Gnome Sweet Gnome

 Hello!  This is Joyce Shaulis with my second "Exploring my Backyard" themed blog project this month.  One of my favorite things to do is to go to garage sales.  I enjoy creating on recycled objects and giving new life to old things.  This project was a perfect chance to use one of my recent garage sales finds.  
  

 

 

This is what my original garage sale purchase looked like when I bought it.  It is a wooden box covered in a vintage style map and forest scene with a handle.  It can be used for storage or as a purse.  I had no preconceived idea in mind when I bought it, except I had thought I would probably be starting from scratch and painting over it.  You can use any type of box for your project, new or used. 

 

 

 

 

To begin with, I used Susan's adorable "What's Up Gnomey?" stamp set and mini POP ink in Mystery.  I stamped out two complete sets, plus additional stamps to complete the sides of the box.  I colored in the pieces with markers.  I made the figures different colors to give it more variety. 

 

 



 

 

Next, I cut out all pieces.  Using the Cocoa mini POP ink, I edged all pieces to add depth.  I also stained the edges of some mini fabric flowers with the Cocoa ink.

 

 

 

 

Next, I glued on all the cut out pieces with Decou-page with an old paintbrush.  I used white glue to add the tiny flowers. Be sure to use an xacto knife to cut apart any pieces that cross over the lid.

 

 

 

 

I had colored the gnome for the back side in different colorings then the front.  I glued all pieces with the gnome on the back with the Decou-page, and also glued mushrooms and flowers on the sides.

 

 

 



 

 

 

I stamped the verse with Mystery, colored in the background with markers, tore it out by hand, edged it in Cocoa, then added dots with a marker.  I stained some large and medium flowers with the Cocoa and glued them on to the top of the lid with white glue.

 

 

 

 

 

After all the pieces dried, I went over all the pieces with the Decou-Page.  Spray with Matte acrylic spray if desired for extra durability. 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this project I created, and if you explore your backyard, you just might spot some Gnomes like I did!

 

 

Joyce Shaulis    Susan K. Weckesser Design Team Member

 

 

 

Susan K. Weckesser products:

     https://www.unitystampco.com/  What's Up Gnomey?

     https://www.clearsnap.com/  mini POP inks in Mystery and Cocoa

 

Other Products:

     https://Kuretakezig.us Zig memory systems pen

     https://decoart.com/  Decou-page matte. Americana matte acrylic spray

     white glue

     assorted fabric, paper, burlap flowers 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

     

 

A Tweet Little Cushion

Hello Crafty Friends :) 

Samantha here with another garden themed make I would like to share with you.

I don't very often get the urge to use a needle and thread so when I do funny things happen like this sweet little cushion.

I'm not totally sure where the idea for this cushion came from. Our theme for the month is Art Journal Fun -  Explore your back yard/garden. I know there isn't technically any journaling but I love the positivity of the 'Let your heart sing' sentiment. 

I started my cushion by applying interfacing to the back of some plain white muslin. The interfacing stops the material from falling apart and helps to give the cushion strength and structure. I painted the green grass and blue sky directly on the front of the cushion. I used a stencil to add a little layer of detail to the green grass by painting a light green first and then using the stencil a dark green. I then stamped the sentiment also straight on to the cushion.

The sun and birds and flowers were all stamped separately and after stitching and filling the cushion they were glued and stitched in place along with some sequins for a little sparkle.

I didn't use any specialist paint just normal acrylics did the job.

One of my favourite garden birds is the robin so I used Derwent watercolour pencils to colour my robin as I was a little concerned that paint wouldn't blend on the fabric how I wanted it to.

The stamps I used for my 4in x 4 in cushion are:

Sing Your Song which can be found by clicking here

and Journal Doodles with a Heart which can be found by clicking here

I do hope I have inspired you and wish you a lovely day

Samantha Read

Susan K. Weckesser Design Team Member

Love and Dreams

Good morning everyone. How is everyone today? Today I decided to make a mixed media card. 

I usually only do journal pages for my mixed media so today I am working on something new. 

I started with one of my favorite stamp sets.
Create your Day!

I stamped the house and flowers with black ink.
I then colored them using Copic markers C5, C3, C1, C0 and R20.

