WINNERS - Challenge #13 - Celebrate Your Style

Hello everyone! 

Pamellia and the entire design team here and we are back to announce the Winners and Runner-Ups from our first anniversary challenge "Celebrate Your Style". We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who entered our birthday challenge last month and supported us for our one year mark! It was so amazing to see all those gorgeous projects that were posted! You all put a lot of love into your fabulous creations and we are completely blown away by the variety of projects and creative ideas! 

As we tallied up the votes, it turned out that we had a three way tie for the winning spot and a two way tie for the runner-up. So without further ado (in no particular order)

WINNERS

Coco #18

Maria #68

Suzz #79

Congratulations to Coco, Mari and Suzz, you really impressed us with your projects!  Please contact Pamellia (pamellia1162@gmail.com) with your full name and mailing address to receive your Gift Vouchers. Deadline is June 25.

We would like to send out a special thank you to the sponsors who donated these wonderful Gift Vouchers and helped to make our Anniversary challenge one to remember:

THE FUNKIE JUNKIE BOUTIQUE:

Store - The Funkie Junkie Boutique

Blog - Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog

Facebook - The Funkie Junkie Boutique

EMERALD CREEK:

Store - Emerald Creek Craft Supplies

Blog - Emerald Creek Dares

Facebook - Emerald Creek Craft

ALLEYSTAMP:
Store - Alleystamp

Etsy Store - Alleystamp

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And now on to our Runner Ups!

Aisha #34

Jenny #83

Congratulation Ladies! Your work is amazing!

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Random Prize Winners

27. Becca Cruger
54. Melissa SunshineHoneyBee
73. Paper Talk With Samra

We would like to thank Linda at the Funkie Junkie Boutique for donating a box of products for our random draw. I have divided it up into three packages, please contact me (pamellia1162@gmail.com) with your full name and mailing address to receive your prize. Deadline is June 25.

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




Anne's Favourite - Ruth - No. 119

Ruth created the most beautiful textured background and the flowers are cleverly made with more beautiful mixed media backgrounds.  A stunning creation.

Autumn's Favourite - #116 Miranda

Miranda's genius mix of drawing and mixed media stole my heart!  This fabulous stylized owl is unbelievably cool and inspiring.  I am totally blown away with Miranda's drawing skills and use of color!

Branka's Favourite - #119 Ruth

I am really impressed by this fabulous canvas with amazing rich textures and breathtaķingly beautiful handmade flowers! It's a fantastic vintage looking make!

Lisa's Favourite - #67 Nikki

I am mesmerized by the gorgeous colors in Nikki's canvas!! I love how they go from bold stripes to a subtle, muted blend!! The butterfly is a perfect touch!! It's absolutely stunning!!

Niki's Favourite - #32-Lys

I was drawn to this gorgeous design by Lys because of the dark and gorgeous background and the texture! Bling, bling! I just wanted to reach out and touch this! Can you believe that the texture was created from potpourri!?! Talk about an upcycle and genius was to use a household item. Wowzers Lys!

Pamellia's Favourites -

93. Jane's Journal

Jane's tag hypnotized me with the amazing colours, and the black and white accents create such a whirlwind of contrast and interest, I LOVE the entire look! So dreamy!

128. boozybear

This layout is just incredible. One of those projects I wish I could reach into my computer screen and touch! So many wonderful products and they all work together in harmony!

20. Electra

I've never seen so many wonderful colours used together before! I would expect a jumbled mess, but instead, this gorgeous piece of art just shines! Well done!

Sara Emily's Favourite -#119-Ruth

The background on this canvas is mesmerizing--I wish I could reach out and touch the texture! To top it off, Ruth finished it in the most beautiful colors and topped it with handmade flowers cut from handmade mixed media papers. This is a must see up close, so be sure to pop by Ruth's blog!

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Honourable Mentions

2. MARYVONNE         16. Isle of Crafty         24. IRIT SHALOM         25. Cara

      

39. Asmah Zainal          48. Ann Chuang         52. Jane's Journal         59. Joi@RR

      

65. Mixed media lerret             81. Karen P              92. Elina              104. Ikemo

      

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A huge congratulation everyone! Thank you so much to everyone who played along with us last month and any month last year! We thank you for your continued support and look forward to many more Birthdays!! Don't forget to grab your badges! You earned them!!

There is still plenty of time to enter Niki's current challenge THE BIRDS AND THE BEES! We can't wait to see what you come up with this time!

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

Challenge #14 - The Birds and the Bees

Hello lovelies!

