Feature Artist - An Autumn Day - Welcome Zubaida!

Hello Everyone!

Lisa here, and I'm so excited to introduce you to our Feature Artist for October! She was the runner up for my Shabby Garden Mood Board challenge in August! Please help me welcome Zubaida from ColorPaperScissors!

I've been a huge fan of Zub's for a long time! Whether she's creating a mixed media project like the incredibly gorgeous and textured tag she made for the August challenge, bringing an image to life in color, or simply creating a beautiful card, all of her projects are exquisitely designed with attention to detail and an eye for beauty! There really isn't anything she can't do!

Zub has created a stunning canvas for Autumn's An Autumn Day challenge that showcases her amazing style and creativity! Check out this beauty!

***

Hello friends!

I am extremely delighted to be invited as a guest 'Featured Artist' here at "Anything But Cute" Challenge and I would like to say a big THANKS to Pamellia and her Team for the invitation. 

My name is Zubaida and I blog over at ColorPaperScissors. I started with paper crafting since 2012 and its been a wonderful ride ever since.I am honored to be here with my guest post at 'Anything But Cute' mixed media challenges.

I love this month's chosen theme 'An Autumn Day'. The beautiful autumn colors are here to give us inspiration to create lovely projects. I have taken these colors as an inspiration for my Reverse Canvas project.

I started on the back of a plain white canvas, covering the edges of the canvas by cork ribbon for a wooden look. I then added texture paste through a Dina Wakley 'Jungle' stencil to create a forest background look.

Next, I measured the inside dimension of my canvas and trimmed a patterned paper to be pasted inside. I also applied a thin layer of gesso, added additional texture paste and glued ' Holiday Green' die cut from sizzix, inked with distress inks.

I have also glued some fabric leaves after inking and spraying them with different shades of orange and red for the autumnal look.

The bottom part is covered with heavyweight card stock, after stamping and inking and then applying crackle paste to it. Some more texture paste here and there and then glued my patterned paper inside.

As I wanted to create an autumn scene, I cut out silhouette of a couple with my cameo and painted it with black gesso.

Finally, I embellished my canvas by adding micro beads, pearls, jute ribbon, butterfly resin icon with heavy gel medium and placed the couple in the front.

I hope my autumn look day will be 'A memory that lasts forever'!!!

Here are some close ups

I hope that you all enjoyed my autumn themed project.

Thank you Pamellia once again for giving me the opportunity of being a guest this month. I really enjoyed sharing my project here :)

***

WOW, what a stunning canvas with incredible color and texture! It's the perfect representation of an Autumn day! Thank you so much for sharing your talent with us today, Zub! It's been a pleasure to have you here!

I hope you are as inspired as I am and will join in the fun for Autumn's challenge, An Autumn Day!

You have until the 4th of November to play - and you'll find all the challenge details as well as lots of inspiration from the brilliant Anything But Cute design team by clicking on the challenge link.

Happy Crafting
Lisa :)

WINNERS - Challenge #16 - Shabby Garden Mood Board

Hello, everyone!! Lisa here and I want to sincerely thank each and every one of you who participated in our Shabby Garden Mood Board Challenge!! It made me so happy and inspired to see all of the creative and amazing projects you designed!! Wow, I had the hardest time narrowing it down to select winners!! I truly wish I could pick each of you...that's how fabulous all of your projects were!! But in the end, I decided on:

WINNER - #25 Paper Talk With Samra

I fell in love with Samra's romantic, dreamy card full of gorgeous texture and shabby beauty!! It's exactly the kind of project I imagined when I chose pictures for the mood board!! The stenciled background provides the perfect base for the beautiful handmade flowers climbing up the garden trellis adorned with pearls!! The two-toned, hand-dyed ribbon is such a beautiful touch!! Stunning interpretation of the shabby garden challenge!!

Congratulations Samra! Pamellia will be in touch by email to send you a personalized winner's badge and to provide details about being our Feature Artist for the next challenge.

RUNNER-UP - #5 Zubmomi

I could spend hours staring at Zub's amazing mixed media tag!! What phenomenal texture!! The colors she achieved with glimmer mist and ink sprays are so gorgeous!! The flowers, the pearls, the micro beads...everything blends together perfectly!! It's positively shabb-tastic!!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now let's have a look at our DT favourites:




Anne's Favourite - #10 Paper Profusion

Nicola's card is delightful, there is so much to look at - the stencilling, the dies, the beautiful clay birdhouse and birds, the curled corners with wonderful little elements hidden under them, all pieced together to create the most wonderful garden scene!

