MIx-Ability challenge: painting with coffee

It's my turn to host the Mix-Ability challenge this week, and I pulled out a technique I've been wanting to try for some time - painting with coffee!

You can work with regular or instant coffee - I chose instant coffee because it was easy to mix with a small amount of water, and easy to control the ratios for lighter and darker concentrations.

I filled a well of my palette about 1/2 full with the instant coffee powder, and then added water with a dropper until it was mixable. For a lighter color, I took some of the concentrated mixture and added more water in a second well.

Once the coffee is mixed, you can paint with it like you would a watercolor medium. Spritz with water to spread the color further or to create a wash for a background. Work from light to dark, and layer different shades of coffee paint to create depth. 

The painted coffee also lifts very willingly with water, so I had some fun with lifting here too - splattering in the background then rolling a paper towel roll across the piece, and lifting the steam area to lighten it up.

This was a lot of fun, and I hope you'll try it - I used the cheapest, smallest container of instant coffee I could find, and I'm happy with the results. I was working on matboard here, but watercolor paper worked well too.

Happy weekend!

Splitcoast Tutorial: Four Way Card

I'll keep my blog post short today - my eyes are dilated and I'm having a hard time focusing on my screen! I wanted to make sure to share a link to today's tutorial over on Splitcoast though - this is a tutorial that has been requested several times - it's a Four Way Card. It can stand like I've displayed it here, but it also folds flat for mailing. The center 'ornament' also has 4 panels, and can be made dimensional for display as well.

Things to remember:

--Held prints are in stock, and Crafty Bird prints are available for pre-order

--Today is the 3rd day of the Inchie Arts/StencilGirl hop - scroll down to yesterday's post for today's links. Remember to comment for a chance to win stencils and Art Squares!

Thanks for stopping by!

Inchie Arts hop with Stencil Girl!

So excited to be joining the Inchie Arts girls in a hop with the StencilGirl crew! What a fun combination of products in the hands of amazing artists. :)  Wait till you see the full hop list! And check this info out:

We'll be picking one lucky winner to receive a $25 StencilGirl Products Gift Certificate and 1 package each of White 4", 3", ATC (2.5" X 3.5") and Swatch (2" X 4") size Art Squares!

All comments left on the hop list participants’ posts will be entered. Winner will be announced on StencilGirl Product’s Facebook Page on January 31^st. One comment per blog. Comments close on January 30^th @ 11:59PM Central.

I wanted to share a technique, so I played around with both products in my new Big Shot Plus - that was a birthday present that I've been having fun with - I'll share more about it later, if you'd like! My regular size Big Shot was getting loose, so it's nice to have a new machine in addition to the benefits of the larger size. Anyway! Kristen Powers of RubberMoon sent me some of her gorgeous stamps to play with, so I'm featuring those today (you'll see her artwork on the hop tomorrow!). Stamps I used: ML201 Beautiful Mistakes, KP5021 Make Art

My card base is a 4" black Art Square. I embossed the panel with the stencil, layering the Big Shot base with a cutting pad, matboard, stencil, cutting pad and 3-4 cereal box shims. Here's what that looked like when I worked with the white square.

Here's the finished square - it's not a deep impression, but it's enough for brayering or sponging, or scraping acrylics, which I did on both cards here.

My second card was so much fun to make - I scraped the light blue paint across the Art Square with an old gift card, then used my MISTI to position the girl stamp (RubberMoon - ML202 Dreamer Girl). I heat set the ink, painted over it with acrylic paints, then restamped the image to redefine the lines.

As happens often, I sort of lost the texture under the layers... You can see, though, in the corners, how the texture picks up in the areas where I rubbed ink in.

The 'speed 5 mph' is a rub-on from 7gypsies... I've been dragging a bit the last few weeks so it seemed appropriate! I love this girl's sweet face.

The StencilGirl products I used on my projects are L352 Deconstructed Floral Bouquet and S217 Rose Window Stencil. They're beautiful!

Please visit these other artists who have projects to share for the hop:

January 25
StencilGirl Talk
Mary C. Nasser
Mary Beth Shaw
Lisa Lee

January 26 
StencilGirl Talk
Maria McGuire
Gwen Lafleur
Dina Kowal

January 27 

StencilGirl Talk

Janet Joehlin

Sharon Harnist

Kae Pea

And please visit our sponsors so you can check out their amazing products:

StencilGirl Products and Inchie Arts

Thank you for stopping by! xoxo

Crafty Birds!

I added a few new pieces to my art collection this weekend - these were so much fun to do! I have a pile of in-progress canvases on my desk that each get a new layer of color every time I have some extra paint from another project... It's a great way to build up backgrounds, and to have a canvas ready to go when I need it.