Niki here and I am your hostess for this month's challenge here at Anything But Cute. I have to give you all a HUGE round of applause for joining our Blogiversary celebration! Can you believe it has been a year! Whoot whoot! Thank you to everyone that joins us each month, it is because of YOU that this challenge blog is such a fun place! Yours projects are always delightful to look at! We so enjoy reading your comments and learning more about you through your art! Don't forget to check back with us on June 12th when we, the entire team, announce the winners of the "Celebrate Your Style" challenge. Now on to this month's theme.

Thankfully the warm weather is finally here and I can sit outside and enjoy hearing the sounds of Spring although I don't care for getting stung by wasps. Seems like those critters set up a nice hive in my outdoor umbrella and my dog and I were both stung. Ouch! We are better now and got rid of the hive so everything is good but this helped inspire my theme for this month.

THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

 With the lovely warm weather in my neck of the woods, I am seeing so many wonderful birds and bee's, so I would love to see those in your mixed media makes! Pull out those bird stamps, think of feathers and maybe some honeycomb. Or you could even go for a non-traditional interpretation like a family crest that has a bird emblem on it. The sky is the limit!!

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

Anne - Redanne

I was thrilled when I saw Niki's wonderful theme as I love birds and bees.  I have had this Tim Holtz bee in my stash for ages so it was time to put it to good use.  It is also good to remind ourselves, too, of the plight of our bees around the world .....

Autumn - SewPaperPaint

I couldn't help but make a tag this month in my favorite palette of aqua and brown and feature a beautiful vintage bird image, at home in a nest of book pages.  What a great theme!  I can't wait to see your entries.  

Branka - Vintage Handmade

I was inspired by Niki's wonderful theme to create a vibrant card using the Tim Holtz's Birds Crazy stamp set and some of my Dylusions stamps. I also used my Tombow Dual Tip markers, Tombow Irojiten colored pencils and some hand dyed cotton fabrics.

Lisa - A Mermaid's Crafts

I love Niki's theme of Birds and Bees for this month's challenge!! I sat down to work thinking I was going to create a project featuring our feathered friends...but to my surprise, it turned into one with our winged friends instead!! I used two different honeycomb stencils with texture pastes and covered the bees with crackle glaze for a bit of texture.

Niki - Pawsitively Creative Crafts

Not your traditional thought when thinking about the birds and the bee's but this is how my mind works. Lol! I altered an old book using paper leather, crackle glaze, stenciling, a brayer and lots of lovely chipboard pieces. This is a book about family, their crest and how the bird changed their lives for the better. 

Pamellia - My Little Craft Things

I absolutely love Niki's challenge theme and it took me directly to a warm spring morning with the birds singing and fluttering outside my window. I have put together this shabby chic card with that morning in mind. For my tutorial portion of the project, I have put together this video. Enjoy!

Sara Emily--sarascloset

It was hard NOT to be inspired by Niki's theme this month, and of course, my mind turned directly to the Love Shack! I designed and constructed the birdhouse, and threw everything at it I could find--paint, ink, crayons, stain, mediums, glazes, etc.-- you'll just have to visit my blog for the messy details! I haven't had so much fun, well, since our last challenge!

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I am always amazed about how diverse our team is and this month is no exception! Everything from bright and bold, to 3D with some shabby chic in-between. Ya'll rocked this challenge ladies! 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 dig through your hoarded stash and have a BLAST using those art supplies! 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 July 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! Carpe Diem!

An InLinkz Link-up

Spotlight Artist - Niki is molding and sculpting with polymer clay

Hello lovelies! I do hope that today finds you all well and good. As some of you may know, I like to experiment with different products and learn new ways to use said products. Today I would like to share some different ways to use polymer clay with your mixed media designs. There are so many ways to incorporate oven bake clay or air dry clay into your designs. I am sharing polymer clay techniques that I find the most fun!

TOP 5 TIPS ABOUT POLYMER CLAY

1. Cornstarch is a great way to get moulds to release and also can help get out fingerprints left in your clay.

2. When using colored clay it will leave a lovely colored residue on your hands, an easy way to get this off is to use a hand sanitizer.

3. DO NOT use Sharpie's on your clay, Sharpie's are solvent based and over time will bleed and the dye will blur leaving your design a hot mess. 

4. Add acrylic paint to your clay to create any color you would like, although not as vibrant in color as clay that is already colored.

5.  An acrylic rolling pin, sculpting tools and a slicing blade are some essential tools when working with clay.

I don't really have a specific clay I use, basically any oven bake clay that is on sale is good enough for me but not all clay is created equal. The only clay that I have found I don't particularly like is DAS air dry clay. When shaping clay I like clay that will stick together, even when you have to add some extra clay, the DAS clay did not do that. It crumpled and the pieces did not stick together.

