Canvas, and Mists and Tags. Oh Maya!

Happy Friday everyone!  It is finally warming up here, the snow is melting and we are looking at getting to the mid 40s today!  But my absolute favorite sign that Spring might be sprung is the return of the robins.  We have a lovely mother who has nested under our deck for the last few years and it is just amazing watching her chicks grow. 

In celebration of the return of Spring and the robins I have a new mini album to share with you!  I've been planning this one for several months now, ever since I had the chance to work with the wonderful Lisa Pace for Maya Road at ScrapFest last year.  The cards they created in class were exquisite and I went away so very inspired.  So armed with a pile of new Maya Road goodies I gave it a go and this was the result!

I started with one of the blank canvas albums from Maya Road and covered it in a variety of mists, Tattered Angels, Heidi Swap, Mister Huey's, Maya Road, Lindy's Stamp Gang and October Afternoon, so each page came out a little differently.  The cover I used a Prima mask with Modeling Paste mixed with acrylic for the bird.  The metal bird cage was misted with a metallic mist to add some color in the indents.





 This album really took its own shape, when I started out I hadn't intended it to be done in greens and blues, but as I was working on it I decided to just let it take me where it wanted to go.  The heart on this page was actually taken from the Maya Road card class at ScrapFest, it was one of my absolute favorite aspects of the cards.

 I used some of Faber Castell's Gelatos for stamping and coloring on the canvas, the colors are so beautiful and I just love how well they blend using just a baby wipe.

The papers used throughout the album are from My Mind's Eye using the 6x6 Breeze paper pack.  The colors and theme fit absolutely perfectly with the album! 

 I used a mini canvas I had laying around to create the altered canvas on the left page, it was great fun playing with all the different mediums, Rock Candy crackle paint, distress inks, more mists and gesso.  I love the final look of it. 

I had a hard time not having tags and pockets in my album.  But Maya Road has some fabulous envelops, in different sizes, which I used these throughout my album for tags and photos or notes.

 The canvas of the album was a really great blank surface to work with, embossing and painting really well, and it really makes the colors of the mists and gelatos pop.

I used bubble wrap to stamp with gold acrylic paint, the effect was so pretty I had a hard time covering it up, but the bike ended up being a fun addition, that allowed the stamping to still show.

I'm hoping to get a tutorial for the mini canvas up in the near future, life and weather permitting-but for now my next big project needs to be cleaning up the mess that has taken over my scrap studio between all my projects recently!  Have a wonderful Easter weekend everyone!

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Graphic 45 Design Team 2013 Audition

It is that time of the year again, Graphic 45 is looking for their new design team and I couldn't be more excited to give it a go!  For the last three weeks I have been working my tail feathers off creating all new projects to share for my audition; I am extremely pleased with the results and cannot wait to share them with you!

First up is an altered dress form, decorated using the new Secret Garden papers and a few of my leftovers from Once Upon a Springtime.  I wanted to bring in a bit of vintage so I added the bustle and a slight twist to the 18th Century chatelaine belt.  The mini book hanging from the belt reads 'Smile and you will always be in fashion'.

This is an altered cigar box purchased for a dollar at a local cigar shop, painted and decorated with Hallowe'en in Wonderland.  This line was my first introduction to Graphic 45 so I thought it would be a great line to use on a project for the audition.

     

I wanted to use some of the other products besides just the paper so I pulled out one of the Staples Kraftboard boxes and the new French Countryside to work on a mini album for some of my favorite architectural photos from Paris.

A masquerade mask using A Ladie's Diary and a few bits of Secret Garden leftover from the dress form.  I also used one of the metal butterflies which are so much fun to alter, this one I ran through my Vegabond using an embossing folder before coloring with Lettuce, Bottle, Stream and Meadow alcohol inks and Tattered Angels glimmer glaze in Chandelier.

I love creating mini albums and experimenting with different bases, this first album was made using the Tim Holtz glassine pockets folded in various directions and adhered together.  It gave me a lot of pockets for tags and several pages to work with.

This second mini uses two of my all time favorite lines, Steampunk Debutante and Olde Curiosity Shoppe, these two lines worked so well together it was very fun to incorporate elements from both into every page.  This particular album was done using mailing envelopes in two different sizes.  This was another great album for tags and photos.

 Thank you so much for stopping by and having a look!

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There's no place like home...

It has been oh so long my lovelies, but several obligations have cleared up in life leaving me with more free time and the ability to fill up that free time with all sorts of crafty fun!  And I thought my first day post back I would share with you the mini album I made for a friend for Christmas.  I wanted to showcase our time together at Scrapfest 2011 using Graphic 45's wonderful Magic of Oz line.  

I used the Bo Bunny edgy album from the Et Cetera line-which I absolutely loved the variety of shapes that the album provided to work with.  Some were covered in patterned papers while other pages were left bare.  All of them though were inked with black soot.

I filled the album with tags and pockets, using a lot of alcohol ink and acetate, along with a lot of fussy cutting.

For the front cover I die cut a circle of acetate and adhered the cut out of Glinda behind it with glossy accents to give her the appearance of being in her bubble, while the hole on the front cover was backed with acetate that had been alcohol inked.  This allowed the back of the pp on the next page to show through a bit.

That little tin man was a real pain to cut out, but he turned out so cute it was  worth it!

Behind the tag on this page I have a cut out of the wizard in his balloon, to try and create a stylized look of clouds I alcohol inked the edges of the acetate pocket.

I just had to use the feet of the wicked witch of the east so this was one of my favorite pages to work on. I used grunge paper on the tree and cut it out with the Tim Holtz Branch Tree die cut.

 I really wanted to use the character tags as the background of the page but wanted to use one of each character, so I cut them out individually and layered and inked them adhering them down with matte mod podge.

Katie wore her own pair of ruby slippers to the Graphic 45 class so I thought it would be the perfect page to break out one of the stamp sets for the last two pages using the yellow brick road in scattered straw.

The back page was a lot of fun to work on also, I traced the album design on the back of the poppy paper and cut that out then spent more time than I care to admit fussy cutting out all the negative space between the poppies.  The background was inked with black soot distress stain before having the poppies adhered over using the mod podge again.

Thanks for stopping by and bearing with me as life falls back into place!

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