Using Left Over Paint From a Pour

Morn'n. One more post about the paint from rock painting.

As you may have learned from past posts, I do not like wasting things. Along this vein, when we were doing rock pours last year, I was in a state with the amount of paint pooling under the rocks after a pour. So I ran into Zoo's craft room and pulled out a bunch of circle punched paper and 8 1/2' x 11' white card stock. I went ahead and dipped the circle punches in the pooled mixed paint and then used a plastic spoon to pick some up and smear or drip onto the various card stock.

The resulting paper ranged from cool to baby poo. Zoo's sister thought I was insane and I told her she would be receiving a baby poo card from me in the future. Below are the cards I made with the various punches and paper.

     

Using Non-traditional items to make cards and mixed media

 Good morning. Happy 2018!!

Today I wanted to talk about using random things from around the house to make cards and in mixed media pieces. I am not quite as bad as my Grandmother was for not throwing anything away. Her house was full of colour coded styrofoam egg carton stacks, boxes of old nylons fabric tiny pieces, etc. I do like to use and reuse anything and everything I can think of a repurpose for and so this post will be about some of the things I have done.

Firstly, I don't have a subscription to any magazines but the odd one comes in the mail or is given to me. The following is what I did with a Vesey Seed catalogue. I bought a new bird die to share with Zoo and before I mailed it out to her to use I did up almost the entire seed catalogue with them. As it was a very thin paper it was printed on I glued each page onto printer paper before cutting out the bird. They turned out so sweet!

Secondly... In recent years some of the companies that send out junk mail have incorpoated cute little animals and things to catch your eye and make you remember their brand. Instead of throwing them into the recycle bin I have used some of them. [My favourite one I cannot find a picture of. I am hoping Zoo will add a picture of it when she sees this. It is of a cute little red monster with lime green teeth and I made some cute kids cards out of him. He came in two sizes and was too adorable for words.]  Here are some of the ones I do have pictures of...

This next one is from packs of cards I bought on clearance from Michael's. Each card pack had 6 cards and envelopes and cost 25 cents... yes cents!!! Scrouge me could not pass that up. Each set had a pair of shoes and a monogram letter. I have made mixed media journals for each of my daughters and I did a 'Soul Mates' page for one of them. It turned out great! I layered the buckle or bow again to give it some depth. 

 

More magazines...

I love stamps and keep ones from mail I receive and have also bought some cute ones specifically for use in my crafting. 

I saved the label of a friend's favourite wine and made it into a birthday card for him. A reminder to me of what wine to buy him and also a cute card to give him on his next birthday.

These last ones are from a couple of colouring books that the nieces and nephews finished off. I couldn't part with the covers so made cards from some of the bits cut out of them . They are bright and cheerful and the kids will love them (and remember colouring the pages from inside the book??)

Well, I hope you all have an awesome 2018 and have a blast crafting away all year. I am off to visit Zo soon and if I remember I will find the picture I sent her of my little red monster card and I will add it in here. Being frugal in your crafting doesn't mean that things have to look cheap or tacky. It is fun to reuse things and make them live again in something someone will love. Enjoy!!

Red Bear : )

Fabric Yo-Yo's

Good Evening. I hope you all are happy and healthy, have crisp December air to breathe and some snow if you're lucky. It seems like forever since I have done a blog post and as usual I have been busy creating in the craft room but not recording it here. Ironically I talked to Zoo on the phone today and we were both inspired to craft after talking of the blog and all it contained. I, of course, was surprised how many posts I have done. Not being a fan of using the computer for more than entertainment, I have added more than anticipated.

Today I would like to talk about making Yo-yo's. Zoo sent a few videos and web sites to explain what they were and then I had to give some a try. Hand needle work has gone onto the hurt the hands, only do in small measure list, but I must admit they turned out cute. I tried some in a variety of sizes and like the larger circle sizes the best. I tried my Sizzix Circles #2 Bigz Die first and used the largest of the four circles. I ended up mostly tracing a larger circle from a stencil I have onto the fabric and then cutting it out. I found this method and size worked the best for me.

The two sites I used from Zoo's sampling were as follows...

https://www.positivelysplendid.com/fabric-yo-yo-tutorial/

http://www.bhg.com/crafts/sewing/accessories/how-to-make-fabric-yo-yos1/

So I grabbed some fabric from my drawer and away I went. When showing Zoo my new creations on our next skype craft session, she was floored that I had made so many in random colours without a plan for each one. I will eventually use them all and so was happy to prove this recently when one of the yo-yo's was the perfect colour for a card I was making.

This card was stamped using the 'Kiss it and Make it Better by Connie Stewart' video and I will go into this further in my next post. I look forward to making cards or mixed media work with the remainder of my yo-yo's. 

Have a great night!

Red Bear : )

Transferring images using packing tape and stencils.

Happy Snow day!

We had a lovely day off work to get outside and shovel out three driveways and then hibernate indoors with our hobbies. Myself, I ventured into my craft room and experimented with packing tape, stencils and magazine pages. Zoo's fault, yet again, due to her sending me another link to put in the 'do' or 'not do' pile. Originally I didn't think I wanted to try this, as the result is shiny and I wondered if I could do anything else on top of the packing tape layer. This morning, however, it tickled my fancy and I gave it a try.

In the video, the lovely lady uses magazine pages, stencils and packing tape, all of which I have on hand, so away I went.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtAGnlU3s8U&feature=em-share_video_user

 This stencil is one of my oldest and is from Simply Stencils By Plaid, 28530 Hearts, Checks and Gingerbread

The following three are from a cheap kids set I found somewhere years ago.

 These two are from Stampin'Up, Dots and Stripes decorative masks. The stripes was hard to get the tape off of.

This stencil didn't work the best. In the video, she warns that we need to rub hard or use a brayer to get the tape to stick through the stencil in finer design areas. I used a brayer over thick foam but this one didn't work. Later I used my embossing stylus to rub in the smaller dots and details of the other stencils, but I guess I forgot this one. Good life lesson.

My neighbour, who sews, gave this one to me. It says 28760Bulk on it and may have come from a fabric store.

 I decided before I started that I would place the finished tapes onto pages I had already painted or sumi smooshed. This way I felt I was adding another layer to pages to make cards, or into altered art books for further development.

This last page with the green, I cut up and made cards out of. The gloss from the tape adds a nice dimension to the cards and I also used up some of the stamped paper Zoo had sent me months ago. Some of the stamped images are just photo copies she had sent, but I used them to finish the cards and I like how they turned out. The pictures don't do them justice.

So that has been my fun day with packing tape transfers. I hope the weather adds more fun so I can escape to my craft room more often.  Cheers everyone.   Red Bear : )