Autumn's Favourite - gibonik

This amazing and romantic altered bird house just screams shabby garden to me!  I love the sweet text inside of the heart window and gorgeous crackle on this pair of birds.  All of the layers (especially the lace "roof") are in perfect harmony.

Branka's Favourite - #25 - Paper Talk With Samra

I am totally blown away by Samra's elegant and absolutely beautiful interpratation of Lisa's gorgeous mood board! I adore those neutral tones, stunning handmade flowers, amazing stenciled background and that fabulous two toned ribbon! It's a real shabby stunner!

Niki's Favourite - #12 Marlei

This little gem caught my attention with the drywall tape that you can actually see and those little signs! Such wonderful layers and the blues with the whites are beautiful. I could sit on that garden bench for hours and listen to the sounds in the garden. Awesome sauce design!

Sara Emily's Favourite - #27-Joi "Enter in Peace"

I really loved looking at Joi's beautiful backdoor garden for it's beauty, but it also gave me such a sense of peacefulness, too! Don't you just want to step in and enjoy what lies within? Maybe some warm cookies fresh from the oven? I adore Joi's cracked wall, fence and cobbled path, the patina on the door, and her hand painted flowers are lovely, too!. She even shares her process on her blog, so be sure to stop over see her lovely artwork in detail.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Honourable Mentions:

4. Beatriz            6. Paper Puddle             9. Jana K.          26. Wieczna Jesień

      

A huge congratulation everyone! Thank you so much to everyone who played along with us last month and don't forget to grab your badges! You earned them!!

There is still plenty of time to enter Branka's current challenge FRIENDSHIP! We can't wait to see what you come up with this time!

Hugs to all, from the 'Anything But Cute' Design Team

Challenge #16 - Shabby Garden Mood Board

Hello Everyone! Lisa here and I am excited to be your hostess this for this month's challenge here at Anything But Cute. Thank all of you who joined us for our challenge last month! Wow! All of the entries are amazing and it's going to be so hard to choose our favorites! Don't forget to check back with us next Friday when Anne and the team announce the winners of the Summertime Fun challenge. Now on to this month's theme.

There is something so relaxing about strolling through a summer garden blooming with fragrant flowers. When I think of a shabby chic garden, so many images come to mind: coming across a timeworn bench that has been painted so many times over the years, the old paint shows through the worn areas; watching birds take a drink from a fountain that has cracked with age but still stands proudly with regal beauty; birds making a home inside a house that has withstood the elements and still provides a safe haven for the babies about to be born; a couple saying their vows beneath a crystal chandelier hanging from a trellis covered in flowering vines, petals lining the ground. Those images were my inspiration for this month's theme.

SHABBY GARDEN MOOD BOARD

For this challenge, we are asking you to take a stroll through a romantic shabby garden. Create any mixed media project strongly inspired by the mood board. Think flowers and plants in cracked pots, peeling paint bird feeders, distressed timeworn furniture, crumbling statues, soft pastels and feminine accessories. Don't forget to tell us how the mood board inspired your project and have fun!

***

And now for some inspiration from the talented Anything But Cute design team!

Anne - Redanne

I was so inspired by Lisa's gorgeous mood board that I tried to incorporate a little bit of each photo into my card design. I used loads of bits from my stash and also a gift from a lovely friend....

Autumn - Sew Paper Paint

Branka - Vintage Handmade

I was inspired by beautiful colors of this amazing mood board to alter the clock. I used some of my Decoart supplies, some Prima embellishments and some natural elements to create this.

Lisa - A Mermaid's Crafts

I love everything shabby and I love watching the birds in my yard, so I combined the two to create this mixed media birdhouse!! Covered with mega crackle and dripping a carpet of flowers and vines, I wanted to create a shabby oasis for our feathered friends!!

Niki - Pawsitively Creative Crafts

Lisa's shabby moodboard inspired me to create a peeled/chipped paint design featuring "barn doors" that open to reveal elements of my shabby garden. The shutters inspired the shadow box design.

I used 3 different kinds of chalky paint creating 7 layers of paint, some sandpaper and some CHAPSTICK! Yeppers, chapstick. This was a challenge and I think I have finally figured out how to do shabby chic in my own way. Yippee! Carpe Diem!

Sara Emily - sarascloset

I was inspired by the colors and peeling paint in Lisa's beautiful mood board, as well as the windows and hearts, and of course the sense of romance. I used Distress and DecoArt products to get my peeled paint look and lots of stuff from my stash to make this shabby wedding card.

***

Truly inspirational projects by the design team, wouldn't you say! Please hop over to the team blogs to see more photos and get some details on how these projects were made. And don't forget to leave some bloggy love while you're there.

