WINNERS - #10 - Ring out the Old, Bring in the New

Hi, Anne here, this was my first challenge theme with the team and I was completely and utterly blown away by the number and the fantastic quality of the entries we received.  I never fail to be impressed by the amazing talent that is out there in blogland! A HUGE thank you to all of our entrants, I was in mixed media heaven each day when I checked the entries, I could easily have chosen ten winners! Choosing one was a huge dilemma for me but after much soul searching I made my decision!

WINNER -  No. 56 - Jenny Marples

My heart skipped a beat when I saw this stunning piece of art, with it's beautiful textures, colours and the wonderful layering of the elements.  The composition is superb and Jenny has given it a wonderful 'organic' feel by adding the 'real' paintbrush and scissors.  I would urge you to visit Jenny's blog to see this in more detail.

Congratulations Jenny!  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.

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And now for the Runner-Up, well I could not choose just one so this month we have two, they are listed in numerical order.

RUNNER-UP - Helen #29

I was amazed to see that Helen used old computer parts to create this fabulous piece of art, how utterly clever is that!  I love the arrangement of items, the delicious black/blue background and the way the individual items are highlighted - this is such a fun and clever piece!

RUNNER-UP - Jane #68

Inspired by a visit to the Shard, a famous London landmark, Jane took those memories and put them together layer by layer to create a very striking and beautiful piece of mixed media art.  You can take a wonderful cyber visit to the Shard in Jane's blog post.

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




Branka's Favourite - #36 Sanderijn de Bruin

I was blown away by this exquisite piece of art with such a delicious colour combo and a stunning design! So many fabulous details and fantastic textures! Simply amazing!

Niki's Favourite - #29-Helen

Helen's use of the "new" to her computer parts in this design are genius and so creative! Its the guts from a computer!!! I love the play of masculine with feminine pieces and the many different layers created from the motherboard. Amazing and it makes my heart go pitter patter. Awesome sauce!

Pamellia's Favourites:

39. Lozzy

The shabby chic girl inside me could just not resist these bright and cheery spring pastels and the stunning butterflies fluttering about this gorgeous mixed media canvas! The background textures are subtle but add just the right amount of interest! Love it!

60. Aisha

I have never seen such a unique mixed media piece before! I was just sucked right in to all of that amazing texture created by so many wonderful elements! The filigree metal pieces are cut and twisted to build the lion's face, how incredible the creativity is!! Just gorgeous!!

103. Silje Kristin

This is one of the most interesting masculine cards I have ever seen. It's like a tower of paper stuffed with nails and screws!! So many layers, each one stained by hand and they just go on forever and ever! I just can't get enough of this mixed media nuts and bolts tower!! Amazing work!!

Samra's Favourite - #75 Katerinna

Gorgeous Shabby Chic ornaments! So many wonderfully and tastefully arranged embellishments. I was simply swept away by this entry!

Sara Emily's Favourite - Jenny Marples

With so many wonderful entries to choose from, my decision was tough.  But Jenny's beautiful mixed media canvas stole my heart with amazing colors, lot's of intricate layers and fabulous details! Not only is this a must see, Jenny's post is a must read! Magnificent in a word!

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4. Butterfly                 11. Jane                 21. Deb Riddell                 28. Janis

      

32. Nicola                   35. IrinaR                    43. Marilyn                 63. Autumn

      

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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 Sara Emily's current challenge "GRUNGY LOVE"! We can't wait to see what you come up with this time!

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

Challenge #10 - Grungy Love

Hello Everyone!

Sara Emily  here and I am your hostess this for this month's challenge here at Anything But Cute. I'm sending out a huge thank you to all you talented artists, new and seasoned, who participated in Anne's Ring Out the Old, Bring in the New challenge last month.  It was great fun to see how you used your new goodies! Don't forget to check back with us next Friday when Anne and the team announce the winners of the Ring Out the Old, Bring in the New challenge. Now on to this month's theme.

I was inspired to come up with this month's theme, because masculine projects are often the most difficult for most of us.  Maybe this challenge will help you make something for that special man in your life. But, it could be for a favorite female friend or relative, too! After all, girls like grunge, too!