I then used a pink Faber-Castell Pitt Big Brush Artist Pen to go around the edges.
Sort or a zetangle effect.
I then wrote the verse on the card.
"Home is a starting place for love and dreams."
It needed a little something else so I splattered some distress ink
all over the card. I used Black Soot and Pickled Raspberry with the
Distress Marker Spritzer. 

Hope you enjoyed my card today.
Don't forget to come back this week and see what the girls create.

Have a wonderful Monday everyone. 

Summertime Smiling

Good morning everyone. Larissa here with you today sharing a tag I made using 

Susan K Weckesser stamps.

I stamped Washi tape from the set A Little Bit Washi. 

This set is so fun. I stamped each piece in a different ink color.

I then stamped the Tree and Bird from At Ground Level on a piece of watercolor paper. 

I used my Peerless watercolors to color them in. I cute them out and adhered them to the card using

Tombow Mono Multi Adhesive.

Of course had to add a little Gnome somewhere.

I added a piece of ribbon from my stash to the top with a bow to finish it off. 

Don’t forget to join in the fun of our contest going on right now.

“SPOT THE GNOMEY”

Create something / anything using the “What’s Up Gnomey” Stamp Kit co-branded with Unity Stamp Company.

Share your own creation across all of your social media sites using the hashtag #spotthegnomey. You will then be entered to win a big prize package worth $120.00!

 PLUS, spot a Gnomey creation and retweet or share using the same hashtag #spotthegnomey, and be entered to win a $50.00 prize package. So let people know about the #spotthegnomey contest and give them a chance to win too! How fun is that?! You have two chances to win a fabulous prize package by sharing the Gnomey love. And even better, you’ll have fun playing along and seeing all the travels of Gnomey with us. 

Thank you for stopping by to see me today. Check back tomorrow for more FABULOUS creations from our Design Team. 

A list of all Supplies Used and Links: 

Susan K Weckesser A Little Bit Washi Unity Stamp Co	Susan K Weckesser At Ground Level Unity Stamp Co	What's up Gnomey? by Susan K Weckesser	*Fiskars Compact STAMPING PRESS Stamp Entire Project at Once! 02958
Peerless Color Watercolors	ColorBox Crafter's® by Ann Butler Berry	Ann Butler Designs Clearsnap Ink Tangelo	Colorbox Crafters by Ann Butler Limelight
ColorBox Crafter's® by Ann Butler Aquamarine	ColorBox Crafter's® by Ann Butler Sunshine	*Tombow MONO MULTI Liquid Glue Two Applicators 62191

InLinkz.com

Life is a beautiful thing

Hi! I'm Valerie Reyes.  I'm so excited to be here as a guest designer for April.  Susan's artwork is so lovely, it makes me smile just to look at.  It was 3 AM when I walked in my front door from a road trip to see my design team box. I did take a few minutes to get the kids in from the car and into bed before I opened my box, but not a moment longer.

It was a true act of self control not to start working before I finished my haul video (you can find it on my YouTube channel). I went to sleep dreaming about two patterned papers in particular: Live, Love, Create and Beautiful Daydreams.

I knew that charming green house belonged in the sunny afternoon, so I started there.  After cutting out the house, I popped it up on dimensional adhesive using the Beautiful Daydreams patterned paper as a background. I used Smooch Pearlized Accent Ink to add definition to some of the details in the background paper: stems of flowers, rays of the sun, edges of clouds. The next thing to go down was the stamped sentiment, "Let your heart sing." from the Sing Your Song stamp set.

Then, I wasn't quite sure what to do.  I knew that I wanted it to be either wall art or a title page for one of my scrapbooks, so I googled the phrase, "Let your heart sing."  and came up with a song by Katharine McPhee. I filled in the white space with stamps from Little Yellow Bicycle's Love Letters Collection. Here is the final page.

If you're interested you can watch this video of my whole process.

Thank you so much for stopping by and a special thank you to Susan K. Weckesser, Inc. for giving me the opportunity to guest design here.

Valerie Reyes
Susan K. Weckesser Guest Design Team Member

Create To Live Layout

Happy Tuesday!  Today I wanted to share a layout that I created of why I love to create.  It truly is a part of me to do something creative just about everyday or else I feel something is missing.  I used the lovely Live In Color Paper Collection by Susan K. Weckesser and also fussy cut some of the designs from the paper such as the clouds, kite, flowers and title.  I also used a Faber Castell Pitt Big Brush Pen and a Susan K. Weckesser stencil to add some faux stitching and also Susan's A Little Grunge Love Stamps.

