Spotlight Artist - Alison - Drink a Magic Potion

Hello Everyone!

I am really excited to be here today to introduce you to a very special guest, Alison Bomber. I have been following Alison's blog - Words and Pictures, for quite some time now and I am always blown away by the amazing and creative techniques that she uses in each and every project. I have so many of her posts bookmarked, I had to start a new folder just to keep track of them all! I am just so honoured to have her here with us today to teach us just a little of her expertise in the mixed media arts!

Now buckle up because this is going to blow your socks right off!!

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Hello all!  I'm delighted to be here at Anything But Cute.  I was so excited when Pamellia invited me to be a guest, but also a little daunted since the amazing team here produce such outstanding creations.  Pamellia also said that I could make anything I liked - no limits - which is always slightly terrifying... but as soon as I saw the beautiful moodboard for this month's Making Magic theme, I knew that it would be inspiring my project.

So I offer you my mystical magic potion bottles - handed down from white witch to white witch along with the spells for making dreams come true and making time stand still.  (You might want some magic potion of your own to get you through the lengthy post!)

It was very hard to get a decent photograph of these, especially since we've had so much horrible weather here in the UK - with all the shimmer they change in every different light angle - but I hope you'll be able to get the idea as we go along.

I started with some vintage glass bottles.  I managed to get a job lot on Ebay for a good price, working out at just less than £1 a bottle (well, I thought it was good).  

The first task was to give them a couple of coats of gesso so that any media I applied would take on the surface.  (I had a few on the go at once - I like that as it takes the pressure off, and I now have a number of very different looks ready to share soon over at Words and Pictures!).

I then wanted some crackle, so I applied DecoArt Media Crackle Paint in various thicknesses over the bottles.  I got some great cracks and, to be sure they wouldn't start flaking off, I sealed the whole thing with the DecoArt Ultra Matte Varnish before continuing.

I stamped one of my favourite branches and then got busy with some spritzing.  I thought I'd start with a layer of the DecoArt Media Sprays - they give good coverage and are permanent once dry.

After that I gathered some of my Silks Acrylic Glazes - various blues and greens as well as the Emperor Gold - and started applying them over the spritzed crackled bottles.  At some point I also did some glazing with a Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze.

I'm afraid I wasn't paying too much attention... I was just layering up shimmering colours adding depth and shading.

I also used Treasure Gold in Florentine to highlight some of the texture - both the crackle and, of course, the fabulous embossed writing on the sides and reverse of the bottles.

The photo in the moodboard which really captured my heart is the tiny golden droplets of dew on the leaf, so I wanted to try to echo that.  I had the branch stamped, still visible under all the layers, since the Silks are highly translucent, so I thought that might be the key.

I mixed up some of the Emperor Gold Silks paint with DecoArt Liquid Glass in a fine tip applicator bottle and tested out the results on a spare bit of card.  As you can see, there were various mixtures - some with Glossy Accents, some with Wild Honey Distress Reinker, and all sorts.  (If you look closely, you'll see that there was more than one application on the bottles themselves too, but that's the joy of mixed media experimentation.)

I started by following the stamp with the fine tip applicator to create the branches - a happy accident that it echoes the veins on the leaf in the moodboard photo...

And then I added "berries" where each of the flower heads had been, and sometimes several berries all in a cluster.  I'm sure they are also in the recipe for the magic potions!

I'm really happy with the dimension I ended up with, though I wish I'd managed to recapture the most translucent mixture - ah well, maybe next time.

The gold wire continues the look of the vines and branches, swirling up around the necks of the bottles and disappearing inside.

It's the last of my hoard of golden notebook rings, ripped out and preserved from some old reporters' notebooks.  I've only got plain metal and white ones left now...

I added the Remnant Rub-Ons words - can't have a project without words, can I now?

I washed over them with one of the lightest Silks colours so that they would blend into the background.  

A final dusting of Treasure Gold for extra gleam, and we're pretty much done.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing how my magic potion bottles came to life.

As you can see, there's plenty of experimenting, trial and error - it's always the great "what if?" for me... but when the sun finally came out to make those berries gleam, I thought it was worth it!

Thank you so much to Pamellia and the team for inviting me along this month.  I had so much fun with these, and thanks to the moodboard I went in lots of new directions I might otherwise never have travelled.

That's the whole fun of a challenge I suppose!  I hope you like them - it's always great to hear what you think - and if they've inspired you, you've still got nine more days to come and play here at Anything But Cute.

Alison xx

Words and Pictures

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HOLY SMACKEROONIES!! I've been scrolling up and down for a coon's age!! These are just amazing aren't they!! Alison has really captured the colours, the textures and the spirit of Georgie's gorgeous mood board! Thank you so much Alison, you are truly an inspiration!! 