You know that I love painting scenes that move me... because of that, I have a hard time just painting for fun. That was my purpose in working out these 2 pieces... they are 5"x7" canvas panels that I just painted for the joy of painting, based on some bird sketches I did last week and things that make me smile... stamping and painting!

I have added these to my list of prints that can be ordered from my blog - I will be placing an order for all prints on Monday, Feb. 1 - please go ahead and pre-order before that time so I'm sure to get the ones you want! I added a button to my left sidebar so you can find the page easily... I think I'll be placing orders once a month - we'll try that anyway, and see how it works. :)

I'm participating in the StencilGirl/Inchie Arts blog hop, so I'll be back with a post tomorrow - you can view the first day's posts today HERE.

Have a great week!
 

Winner winner!

Eek! I forgot to pick a winner yesterday! So let's do  2.

Stampinlouie and Rachel B.!!!

Ladies, email me with your mailing addresses and I will send something fun your way!

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Janelle's Mix-ability challenge this week is such a fun one with so many possibilities... I went to my file folder of gel prints and put together an inlaid  die cut scene using border dies from Impression Obsession.

 You can find the tutorial HERE... for the piecing, I worked from the top down. With the repeated colors, there's almost a reflective look.

And it was unintentional but it ended up looking cool on the back, too!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Impression Obsession DT Challenge: Flower Power

The Impression Obsession team's challenge today is to create a project using floral stamps. This was one of my CHA board samples - it's a wood plaque that I painted, stamped and then painted some more.

This stamp image is L13426 Fuchsia - it's from my new release. I've always loved fuchsias - they're such bold and interesting colors.

It's a larger image, which makes it ideal for this type of piece - I stamped using Memento Luxe ink, then painted within the lines, building up layers of color as I went along. 

I used the Vintage Honeycomb Cover-a-Card stamp to add some texture after the painting was done - that was stamped with Versamark ink, and embossed with white powder - I brushed some of it off lightly before heat setting so the effect would be lighter.

Every time we go to Goodwill I pick up a few wood pieces to paint... I need to remember to actually PAINT them, which is one of my creative goals this year!

Be sure to check out these other designers' blogs for inspiration -

Anna @ Sassy & Sweet Notes
Daniela @ For the First Time
Dina @ Mama Dini's Stamperia ---- you're here
Ellen @ The Serendipitous Stamper
Jeanne @ Inky Paws
Jenny @ One Krafty Kat
Karen @ Paper Lilies and Ink
Kittie @ Kittie Kraft
Laura @ Laura's Stamp Art Journal
Vicki @ Summerthyme Studio

Remember you can enter these challenges too, using your Impression Obsession stamps! See the I.O. blog for all the details - you might even win a $25 gift certificate!! We'd love to have you join us.

Splitcoast Tutorial: Pyramid Boxes

Today's super cute tutorial is perfect for upcoming Valentine's Day treats - these little Pyramid Boxes are so much fun to make, decorate and fill! The tutorial is done using a die from Stampin' Up, but we've also provided a template you can print.

I wanted to make a few different designs to provide some variety in the gallery, so I started with this fun bunny - my favorite part of the design is his monstrous fluffy tail!

The back of the box tucks in underneath the bow to hold in whatever treats you want to tuck inside.

I had some fun with this little crazy kitty...

And then just to keep things quirky, I decorated a little Christmas tree (don't tell... I still have my Winnie the Pooh tree up in the bedroom!). The stickers I used are gold Peel-Offs from Elizabeth Craft Designs.

The ornaments are glass dew drops.... I think I still have about a million of those tucked in with my EYELETS.

Hope you'll make a few of these - they're lots of fun!

Pugs and a million hits!

Over the weekend I hit a milestone on my blog - my hit counter rolled over 1,000,000! I was so excited when the hit counter got close that I posted a giveaway to Facebook to whoever made the numbers tip. And then... of course... I was checking to see if we were there yet... and... I  was the one who made it tip. 

Derp.

Which was exciting... but... I didn't get to send any happy mail out! So... let's have a quick drawing here just for fun! Leave a comment on this post letting me know 1) something you've learned here, 2) a product you'd like to see me review, or 3) a stamp or set you'd like to see me design. 

I'll draw a name Wednesday (Jan. 20) at midnight eastern time, and announce the winner Thursday the 21st. Winner will get a package of goodies from my stash.

Just for fun, one of my show samples from the new release at CHA - some of you requested that this little pugger be made into a stamp when I drew it a few months ago, so I hope you'll take a peek! The pug is HERE, and I paired it with a punny sentiment that you can find HERE. My sample was colored with Touch Twin Markers.

I am having the hardest time getting back into a routine after my weekend at CHA - I'm exhausted. I drew a lot over the weekend - trying to get a good grouping of stamps and sets together for the summer release deadline in a couple of weeks.

Hope you have a great week!

"Held" prints are here!