GRUNGY LOVE

To celebrate St. Valentine's Day, we would like to see you make a Grungy Valentine's project for your sweetheart!  It can be a card, tag, or anything else you might give a loved one to show them how much you care. Just be sure it's grungy!

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

Anne - Redanne

For my sweetheart's Valentine I used a wood base, lots of paint in his favourite colours, some random stamping and a grungy crackled heart and some 'industrial' embellishing.

Branka - Vintage Handmade

I made this grungy Valentine card for my husband and I used some puzzle pieces to create the heart. I also used some metal corners and such from the garage, some Idea-ology embellishments, a bottle cap, metal roses, chicken wire and a lot of different pastes, paints and powders to create this.

Cec - CW Card Creations

I have created a grungy valentine card with a few feminine touches.  There is lots of ink smooshing, spraying and spritzing along with texture paste, stenciling, altered metals and a dose of crackle.

Niki - Pawsitively Creative Crafts

I mended my friends broken heart (artistically speaking) and created this canvas to remind her that her "Destination is Unknown" for love right now but she will find the perfect guy one day. Texture paste, stencils, stamps, and Colour Arte silks helped create this design. As well as some little hook things I found in with my new sewing machine. Carpe Diem!

Pamellia - My Little Craft Things

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to put together a Valentine's card for my hubby. Lots of ink sprays, paints and crackle glaze...and of course dimension. It just wouldn't feel right if I didn't add a flower or two, so I grunged them up as well!

Samra - Paper Talk with Samra

I used Heart Stencil, texture paste, distress paint and ink to create my heart background and embellished the card with various ephemera trinkets and such.

Sara Emily - Sarascloset

I upcycled an old candy box, a necklace chain and a tag from a water heater to make this grungy gift box.  I used gesso, paints, embossing powders, sprays. inks, and mediums to make my paper to cover the box and and  to make and alter my embellishments.

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Wow, ladies!  You sure do know the way to a grungy girl's heart!  Your grungy projects are just so novel and sure to please that special someone! 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 messy  this month and make a grungy card, tag, or whatever you want to make for someone special for Valentine's Day! Please be sure it's GRUNGY -- as you can see from our samples, any color will work!

The winner will receive the honour of being our Guest Designer 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 March 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 - Astrid - Visual Journal Cover

Hello Everyone!

Pamellia here and I am so excited about our Spotlight Artist this month! I have been of fan of this gal's work for so long, and with all of her obligations, I was more than thrilled when she agreed to share her amazing techniques and art with us today!! Buckle your seat belts because you are in for one heck of an incredible post!!

A very warm welcome to the super talented  ASTRID of ASTRID'S ARTISTIC EFFORTS!

Hello all, and I am super excited to be here! Thank you Pamellia for inviting me!

My name is Astrid, and on the web many people know me as Astridchristine. I have been stamping and paper crafting probably for about 10 years or so, but did not get seriously into it until about 2008.

My paper crafting hobby has developed from those early stamping and card making days into using many different media and I would like to call myself a mixed media artist. I love journaling, altering all sorts of objects and playing about with gesso, acrylic paints, collage and many layers. Often I use my stamps more for creating backgrounds rather than as a main focal point. My style is Vintage/Shabby Chic and I love playing around with ribbons, flowers and lace.

I also love designing scrapbook papers in Photoshop Elements, all in vintage style of course. More of my work can be found on my blog ASTRID'S ARTISTIC EFFORTS.

Today I would like to share a project with you that includes most of these techniques, - the cover of a new kind of visual journal/mini book that my lovely daughter gave me as a Christmas present.

The book itself comes from Heartfelt Creations, it is about 6 x 9" big, 3.5" wide, and comes with 5 double pages and numerous fold-outs and inserts, - I know already it will take me ages to complete...

What I want to share with you today, is how I created the cover, using multiple layers and altering several scrapbook papers and embellishments from my stash, so here goes:

I started with a piece of paper from the Prima Timeless Memories A 4 paper pad and cut it to size, above you can see what it looked like to start with.