I prefer to use oven bake clay for most of my designs. Oven bake clay tends to not shrink and stays true to form whereas air dry clay WILL shrink and then you may be stuck with a piece that isn't exactly what you were going for.

One of the more easy ways to create with polymer clay is to just roll it out and make a flat piece then use your handy dandy stamps and stamp into it. Easy peasy and this adds wonderful depth and texture to a design. This technique is shown in the altered paper mache book photo below. The entire background panel is made from polymer clay that I stamped into. When you add your colors (in this case I used LSG sprays) it pools into the recesses of the stamped clay and adds nice contrast. I used oven bake clay for this design.

The blue "tiles" under the torn paper above the butterfly are air dry clay that I stamped into. I used these leftovers on this design because the tiles cracked as they were air drying and I couldn't use it for my intended project. That is how I learned about the difference between air dry and oven bake clay. 

Another way to use polymer clay is to sculpt little accessories for your design. For this idea I usually use white clay that I can paint any color I would like. I use acrylic paints on the clay. You can also paint parts of the sculpt you are doing, then bake it, and continue to add to your design after baking. The paint will stay where it should on your sculpt. The picture below shows some small little elements I added to my skeletons. The little top hat and the bow tie on the gentleman is made from clay. The necklace and bracelet on the lady skeleton is made from clay. There are also two pumpkins that are clay and the tombstones are made from clay.

Or you can go a bit bigger and create an entire model sculpt from clay. The wonderful thing about clay is you can keep changing your sculpt if you don't like the result that is happening. For my Jack Skellington (my first attempt at a full sculpt) I wasn't liking his head so I re-designed it about 3 times. Make a wire armature if you are going to do a full sculpt, it helps with the overall shape and provide nice support. I used oven bake clay for Jack and Zero. Another technique that you can achieve with clay is to use it in molds. I have 3 different molds on the Jack Skellington design. The clock is a mold, the frame around the tombstone and the pillars by the pumpkins are molds. For the molds I used air dry clay and would have to say that I was not happy with the results. In the future I will be using oven bake clay for my molds.

One of my absolute favorite designs included the paw print of my beloved German Shepherd, Raj. I created the design around her paw print that I had made when she was about 7 years old (I lost her to cancer in 2014). The vet clinic I worked at was wanting to give clients a memento of their furry loved one and I got to experiment with different companies paw print kits. I wasn't too keen on most and bought some polymer clay and had my girl step onto it thus creating her print and viola! I used that print from years ago and pushed polymer clay into it (very gently) and created a reverse paw print. The reverse print let me feel the texture from her paw pad and it was like I was holding her paw again. The picture below is right after baking the clay.

The close up paw print picture below shows the texture from Raj's paw and I can feel the texture! It is amazing and such a lovely way to incorporate your furry critters into your art.

I do hope you have enjoyed, and maybe learned something from this post. Feel free to ask any questions, I am still learning as I go so if I can't answer something I will find someone that can! :) 

Don't forget to check out our current challenge "Celebrate Your Style" that runs until June 4th! And remember we have some fabulous prizes from amazing sponsors like The Funkie Junkie Boutique, Emerald Creek Craft Supplies and Alleystamp! 

Hugz and Carpe Diem!

Feature Artist - Celebrate Your Style - Welcome Kris

Hello Everyone!

Branka here and I am so thrilled to introduce you to our Feature Artist for May, the lady who was the winner of my 'Crazy For Colour' challenge in March. Please welcome Kris from My Beloved Arts & Crafts!

Kris is a fabulous mixed media artist and if you visit her blog you'll see how wonderfully she combines textures and colors using so many amazing techniques. Her art work is so inspirational and so impressive whether she used dark or bright tones in her projects.

I am so excited about the project she put together for our current challenge 'Celebrate Your Style' and it really showcases her unique and amazing style.

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Hi, how are you, I am Kris (which is my nickname!) from My Beloved Arts & Crafts. My real name is Kristiina, I am originally from a country called Estonia but my home is in Dublin, Ireland for almost 16 years. I am in my early thirties, married, have 3 kids who keep me on my toes and I absolutely am in love with all sorts of creativity. Long story short!

Art is a great passion of mine already from my early childhood years. I found mixed media only a few years ago but my deep affection for it is growing stronger day by day. It is just amazing what you can come up with with using many different media on one project. I have always found pleasure in traditional art though - pencil drawing and oil painting, acrylic painting but I enjoy anything artsy and crafty basically, like altered art, jewellery making, card making, home decor, sculpting, art journalling and of course watercolouring and may I even say lino cutting sometimes and the list would go on.

