ADORNit Art Play Paintables and Prima Watercolor Pencils

At the anniversary three-day crop for my LSS, this spring, I was asked to help with one of the make n take nights.  I was given two pages of ADORNit Art Play paintable sheets to prepare as samples for people to copy or use as inspiration as they painted their own paintable card.

I used Prima Water Color Pencils and a water brush.  If you haven't tried colored pencil water coloring, you really must.  It is one of the most relaxing paper crafting things you can do.  You just add a little color with the pencils, here and there, then blend with the water brush and it is pure magic.

Saint Patrick's Day Paper Crafts Using Authentique's Lucky Collection

Back in March I taught a class at my LSS using Authentique's Lucky paper collection. It was a lot of fun creating as I didn't have anything St. Patricksy to scrap and had never decorated for it either.  I ended up creating two decorative pieces and one layout.

The two page layout above uses several of the elements from the paper line as well as a couple of embossed chipboard heats painted with distress paint. It was a very simple design. I just wanted to let the really fun papers shine!

The second project was to make a decorative frame for an office desk, home mantle, or entrance table.  This project uses a frame from the Dollar Tree, Antique Linen Distress Glitter, the Sizzix/Tim Holtz Alterations Banner die. The clover is four hearts cut from chipboard and covere in Peeled Paint and Shabby Shutters Distress Glitter. 

The last project I made was this banner.  The base was using the DIY Shop Kraft Banners.  I sprayed them with Gold Perfect Pearls and water to give some shimmer. Then I punched the corners of the different title cards with a Cropadile Corner Chomper - Cloud. I made rosettes using the Sizzix/Tim Holtz Alterations Lg Rosette die.  I punched 1" and 1/2" circles and sewed them into a banner with gold metallic thread and strung it along on top of the banner. The tops of the banner was covered with borders cut from a Sizzix border die.

In addition to the class for March we were also supposed to make a make n take tag for my LSS for Friday night crops.  I got a chance to play with Prima Clear Crackle and I LOVED it! The only problem was we were supposed to use the canvas tags and it didn't crackle on the canvas like it did on flat surfaces.  So I had to think of something else to do with it. So I used the Tim Holtz Lace stencil, covered the tag with the Crackle medium and lifted the stencil off. Then I covered the crackle with Antique Linen Distress Glitter. Once it was dry, I spritzed the linen tag with Pistachio Distress Spray Stain. 

I displayed it in a frame from the Dollar Tree that I painted gold

Love Springs Eternal

Okay, so I know the Alexander Pope quote is HOPE springs eternal, but I decided to take a little creative license with it for this cute spring picture of two couples in love.

 I used the Carta Bella Baby Mine Girl paper and stickers for this layout.  And it just so happens that Carta Bella posted a sketch on their blog that my friend Susan made for the Baby Mine Boy paper line.  So I decided to give it a try with the girl line.  If you haven't checked out their blog, you must!

For these embellishments I layered stickers from the sticker sheet to make the Mickey and Minnie tags.  The letter stickers are Tim Holtz Ideaology Label Letters.  I felt this page needed a few little touches of black.

 I was given a Prima Wooden ATC card to use with this paper.  I thought that True Love was perfect for this picture.  These come as plain pieces of wood with some etching on them.  I wanted to do something with it, so I colored the hearts.

 I picked a few colors from my Ranger Distress Paints and using my water pen, I painted the color on in the different sections.  The watered down paint was somewhat translucent and allowed the wood to still show through.

 It went on quite easily.  Once the paint had dried, I lightly sanded it to distress it more.

 A few more little touches of black.  These black dots are from Queen & Co. Candy Shoppe Frosties.

 The sketch called for two borders.  It shows scalloped, but doesn't have to be.  I felt scalloped fit though and there was a scalloped pink border on the sticker sheet.  Cool!  But only one. Bummer!  What to do?

First I cut the border sticker in half.  I used the scalloped part on the top of the layout and then took the 1/2" straight strip and using a Lifestyle Crafts scallop border die, I put the sticker strip along the scalloped edge and cut it.

Dies work much better for cutting or altering scissors than scissors or punches which seem to gum up.

Last but not least I got out my Label Stickers again and cut some letters for a title and I was finished!