I started by altering it with help of a stencil by Seth Apter and put down a first layer with Archival ink in black. Next I used a Tim Holtz stencil and a mix of Vintage Photo and Rusty Hinge Distress Inks. This was followed by some background stamping using a variety of background stamps by Andy Skinner and Indigo Blue, I used both Orange Blossom and Coffee Archival inks for that.

Next I gathered a number of embellishments I wanted to use for further layers, as you can see, this included some further scraps of paper and diecuts (cut from packaging) as well as some ready chipboard pieces. I'll give you an overview how these were altered below.

This piece is also from the Timeless Memory collection, - this time I started with adding some texture through another Tim Holtz stencil, using Ranger Transparent texture paste. After that I used similar techniques to colour it, adding further stencilling and background stamping with Archival Inks and finally colouring with slightly deeper tones of Distress Inks, to draw in the eye once it would be layered onto the first piece. Next onto the embellishments:

For the bracket piece on the left I first added a thick layer of gesso to cover the print from my packaging. Next texture was added with a Crafters Workshop stencil and Ranger Texture past and then the piece was coloured with Decoart Media Fluid Acrylics and Distress Paints in a range of colours to tone in with the rest of my project.

The keyhole and number were altered with the help of paints and in the case of the keyhole some additional rusting. I'll give you more explanation on that further down.

Time to start putting it all together:

So here you can see how it all landed up, - as you may notice, - in the process of layering it up, and seeing which element should be placed where, several other elements were added, because putting a layered collage like this together is always a living process, and at least in my case I never know how it will end up eventually..... Let's look at some details:

The focal point in the centre was a little Couture Creations postcard, I added some acrylic paint to it, some scraps of old music papers and then distressed it a bit with some water drops and wrinkling. The number one (1) was a Tim Holtz plastic number I altered following one of his techniques that he explains on his April tag of 2013. You can find it here. The pen nib was a last minute addition, journals and pen nibs for me always go together somehow, and this one was altered in the same way. I also added a couple of flowers (they started life as a blue and white one), I coloured them with Adirondack Colour wash spray and then highlighted with gilding waxes.

To rust up the lock I started by adding Finnabair White Sand paste, then put down some Distress paint in Peacock Feathers and when that was still wet added some embossing powder, when that had melted and dried I just added some Ground Espresso paint still to grunge it up a bit further.

Here you can perhaps see another little trick I want to share. I love the effect of stitching around a card or project like this, but sewing and me don't really agree with one another, - it can take me half an hour to just thread my sewing machine lol. So instead I got a sewing pattern piercer.

Using a ruler, I pierce right around my project, if you turn the paper over and do it on the back, you get a better effect. I then use a Stabilo All pencil to go over the raised bits, to make it look like stitches, and in this case added some loose bits of black thread to add to the faux sewing effect.

Well that's it, hope you have enjoyed my little tutorial here.

If you want to see more of my work, you can visit my blog by clicking here.

Thank you so much for having me here today and happy crafting and creating!!

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WOW!! I don't know about you, but I've learned so much about Astrid as a person and as an artist today! What amazing techniques and the end result just blows me away! Every inch of this journal cover is loaded with texture and vintage colours! What a wonderfully rustic project, and I can't wait to see more as Astrid fills all the pages this year!

Thank you so much Astrid for joining us today. From the entire team here at Anything But Cute, we send warm wishes and huge crafting hugs!! 

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Don't forget, you have until the 4th of February to play along with Anne's current challenge :

Ring Out The Old, Bring In The New

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.

Feature Artist - Lisa - Ring out the Old, Bring in the New

Hello Everyone!

Cec here and I am so excited to finally get the chance to introduce you to our Feature Artist for January. She was the winner of my It's Ornamental challenge in November. Please welcome Lisa of A Mermaid's Crafts!!

Lisa is a fabulous paper artist and is able to create in a variety of styles that you will see when you check out her blog.  She also has a real knack for flawlessly combining mixed media with her paper to create wonderful eye candy.

Lisa has created another gorgeous card for us and added a step by step so we can see how her fantastic flowers came together.  What a bonus!

