Monday, August 27, 2018

Rita Barakat and Emerald Creek Blog Hop!

I am so excited for the NEW release of the Rita Barakat Embossing Powder line by Emerald Creek! I got to play with two of the new colors -- Dragon's Egg and Mermaid Fin. Dragon's Egg is a gorgeous purple and Mermaid Fin is a sparkly glitter blue. The first project I created with it is this:

 I had so much fun with making that tag that I decided to create another:
 I first gathered my material: a tag and these three paints.
 Using my fingers I applied the acrylic paint to the tag.
 Using the Zen Cloud Art Foamie stamp I stamped and embossed the image with Dragon' Egg.
I applied the color shield and  I inked the edges and embossed them twice with Mermaid Fin to create a gorgeous thick border.
 Using foam dots I adhered the mermaid to the tag.
 Finally I added some glitter glue and clear glaze to make her shine.

Make sure you hop on through to see other amazing projects from the design team and leave a comment on each blog to be entered in a chance to win a set of embossing powder! Winner will be announced on Mixed Media via Rita Barakat's FB page September 3!





Karen



Jenn

To get your own embossing powder (and I have since ordered all the rest because I love them!) please click here
Until next time ~ Happy Crafting!

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Challenging Canvas

In July the Canvas Corp Brands crew was challenged to do something with a blank sheet of canvas and we could use a pouch too. I created this:
 I glimmer misted a piece of raw canvas in blues and greens and then cut them into strips. I tied a knot in the bottom of each strip and adhered it to a circle that I had cut from double sided adhesive. I twisted the canvas strip and placed it on the circle. I also did this same technique with some pretty twine.
 For the leaves I hand cut them out of the green portion of the canvas, added some veins with a black water color brush pen and spritzed it  with a little water to soften the lines.
 I adhered it all to the pouch and added a few gems to fill it out.

When I was first presented with this challenge I was totally clueless on what to do. I just started painting and then got to this. What have you created that was unexpected?

Until next time ~ Happy Crafting! 

Thursday, August 9, 2018

Have Faith (Dealing with Junk)

I have been struggling emotionally lately. I am wrestling with doubt and fear wishing I could just throw it out of my life. I have been asking God for healing and even to take away feelings from my heart. I could not sleep one night and had a real desire to create something in my craft room. I was frustrated because I did not know what to do. I saw a crumpled piece of cardboard in my trash. I had thrown it away earlier that day when I noticed it was not hard anymore and had wrinkles through out. Plus it was an odd shape. Into the trash it went. After I pulled it from the trash I noticed the leftover canvas sheet that I had glimmer misted in an ombre of blues. It was also going to be disregarded if I did not do something with it. It was pretty, but truth of the matter is I have a lot of stuff and a pretty piece of canvas is easy to forget about in my craft room. I placed the piece over the cardboard and I was amazed that it was an exact match. It fit perfectly. I knew at that point that this piece I was longing to create was something the Almighty was calling me to do. So, at 11:00 pm (I am an early riser, so tend to be in bed by 10:00) I set out to create a work of art.

 Once I adhered the canvas to the cardboard with a heavy body gel medium I embossed the edges with the new Rita Barakat embossing powder. I started painting the mermaid tail. I first glimmer misted the tail with green, turquoises and navy. Once that dried I applied extreme glitter paint by Plaid to make it sparkle. I used the gel medium to adhere the mermaid, added glitter glue to her hair and a clear glaze to the sun and attached the Narwhal as the base. I added some little dew drops in a pretty sparkly blue. Then I just looked at it. I had to think of a title, but nothing came to me other than "Have Faith" which did not make sense to me. I mean, this is a mermaid theme ocean canvas.I could not shake it and really wanted to go to bed, so I titled it "Have Faith" and went to bed.

The next morning I had a revelation. This piece was a symbol of my struggle and hope. That cardboard was a representation of all the crap I wanted to throw away and things I have walked away from. To the world it may look like a lot of garbage, but it really is a great foundation to create a masterpiece on. The gorgeous canvas represents the small beautiful things in my life that get lost among the surrounding stuff. The small beautiful things need to be the back drop to my life so the gifts from above (represented by the Narwhal and mermaid tail by Lisa Kettell Designs and mermaid die cut from Rita Barakat) take center stage. The edges of my life are raw and jagged, but God has come through and covered me in his glory and grace (embossing powder). True, he had to light me up to do it, but isn't the heat worth it? It felt at times like I was being burned, but really He was just framing my life. As far the title, sometimes God has to spell it out.....write it on the wall so to speak. It means just what it says -- HAVE FAITH. Faith in Him and faith in myself.
 Sometimes God gives us good things and lets us decorate it. Just like I was able to paint this tail that Lisa created.
 Just like the ocean with it's waves life can seem like it is knocking me around and I feel like I am going to drown. Then, in the middle of it all an anchor is thrown out that I climb on and look to the Son. Other times I am about ready to get hit by a huge wave that will knock me to the ground and drag me back in the current bumping me against the jagged rocks and corals or life. Right before that happens and often before I see the huge wave God will grab me, pull me under and force me to go back into what seems to be the ocean when in reality he was saving me from getting knocked out by a massive wave. It usually happens when I am enjoying jumping in the surf and don't see what lies just ahead of me. That is why this is an ocean theme -- to show how life is like the sea.
I am not the perfect person or a very "good" Christian. In fact, if the church were to judge me I probably would qualify as a black sheep. I am unconventional in my relationship with God and certainly don't have it all together. God speaks to me different than He may my neighbor and that is okay. We are all created different and God used my art to comfort my heart. I wanted to share it with you and I hope it gives you encouragement in whatever life may have in store for you.

Until next time ~ Happy Crafting!


Friday, August 3, 2018

Denim and Diamonds

I recently have started swapping pocket letters with a great group of online ladies. When I was asked to join the "Denim and Diamond" swap I did not hesitate. Once I realized what I signed up for I was a little scared. I kept thinking of cowgirls, but did not want to incorporate that into it. I then realized that I had an old pair of my daughter's jeans that had bling on the leg. She wore them all the time when she was 6 (ten years ago) and I found them for her at Walmart for $6. I decided to use those as the base. I first cut them down to ATC size (2.5 by 3.5) and mod podged them with extreme glitter Mod Podge to a baseball card for stability. As they dried I added my signature stamp to the back of nine ATC blue cardstock cut bases. Once they were dry I attacked them to the blue cardstock. I inked up one of Rita Barakat's stamps with white paint and stamped it in a random order on the denim. I decided on this particular stamp because the circles in the hair looked like places for bling. Once it dried I added gems and bling items from my stash and stuffed a baseball sleeve to create the pocket letter. It was missing something so I created a layered heart embellishment and a shabby chic flower from the leftover denim. I added a butterfly charm and attached it to the sleeve.





I never dreamed that my scraps (literally!) would create something beautiful. To make the two embellishments check out this video:
Until next time ~ Happy Crafting!

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Sunset Shaker Card with NEW stamp from Rita Barakat and Technique Junkies!

Techniuqe Junkies has another fantastic new release launch featuring Rita Barakat. This month the theme is friendship. I created this clean and simple shaker card with the stamp "Sunset".
I used Plaid paint to create the sunset and foam craft sheets to create the shaker! 



I created a video tutorial on how to make this card here:


Make sure you hop along with us to see what other designers have done with these stamps.