Tag book for Creative Embellishments

Hello all.  I decided to go grungy again.  It is so my favorite.  I wanted to give a Tim Holtz tag book a little make over.   I plan on creating some technique tags for inspiration when creating for those crafter's block moments. 

I painted the book with a couple thin coats of gesso to prep the surface.  I used a thin layer of embossing paste and then heated with a heat tool until bubbly and uneven.  I love this technique.  If you want your embossing paste to be uniform in consistency, it is better to air dry.  This technique though gives incredible texture very easily.  Lots of nooks and crannies for paints and sprays to settle.  Once dry, I added my chippies.  I used the steampunk pipe corner as my main image.  I layered it with gears and loose parts.  I used for the upper right hand corner another piece from the loose parts and gears package along with a propeller.   Since this book is to be used to provide me inspiration, I used the inspire chippie from the Inspiration word set for my title. I used some flat backed gems for the rivets. 

After everything was adhered and dried I painted black.  (Tip:  I did not do this step and so regretted it after - paint a base layer of black before adding your chippies and other layers.  If you have detailed chippies, give them a coat of paint to before gluing down. Then do another layer of paint after.) I then decided to go over it with brown, teal, rust, and orange colored sprays.  The camera doesn't pick up tall the shades of the sprays - but in real life it is really cool.  Depending on how the light hits the colors really pop.  I went over areas of the book in metallic paints to bring out the chippies. 

Steamy Love Canvas for Creative Embellishments

Hi all.  Hope you had a splendid Thanksgiving holiday.   I decided to get a little painty today and try a faux batik technique.   I prepped a canvas with gesso.  Once dry,  then embossed with white embossing powder through a stencil.  I took metallic paint in patina, a blue green, and a pinch of copper penny and dabbed it over the canvas.  Using a piece of scrap card, I scraped the paint across the canvas.  Once almost dry I used a paper towel to buff and remove the excess paint from the embossing powder.

For the steampunk heart 2  I prepped it with a layer of rusty hinge distress stain.   This chippy is so detailed and I didn't want to cover up the fine details.  I just highlighted some of the details with metallic paint and some brown ink.   I added a gear and some propellers.  Something about steampunk just makes me smile. 

I layered the heart over these fab wings that I sprayed with a gloriously glittery metallic spray.  I finished off the mini canvas with some ink around the sides, a ceramic love word from Prima, and some enamel brads. 

Chipboard Canvas for Creative Embellishments

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I am up on the Creative Embellishments blog today.  You should check out their store as they have some amazing deals going on. 

I was looking around my craft room an noticed my paper cubes are a bit plain.   I have been putting off on painting them as I am thinking of changing craft room colors.   So I thought it would be fun to make a light weight canvas to hang on the side to give it some temporary style until I make the change.   I cut a piece of chipboard down to 8 x 8 and added some Tim Holtz distressed grungy paper for a base.   I decided to build up visual layers in order to keep the canvas light.  

I used the distressed brick stamp randomly in a sage green ink across the canvas.  I followed it with using a patina color ink with the distressed text stamp.  For my last layer of stamping I used my new favorite stamps, the halftone circle stamps in patina and chocolate brown. Let me tell you these stamps are so detailed an amazing.  To add more layers I used the harlequin lattice and the mini circle panels as stencils.   They worked beautifully, plus I still have the panels to use on another project.  Love getting extra use out of my supplies.

I used a teal spray on a grunge circle frame to highlight my quote.  I edged it with ink and paint along with embellishing it with some painted washers and a propeller.  I added an image from my paper stash along with a few little metal embellies and a few splashes of paint. Time to hang it on the cube with some sticky tac.  Have a wonderful day.