So excited to receive my box of prints a day earlier than I expected! I'll be working over the weekend to package and ship those that were preordered. Besides preorders, I have 10 extra 8"x10" prints and 12 of the 5"x7"s - there's even an extra 11"x14" if someone is interested. ETA: I have 7 more of the 8"x10" prints.  Go ahead and order through the sale page if you'd like one of your own. I need to restock my shipping materials and I'll place another order in a few weeks.

So grateful for your support!

Splitcoast Tutorial: Faux Fresco

This week's tutorial over on Splitcoast is a fun mixed media technique called Faux Fresco - be sure to click on the link to find out how this layered technique works!

I started by embossing a watercolor panel with a folder from Darice. I used Inktense Blocks for the initial coloring, since I knew they'd stay put after they were activated with water... I started with a dry rubbing over the embossed areas, then spritzed, let it dry a little and then added more color with another block. Here's what the panel looked like after that step:

After coloring, there's a layer of white acrylic paint added by scraping with a credit card, then clear embossing ink and powder is applied to the raised areas. The result is a beautiful faded fresco effect - I added some stamping with a text and crackle stamp just to add to the aged look.

I added a few accent stamps from my line at Impression Obsession (Sewing Ruler, Lg. Sew , Happy For You), and button dies as well. The lace border is one of my die designs - I sewed that onto the ruler border and pleated as I sewed.

Come give this one a try! Hope you're having a wonderful week. :)

CHA Megashow pics

I  had a great weekend at the CHA Megashow in Anaheim - here's a little peek at who I saw, and the things I wanted to remember! If you'd rather view the whole album instead, click HERE.

Art Colouring Books - review

We're all aware of the world's sudden realization that coloring is good, cheap therapy... finally figuring out what we've known all along! I love the recent adult coloring book surge. I was honored to receive two brand new editions of the Art Colouring Book series from Katy Sue Designs to play with and review - these are beautiful volumes featuring original artwork by Sandra Rushton. Being released at the CHA MegaShow today are Nautical Adventures and Le Shoe!  I'm looking forward to seeing the Katy Sue Designs crew in person this weekend. 

A little about the books themselves - you can see the size and thickness of the books here... The pages are beautiful heavy weight cardstock that can be removed from the spiral and trimmed to 8" by 8".Each book contains 70 coloring pages, some shaded artwork, some line art, and some patterns with similar themes... there are 10 themed mini collections in each book.  You can see the difference between the shaded artwork and the line art below.

The designs, which are printed on just one side of each page, could be used for scrapbook or smashbook pages, cut out and framed, or incorporated into other cards or crafts. I love the way the spiral binding lays flat for easy coloring.  The nautical book has a strong Asian theme, which was a lot of fun for me as well.

Of course I had to test a few different mediums out! I started with Prismacolor Pencils - my hand cramps so easily these days, so with all these little details, I really appreciated the softness of these old favorites. The Prismacolors were my favorite medium to use of all that I tried, and it was so much fun to really get into the small areas to bring out the intricacies of each section. I used a Caran D'Ache Full Blender to smooth the color in some areas, and that worked very well. Mineral spirits can also be used with good results, and no bleed through.

The next medium I tried was watercolor, and I used Peerless sheets for this piece. I didn't take the time to really go into the details but I may do that with watercolor pencils or some markers at a later time... I really was more interested in seeing how durable the paper would be with water. The paper held up surprisingly well to the water, with no bleeding of the ink. Warping was pretty minimal, and flattened with the weight of other pages after it dried.

For this shoe, I used a variety of watercolor markers (Zig Clean Color, Akashiya Sai and Distress), and was a little less impressed... I'm used to using these markers on watercolor paper where the color stays on top of the paper and blends well with water or with another marker applied over the top.

I was able to do some tip-to-tip blending with the markers, and also was able layer the colors for a blended look, just not necessarily the look I was going for! :) Here I used a white Posca pen to add some highlights - that worked well. I don't normally color like this with these markers and I probably wouldn't again, but... that is why we do test pages! If you normally color with water-based markers hopefully this info helps. Distress markers behaved the best for me.

For a final test, I used alcohol markers, and was pleased generally with how that went, except for some bleeding in the areas that I overblended... again... I'm used to blending a little more heavily on cardstock that holds the ink in place, so I did have a few issues in some areas that were more my fault than the fault of the paper. :) There's more evidence of the paper working than there are areas that bled.

The googlie eye just needed to happen there.

Here is the back of the page so you can see that there is significant bleed-through. A piece of cardstock or a teflon sheet between the pages keeps the ink contained to the back of the page, and not affecting the pages under it. Not a problem!

These books are retailing at $15, and you can get them directly from Katy Sue Designs or via the Amazon links I posted up top. I hear there are more themes to come as well!  If you have questions, need more inspiration, or would like more peeks inside these books, you can find Art Colouring Books on Facebook - please tell them I sent you. :)