place.

The inside of the box was white cardboard and I painted it very lightly with dark brown paint.  Be conservative because the box needs to close so you don’t want a thick layer.  My largest scalloped circle die was perfect to make a bottom for the box.

 

The dragon comes as part of a scene so I cut him out and touched up the white edges with a marker.  The head, body and tail of the dragon were glued directly to the background and his wings were lifted with double sided foam adhesive.  The disc was then glued in place on the lid.

 

 

This Leaky Shed medallion embellishment was perfect for my design, but the square shape didn’t work for my round project.  I sponged green ink onto the entire medallion and then sponged brown around the edges.    Then I ripped it in half!  I sponged brown ink onto the rips.  To help it stand out, the floral designs on the tips were dipped into gold Delicata ink. 

Once the medallion pieces were in place I added some strings of pearls, stopping at the base of each one.

 

 

And there you have it!  A pretty little gift box, perfect for a gift card, jewelry or even M&Ms!  Thanks for stopping by to check out my upcycle project!  Until next time...Happy Crafting!

ICAD Week 4

This was such an unusual week for me.  I had to spend a lot of time in my mom's tiny senior apartment kind of watching over her (while staying out of the way).  Thank goodness for ICAD and my art-on-the-go kit!  Two and a half days of nothing but sitting around.  Yes, she has a TV.  No, she doesn't have cable.  And she isn't much of a conversationalist anymore so I was pretty much on my own for amusement.  Below are my cards for the week and a lot of extras.  Most of them are backgrounds because I was operating on very little sleep and it got increasingly difficult to create.

Here is the weekly prompt:

 

And here is the daily:

And here are my cards for the week:

 

Beach Umbrella

 

Star Wars - old postage stamp borders

 

Brown - image from www.alteredpages.com

 

Maple Leaves

 

Magnifying Glass

 

Album Cover

 

Robot

And, in no particular order, here are my extras.  Most still need work and may show up later in the project.

 

 

 

 

Have a great week everyone.  HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY to all of my fellow Americans