I do hope Alison has inspired you to head to your craft room and get messy!! You still have until September 4th at midnight to get your entries in! We can't wait to see what you come up with for our MAKING MAGIC CHALLENGE!

Happy Crafting from the Anything But Cute team :)

Spotlight Artist - Cec - Foil Tape

Hello, it is Cec here and I am pleased to be presenting the spotlight post this month, which is about working with foil tape. 

There are sheets of foil tape on the market, some of which come in a variety of colours and while those would be useful when you need to make a larger element, you don't need to spend the big money that they cost in the craft store.  I pick this tape up at my DIY store and it comes in a very large roll that is 2" wide.  It is used in the heating and air conditioning business so I also have a roll of 3" wide tape because I talked the furnace service man into selling it to me out of his truck.

I am going to show you some sample pieces that I have made for the purpose of this spotlight and then will share a few finished projects from the past.

For the first one, I decided to add some texture under the foil tape by gluing down some gears, washers and drywall tape.  Next I cut small irregular sized and shaped pieces of the foil tape.  I peeled the backing off and affixed it to a scrap piece of card stock making sure I overlapped the edges and each piece.

I would suggest you start by laying tape loosely over your dimensional pieces first and use a paper stub to outline it.  In my experience if you lay down all your tape first and then start to outline it, you run the risk of tearing it because it is too tight.  Make sure you work on a craft sheet or something that will allow you to lift this up because once the paper backing is removed, this stuff is sticky.

Once I covered everything in pieces of tape, I trimmed around the edge of the panel and then I set about to give everything some pattern and texture.  I used a small embossing stylus, a two-pronged seafood fork, a paper stub and the end of a clickable ball point pen without actually clicking the pen.  I own a set of metal working tools because I was able to pick them up on sale but you can achieve a great effect with the tools I listed.

Once everything has some pattern, give it a good coat of a dark acrylic paint (in this case I used black) and then wipe the paint off so some remains in all the depressions you have created.  If it looks like you removed too much paint, just repeat the process.

Finally I took a variety of alcohol inks and gave the whole panel some colour.  I did not use any blending solution but put a few drops of each colour on my felt pad.

I covered a second piece of scrap card stock with just foil tape pieces and did not add any dimension underneath.  It was textured with the same tools along with a couple from my fancy set and painted black as the first panel was.

I gave this one a different colour palette and can see this appearing on a fall card soon.

Then I switched gears and created some flowers from the foil tape.  I started by cutting lengths of tape twice as long as I wanted, carefully peeled the paper backing off and folded it onto itself (adhesive to adhesive). This is a bit tricky because of how sticky the back is but it can be done and if it isn't perfectly aligned, it is no big deal.

The flowers were cut with a flower die but could also be hand cut.  DO NOT use your punches to cut them because the adhesive will gum up the punch and cleaning them is painful - a lesson I learned early on.

For these flowers, I ran them through an embossing folder but they could be given texture with the tools.  Once they had some texture they were painted black and the paint was wiped off.

Some alcohol inks were added to provide colour.

For this demonstration, I stacked three identical petals of each size, added a brad to the centre to keep them together and shaped them with my fingers and a dowel.  The foil tape is very malleable so it is really easy to shape them.  I did each one slightly differently.

As you can see, there are lots of uses for the tape.  Here are a few of my past projects that have utilized the tape.

This is a Christmas ornament I made for my tree and the top "petals" and a disc on the bottom are made from metal foil but I painted them with a dark red on the reverse side of the embossing and then highlighted the raised areas with Treasure Gold wax paste.

For this masculine card I added texture under and over the foil tape.  The zig zag is ric rac from my sewing closet, which shows that you can use all sorts of things to create dimension.

I added a foil tape flower to this frilly steampunk card.

Here I used the foil tape to create the mermaid's tail using an embossing folder to give it texture.

This card has a foil tape wing that I cut by hand and textured with an embossing stylus.

Finally, this is a cigar box that I literally covered with foil tape to make a treasure box for my 6 year-old Grandson.  It is looking a little worse for wear because he set it on the floor, threw his comforter on top of it and forgot the box was there so his Daddy stepped on it when he came in to tuck him in.  I have tried to fix it but I will wager I have to make another one because he loves it and I am not sure the repairs are going to hold up.

As you can see foil tape is a very versatile product for crafters so I hope you will pick some up and create with it too.

There's still time to join in the fun for Samra's mood board challenge...Summer Romance.

You have until the 4th of August 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
Cec!

Spotlight Artist - Samra - Texture Galore

Hello everyone, Samra here of Paper Talk with Samra thrilled to share with you step by step of making this father's day card:

This card is filled with textures and I'll show you how I achieved this look.

I started off with a 6" x 6" piece of cardboard...