I also misted my die cut title that I cut with my Silhouette Cameo and added some paint splatters and some misted spots so that the journaling would be easier to see.

I hope you are inspired to create a layout on why you love to create.  Sometimes selfies are therapeutic. Have a lovely day!

Lee-Anne

my sweet girl

 For Catherine's first birthday we had a few pictures taken by a friend, and they turned out wonderfully.  This is one of the beauties that came out of that shoot.

 

I love the look of mixed media, playing with your embellishments, creating texture, looking around the page at all the fun different items, but never taking away from the picture itself.  That is part of the art, not letting the page "eat" the picture, but letting the page enhance the picture.  

Below is my methodology of how I build a page - a peak into my head so to speak.  Sorry for the lighting on some of the pictures, I did not always have the best light available as I was building my page.

How to Build a Mixed Media Page

 1) I start with the papers.  I look for papers that correspond to my picture, I want to complement it, not fight with it.  I used my daughter's hair bow (since the rest of the picture is brown, flesh, or white I used those colors (pink, teal, white, etc).  The papers from Susan K. Weckesser were a perfect match, they just begged to go with this picture.

 The "color burst" paper was perfect for the background, and then I added in the "bouquet" and "beautiful days" as layers.

2) I this point I have a sketch in my head of the design of the layout, I know I wanted the picture in the middle right, with elements going above and to the left of the picture.  I start pulling items that I think will work on my page, not caring about color, just the shapes.  Not all the items will make the cut and be used, but this gives my an idea if I like where I am headed.  Nothing is glued down, it is just my rough idea at this point.

3) I apply gesso to all the embellishments that need a change of color (except for the top lace it was white so it took color no problem).  The spray them with spray mist.  I used Tattered Angels mist in a couple of different shades of light pink. I mist them each 2-3 times to give them a good coat.  I also let them dry before each coat so they absorb the mist better.  I do this off the page so I do not apply to much mist to the background papers.

4) Now I add texture to the page.  I used stencils by Prima with gesso, added in my papers (distressing each layer of paper with scissors and edging them with ink) and trims, and for fun I added in layers of Snowtex.  I gives this wonderful bumpy texture.  I even took a couple of Susan K. Weckesser stamps and stamped in gesso below the picture and in the top left corner below the lace and stencil area.  I used two small phrases found on the stamps sets below "Celebrate the simple things" and "Don't go through life, grow through life"

5) Now I start to add my embellishments back on.  I do not have the picture glued down yet, as I might still spray and I don't want to damage my picture.

6) I start to glue down items as I like to way the looks in that location.  I sometimes take pictures and step away for the page to see how it looks a hour later (especially if I am waiting for something to dry).

7) If I feel there are dead or blank areas, I will either add in another embellishment (or two) or add in more texture.  I did this just above the picture, it felt it was missing something so I added another bit of stenciled gesso.  I also sometimes move things around or change the item completely.  I just let the page go with the flow.  I don't fight to make it work, because I find it never looks good if I do that.

 8) One of the last steps is to go over the gessoed embellishments one more time with paint or chalk ink, sometimes both.  This help them pop out of the page a bit.  I might even add a bit more gesso to the items so they don't look to pink. it adds contrast.  I also leave some items plain, or without gesso like bling and such.  On this page I also added on some glitter via Stickles from Ranger in Crystal for a bit of sparkle.

 9) You can see some of the texture and the Susan K. Weckesser Stamp

Supplies Used:
Cardstock - Core'dinations
Patterned Paper - Susan K. Weckesser 
Flowers - Prima and Petaloo
Media - DecoArt, O'Leary paint, Liquitex,
Paint, Mist, Sprays, glitter - Ranger, Tattered Angels, Martha Stewart
Metals - Prima, Momenta,  and Other
Chipboard - Memory Maze
Stamps - Susan K. Weckesser
Mask - Prima
Trims and Lace - Other
Found Objects - Other

 Enjoy!!

 Erin Reed Design Team Member