Challenge #15 - Summertime Fun!

Hello Everyone!

Anne here and I am your hostess this for this month's challenge here at Anything But Cute. Thanks to all those who joined us last month, we truly did have some fabulous entries! Don't forget to check back with us next Tuesday when Niki and the team announce the winners of the Birds and the Bees challenge. Now on to this month's theme.

Here in the UK we don't usually get great summers, but we love to flock to the seaside, come rain or shine.  Many of us head off to beautiful foreign places to soak up the sun and local culture, while others prefer a stay-cation, enjoying the garden or exploring our own beautiful countries.  I love hearing about and seeing photos of holidays that family and friends have taken and that is what inspired me to choose the theme this month.  So, bring on the ...

SUMMERTIME FUN

What does Summertime fun mean to you?  Spending time by the seaside, foreign travel, camping in the great outdoors or simply enjoying time in the garden?  Create a MIXED MEDIA project focusing on how you like to spend your Summertime.  Don't forget to tell us how your project relates to our theme.

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

Anne - Redanne

Those who know me, know how much I love the seaside and anything to do with the sea. My dream has always been to own a beach hut by the sea and since part of every holiday includes visiting and photographing beach huts, it seemed natural to create my ideal beach scene....

Autumn - Sew Paper Paint

Branka - Vintage Handmade

I enjoy riding my bicycle during the Summertime and it makes me feel so free.  I created this messy and bright jumbo tag using my fluo acrylic paints to express  how much fun I have during my Summertime.

Lisa - A Mermaid's Crafts

My most favorite thing about the summer is time spent at the beach (must be the mermaid in me ;) I used just about every medium in my craft room to create this ocean-side canvas: texture paste, crackle glaze, grunge paste, texture sand, glass beads, heavy gesso, sprays, paint and even real sand. The sentiment says it all for me...life is better at the beach!!

Pamellia - My Little Craft Things

I think my favourite thing about summertime is how beautiful the world is. All the blue skies and water with colourful flowers and fresh green foliage. I love it! And you can forget the beautiful creatures too! For my tutorial part of this summery card, I have put together a video. Enjoy!

Sara Emily - sarascloset

I made an art journal page to depict my Summertime Fun. I used gesso, sprays, paint, crackle mediums, and few other mixed media products to bring to life a warm summer day at my favorite summer vacation destination.  It's more than a place--it's an experience! I hope you'll enjoy a walk through a West Virginia meadow and then sit a spell on porch with me at my blog.

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My teammates have certainly risen to the challenge with their stunning Summertime projects, don't you think? 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 create a mixed media project showing us how you love to spend your Summertime!

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 August 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

Feature Artist - The Birds and the Bees - Welcome Miranda

Hello Everyone!

Pamellia here and I am so excited to introduce you to our Feature Artist for June. She was the winner of Samra's Earth Day challenge in April. Welcome Miranda Burhenne of Miranda's Art Journey!! 

Miranda is a fantastic mixed media artist! She has so many styles and excels at every one of them! She is incredible with hand drawn art but she also does journal pages, ATCs, canvas art, steampunk, fantasy... you name it and Miranda does it with style! 

Miranda has put together this wonderful project for Niki's current challenge THE BIRDS AND THE BEES. Feast your eyes on this beauty!!

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Hi there! I hope you are having a great time with this months theme The Birds and the bees. I am so proud to be the eature Artist at Anything But Cute.

My name is Miranda Burhenne,I live in the Netherlands and I'm 35. My name is also the url to go to my blog. But along the way I changed the tittle into Miranda's Art Journey,because it is still a journey through Art for me at this point.

I have always loved crafting ,making cards for birthdays , scrapbook the baby albums for my three daughters until i discovered Art Journaling and Mixed Media just at the right time for me. Because i totally lost my craft mojo. Wauw this Mixed Media world is so exciting and I am trying new things every time and enjoying all the lovely work and tutorials I come across.

For this Journal page I was already dreaming of a vacation with Tropical birds, the sun on our skin and of course a mojito!!

The Flamingo gives me that Tropical feeling I need but I wanted it to be in my favourite steampunk style. So I draw the flamingo from a picture I saw on Pinterest and gave it a little steampunk make over

For the beach I mixed some

Finnabair - Texture Paste- White Sand

Amsterdam acrylic paint- sienna natural

I wanted to use my Gelli Plate and decided not to use the first print but the ghost print so you can see my beautiful scrappaper from kaisercraft through it. I tryed to print the birds onto the background with the gelli Plate but it didn't work for me. Stamped the birds again onto my page with Archival ink

Background colours

Americana/Deco Art:

Yellow Green

French Mauve

Wisteria

Carousel Pink

Then painted some gears pink,Crazy color for gears, but I just love it and embossed with Tim Holtz- Distress powder- Black soot. You can see a little bit of Pink shining through.

Mixed Americana Yellow green with liquitex and put it trough a stencil this gives a lovely texture and gloss or maybe this colour represents  the mojito i was thinking about.

I coloured the flamingo with copics and polychromos, put a eyelet through his eye and some brads. Finally i wrote my quote on the page from where it all started.

Life takes you down many paths

But my Favourite ones lead to a Tropical Beach

gr Miranda Burhenne

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WOW ...what a gorgeous creation!! Thank you so much Miranda for inspiring us with your wonderful art! It's been an honour to have you here with us today!

I hope you all are just as inspired as I am, and will join in with us for Niki's challenge

The Birds and the Bees!

You have until the 4th of July 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

Pamellia :)