I hope that we have inspired you to get out your vibrant colours and create some wonderful projects for our challenge!

The winner will receive the honour of being our Feature Artist for an upcoming challenge!

Here at Anything But Cute we just love to see all the seasoned and expert mixed media artists, but we also want to encourage those who are just getting their feet wet. Our design team will always be on the lookout for these exceptional projects and artists. You just never know when we might be giving out something special to a lucky mixed media newcomer. We all have to start somewhere, right?

Challenge runs until September 4th - we can't wait to see what you come up with! Happy Crafting from the entire team and thanks for visiting Anything But Cute!

An InLinkz Link-up

Spotlight Artist - Lisa - Brushos Techniques

Hello, everyone!! I hope you are having a wonderful week!! I'm going to share some techniques with you today using Brushos, a highly pigmented, incredibly versatile water color powder. Brushos can be used on paper, canvas and even wood and are completely non-toxic and non-hazardous. The results are never the same and can be vibrantly unpredictable...in a good way :)

To start, I punched holes in the bottles so I can easily sprinkle the powder without opening the jars each time. I used a Tim Holtz pick tool to punch the holes.

Technique #1) Brushos on Wet Paper

To get started, spritz paper with water. I used Strathmore Watercolor paper for all of these techniques.

Sprinkle as many colors of Brushos as you desire onto the paper. They react instantly with the water.

You can keep adding water and Brushos until your happy with the result.

Technique #2) Brushos on Dry Paper

Sprinkle Brushos directly onto paper.

Spritz with water and watch the colors blend!! You can either let it dry like this or...

...dab with a paper towel or baby wipe for softer, muted colors.

Technique #3) Fireworks Effect

This one I discovered completely by accident :) Spritz paper with water. Open the lid of one of the  jars and pinch a small amount of Brushos with your fingers.

Drop onto the wet paper. I love how the edges fan out, giving a beautiful exploding fireworks effect.

Technique #4) Starch on Dry Paper

For the next couple of techniques, we're going to use starch. I chose this brand with a lovely scent of mountain lavender...pretty colors, pretty smell :)

Sprinkle Brushos on dry paper and then spritz with starch.

Continue to add more Brushos and more starch to intensify the color.

Move the starch around to blend the colors.

You can pat some of the color with a paper towel or baby wipe for a nice ombre look.

Technique #5) Starch With Cling Wrap

Sprinkle Brushos on paper and the spritz with starch.

Keep adding Brushos and starch and move the starch around until you get a nice blend.

Crumple a piece of cling wrap larger than your paper and then unfold it. Pat it onto the wet starch. Let dry completely before you remove the wrap.

Once it dries, you get a nice depth of colors.

Here's another example of this technique with different colors.

And the finished result.

Technique #6) Sea Salt

You can get beautiful color and texture using sea salt.

I love this one...it looks like blue marble.

You never know what you're going to get...I love the color and texture of this one.

And one more using rainbow colors.

Technique #7) Embossing

For this one, I inked a Wendy Vecchi stamp with Versamark, then heat embossed it. I used clear embossing powder since I wanted the white paper to show through.

After embossing, sprinkle Brushos onto paper and spritz with water. You can see the circle pattern showing through. You can see it better in the next picture...

Technique #8) Bleach

To add more depth, stamp an image onto the paper (please ignore the face on my acrylic block...that happened the first time I used the Stampendous Beauty Face stamp :)

Fill a waterbrush with bleach. Paint inside the petals...the bleach will remove the color.

Here's another example using a flower stamp.

The bleach works on both lighter and darker colors.

And one more using a checkered floor stamp.

Technique #9) Using Stencils

There are several ways to use Brushos with stencils. For this one, I sprinkled Brushos onto my craft mat and then spritzed with water. Dip paintbrush into mixture (you don't want it too wet or it will bleed beneath the mask) and brush over stencil.

A pretty blue butterfly :)

Technique #10) Brushos, Stencils and Texture Paste

Cover stencil with texture past and then sprinkle Brushos over the top while the stencil is still in place.

Spritz with water and then remove stencil. I didn't show this step, but you can then turn the stencil over on another piece of watercolor paper for a beautiful background.

Technique #11 ) Coloring Texture Paste with Brushos

Combine Brushos with texture paste and stir with pallet knife until completely blended.

Spread blended mix over stencil. The color options are unlimited...you can make your own custom color of texture or crackle paste.

These are just a few techniques I've learned. I would love to hear about some of your techniques using Brushos in the comment section below. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Don't forget to join in our current challenge hosted by Niki, The Birds and The Bees. You have until July 4th to link up. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Lisa