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Hi, everyone!! My name is Lisa from A Mermaid's Crafts, and I am so excited and honored to be the Feature Artist at Anything But Cute.

I've always loved to craft but didn't seriously pursue it until about fifteen years ago when I became hooked on the craft shows HGTV used to air. I first saw Tim Holtz on The Carol Duval Show and fell in love with his crafty style. I started blogging in March of 2011 and have loved every minute of it. My style is always changing, but my current favorite is shabby chic. I love distressed edges, torn paper, crackle paste, shabby stitching, lots of flowers and ribbon. I admire people who can do CAS because I just can't. I have to have layers...big open areas on a card make me break into a sweat. I have an almost compulsive need to keep adding embellishments!!

I love Anne's theme of Ring Out the Old, Bring in the New for this challenge. I used several new products on this card, starting with the base papers from Lemoncraft's House of Roses paper stack. The paper is so beautiful, I hated covering any of it up!! All of the edges were distressed with a Zutter Distress-It-All. For the next layer, I used Wendy Vecchi Crackled Texture Paste with a The Crafter's Workshop Art Is stencil on heavyweight cardstock. Distress Ink in Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet was sponged on top and then it was covered with DecoArt Crackle Glaze.

On top of that layer, I used a (new) Prima Flourish with Crackled Texture Paste.  Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet Distress Ink were sponged on as well. The banner is a Taylored Expressions Banner Stacklets 1 die. Make a Wish is from Inspired by Stamping. It was heat embossed with Sparkle N Sprinkle Snow Embossing Powder.

I used Spellbinders Rose Creations to make the flowers. I had several inquiries as to how I made the poinsettias on my winter sled card (here) so I thought I'd put together a quick tutorial (please ignore the stained craft mat :)

You will need a pair of flat-edged pliers, a water spritzer several different sizes of paintbrushes (or any round tools) and the Rose Creations dies. I started off cutting two of each of the five sizes of the flowers in heavyweight cardstock.

Spritz the flower with water...you want it to be pliable when you shape the sides. This is different from how I created the poinsettias. The individual petals of the poinsettias are so thin at the base, they tend to tear if the paper is too wet. With those, you want the paper damp but not wet.

Wrap the petal around a paintbrush and grip the top and bottom.

With the flat-edged pliers, start scrunching the sides together.

You will work up and down the petal until you get the texture you desire.

If the paper starts to dry, you may need to give it another spritz of water.

Once you have all of the petals done, use a stylus tool to shape the flowers.

Glue the two flowers of the same size together, offsetting the petals as much as possible. I use Glossy Accents but you could use hot glue or any glue of your choice.

Now it's time to layer your flower. You may not need all of the petals to achieve the look you desire. I left off the next to smallest set of flowers.

For an subtle shine, I added Iridescent Red Twinkling H2O's to the petals.

Once that was dry, I brushed DecoArt Glamour Dust (new) over the petals so they really sparkle.

I finished off the flowers by adding pearl stamens from Wild Orchid Crafts.

Memory Box Botanical Stems and (new) Marianne Designs Leaves were tucked among the blooms.

A Tim Holtz Weatherd Clock die was also layered under the flowers. It was covered with DecoArt Crackle Paste and then inked with Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet Distress Inks. The beautiful crinkle ribbon is from DL.ART.

The butterfly is a Memory Box Isabella die. It was covered in DecoArt Glamour Dust. The paint splatters were created with my new Tim Holtz Splatter Brush.

I would like to thank Pamellia and all of the amazing ABC Design Team for having me as a guest today!! If you haven't already, I hope you will join in the Ring out the Old, Bring in the New Challenge!! I can't wait to see what you create :)

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When I first saw this project I immediately wanted to play that game where you describe what you are seeing by saying the first word that pops into your head and in this case that word was "yummy".  There are so many gorgeous elements making up this very pretty shabby chic card.  The colour palette is so feminine and the pretty flowers, soft bow and little butterfly just add to that feel.

I hope that seeing Lisa's wonderful creation will inspire you to join us for our current challenge...

Ring Out The Old, Bring In The New!

You have until the 4th of February 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