Covered it with Mod Podge and scrunched up white tissue paper. As you can see there is some extra paper around the edges, they are wrapped around the edges and glued on the back. You might ask later on, why did she even put on the tissue??? Well, I cover the cardboard with tissue paper since once it is dry it is way sturdier and covers up the edges of the cardboard so it almost looks like working on canvas...

Once tissue paper layer was completely dry, I covered it with thick layer of home made texture paste, (recipe can be found on Pamellia's blog HERE) and made groves with my Pampered Chef scraper (???) Works like a charm spreading the texture paste :)

Once paste was dry I painted it with shown paints...

Here is the closeup of the texture and crackle paint effects...

Here you can see the final touch to the weathered wood panel...

To create my sentiment I cut out the sign using my beloved Cricut, glued together all the cutouts and got a very dimensional sign which I covered with Mod Podge and black tissue paper. It was quite time consuming wrapping everything and making sure that letters are recognizable once everything is glued, but my husband sure is worth it, and some..:)

Once tissue paper layer was completely dry I rubbed almost dry paint brush that had white paint on it to get that carved in stone look... Well, that is it from me... I hope you enjoyed this post and it gave you at least some new perspective on using certain products while creating mixed media projects. 

There is still time to enter our current Challenge "Make it Masculine" 

Thank you so very much for stopping by.... 

Samra

Spotlight Artist - Niki - Rusting Powder

Hello all! Niki here (Pawsitively Creative) and welcome to the first Spotlight Post at Anything But Cute! I have been asked numerous times about a product I use with my mixed media. This is going to be a heavy picture post so grab a snack and a drink, sit back and enjoy! 

Rusting Powder! Have you ever used, or even heard of Rusting Powder? It comes in a small container and sort of looks like gun powder, or embossing powder. I bought 3 jars because it is hard to get a hold of. I use Dusty Attic's Rusting Powder because that was the first kind I could find at an Etsy store-Moments of Tranquility but now that DA allows everyone to order from them you can find it HERE. There is also a Rusting Powder from Crafty Notions (UK) that our DT Branka uses. There are many, many different ways to use it and many different outcomes when using it. You don't need to heat it up, you just have to spray it with vinegar and wait. You can use Rusting Powder on Grungeboard, paper, chipboard, cardstock, canvas, and wood. I haven't tried it on metal-yet.

In order for the Rusting Powder to "stick" to your substrate you can use anything wet or sticky. Paint, VersaMark watermark, gesso, gel medium, elmers glue, a glue stick, or even Glossy Accents can be used to apply the rusting powder to your substrate. Here are a couple of ways I have used it recently:

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Rusting Powder added with VersaMark

The wet drop on this gear is the vinegar

Finished gears

For this first set of gears, I painted all with black acrylic paint and then embossed them with Rangers Verdigris EP. I then applied VersaMark's watermark to certain areas and added the Rusting Powder to that. Shake off the excess (just like embossing powder) and spray the entire piece with Distilled White Vinegar! Yep, I said vinegar. I use the Distilled White Vinegar because the smell isn't as strong as other vinegars. Once I spray my pieces, I then put them in the bathroom with the vent on, or I put them outside so my house doesn't smell. Lol! Wait 30-45 minutes and then go check your pieces. The magic happens with the vinegar and you get a unique rust effect.

White acrylic paint still wet and then the rusting powder poured directly on top of the paint, shake of excess, wait for paint to dry a bit then spray with your vinegar

Finished gears (I did add rusty hinge to these for more color variation)

This next set of gears were painted with white acrylic paint and I added the rusting powder directly to the paint while it was wet. I then waited for the paint to dry before I activated the rusting powder with the vinegar. Again, wait 30-45 minutes and see the dramatic change!

Gesso 

Rusting Powder added to wet Gesso (and I dabbed on some Distress Paint-Bundled Sage)

This final set (above pic) were painted with Gesso first and then rusting powder was added while it was wet. I waited for the Gesso to dry and then activated the rusting powder with vinegar and 35 minutes later it was done!

This last thing I am sharing for this post is an ATC base that was dry embossed, painted with silver paint and then I used Glossy accents to adhere the rusting powder to the ATC, before I sprayed the vinegar on it I added some Alcohol Ink-Pool and Rust to certain areas. Then I sprayed it with the vinegar.

Silver Distress Paint

Rusting Powder, Pool Alcohol Ink, Rust Alcohol Ink

Final product all dried and ready to create with!

The possibilities are endless with this powder! I hope you enjoyed and maybe learned something new. It was a blast and thank you for having a look see! If you have any questions please feel free to ask! 

Remember to check out our current challenge, Vintage Garden, hosted by the wonderful Branka! Maybe you see some rusty items in your vintage garden? Carpe Diem! Hugz to you all! ~Niki