I love retro, vintage, distressed, and aged style mostly but can try many things, it depends of the mood, liking and the ability I have, really. Abstract art is the one I truly enjoy too, maybe even the most in recent years and I try to incorporate mixed media with it. I am keen on creating textures, using mostly vibrant colours and adding details.

May I take this opportunity here and say my thank you words again for choosing my canvas as a winner and therefore the opportunity for being here as a Feature Artist. It truly is a great honour! As the theme is 'Celebrate Your Style' for the May, it inspired me to create a mixed media abstract art 'texture celebration' on a wooden panel (12x12")! 

And I just had to use some of Powertex products again (and I promised to myself that I won't touch those this time but ...). I chose a wooden panel because it is stronger than a stretched canvas as I intended to use heavy texture, and it is ready to hang on the wall too which is a great bonus. I do hope I can inspire you with my work!

At first you would always want to cover the work area with thin plastic when working with Powertex as it doesn't stick to thin plastics so I just use the bin bags and tape them down on the sides. Kitchen floor is my working area! After finishing you can just pop the dirty bags in the bin and like no mess ever happened! Don't wear your fancy clothes obviously and I always wear nitrile gloves too when using a wet media, it's great to do art but the condition of my skin is also important to me.

Next step for me was to pour the Powertex (here I used the Transparent colour) in a plastic bowl and cover a piece of stockinette with it, and attach it to the panel. By doing this, it just made a starting point for me. I painted the panel here and there with Powertex, some areas thicker, some thinner. I rubbed on Stone Art too (not seen here). It's a cellulose powder and it should be used combination with Powertex and with it you can create a mixture too that resembles a clay. I just rolled up some random pieces for some texture, like below.

Then I added a thick layer of Easy 3D Flex mixture with a painting knife. That one is an inorganic filling compound and comes in a powder form too.You have to mix it with Powertex and I used a large painting knife for it. 

The mixture resembles a lot like a whipped up meringue! It will show cracks when it is very thickly applied. The heat tool will help too or a hair drier or leaving it on the sun for example. I had so high expectations for it but I waited and waited, for days and only a few cracks developed. I must of been doing something wrong or it just takes ages! So I gave up and changed my plan by adding a thick lace fabric piece and Ribbon Trimmings mixed with Powertex on top where were no cracks. I mixed Transparent and Bluish Grey for those.

But the paste is so versatile as more of that Easy 3D Flex you add, you end up having a sculpting clay, it dries to the air and gets rock hard (you could do all sorts of stuff with it) but I just made again a couple of flat pieces like with other clay and pressed down on the panel but before I brushed down some Powertex. Same for the Stone Art pieces. This will act as glue!

I also left some clay to dry, rolled it with a small painting brush and I had a clay pieces with beautiful texture but smooth to touch. Then did the same way as with other clay parts I used before. By now they are mostly covered on the panel but that's fine with me, I see them and know they are there. Enjoying the process!

I mixed Powertex with its colour pigments to paint the whole surface (except the fabrics) in brown colour. When the clay parts and everything else with Powertex were strong and dry to touch (be patient with the drying time!), I brushed on a layer of chalk paint (except the fabrics), let it dry and then removed most of it with a damp soft cloth as I just wanted it to get to the crevices. From there came in acrylic paints and acrylic inks, here and there. 

In the mean time I glued on some pieces of slate, using a Liquitex Gloss Super Heavy Gel which is just perfect for heavy items. More slate later on too. If you may wonder how I got these pieces - from a slate tray which I hammered down!

A mixture of Daler Rowney Acrylic Ink and Golden Tar Gel with a help of a wooden skewer gave me gorgeous 3D splashes. After drying I used a splatter brush with Sennelier Abstract Paint. A few more splatters with acrylic ink, more mixture of Tar Gel, and more ink splatters!

I baked raspberries from Fimo Soft Clay. When cooled, I smeared them with Antique Wax, cleaned off the excess with a soft cloth and a dry brush. 

It needed that something more so I thought that a zip would do, I cut the fabric part off and got an interesting embellishments to glue on. And I was left to paint the edges, a day and more to dry and cure and with Liquitex High Gloss Varnish I got the colours to pop and the protection. And I was finally finished.

I do hope you like it and enjoyed reading the process. Keep up the great work Pamellia and the team, you rock! Thanks a million!

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WOW, what a fantastic project with a brilliant combination of rich textures and vibrant colors! A real mixed media gem full of awesome elements! Thank you Kris, from the entire team for joining us here at Anything But Cute with your fabulous project!

I hope that you are inspired as much as I am with this absolutely amazing project and I encourage you to join in our anniversary challenge 'Celebrate Your Style'.

You have until the 4th of June 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
Branka xx