Faux Silk Background Tutorial

Today I thought I'd give you all another background tutorial. This one is called a Faux Silk background. I can't remember where I saw it originally. I've been collecting background techniques for years. Anyway, here's what mine looks like:

Here are the supplies you'll need:

🔹card stock

🔹stamp and ink pad

🔹tissue paper

🔹ink sprays

First you ink your stamp. I used a dye ink type.

Then you stamp it on your piece of tissue. I used white tissue because I'll add color later but I suppose you could use colored tissue also. Remember, you're just stamping the tissue.

Then you'll want to crumple your tissue into a small ball.  

Uncrumple your ball very carefully. Try not to rip the tissue. Crumple it up a couple more times.

After its all good and wrinkly, you'll want to cut around your stamped image to apply to your cardstock.

I attached my tissue to my cardstock using a glue stick.

When attaching it, make sure to not do it too smoothly. You want the fine wrinkles to show.

Next I cut my cardstock to size and started spraying with spray inks to give it more color.

And this is my end result:

I decided to use it for a swap on swapbot. The title of the swap is "Butterfly Atc." This is what I came up with:

                                                                

 I would love to see what backgrounds you all make using this technique. Please email me a pic or add a link in the comments section. Have fun!

Winter Snow Altered CD and Tutorial

I finally got around to doing a project for some challenge sites. I've also included a small tutorial for it in today's post.

So here it is:

Here's how I made it:

First I added paper to both sides of the cd, making sure I got the string for the hook in between the cd and paper on the back side:

I cut out a snowflake causing my cricut out of a cereal box:

Then I gessoed it and painted it with white metallic paint:

While that was drying, I painted my papered cd with three coats of sparkle podge:

I outlined my snowflake with glitter glue:

And added texture paste around the outside of my cd:

I sprinkled some glitter on the texture paste and glued the snowflake in the middle of the cd:

I added a sequin to the middle of my snowflake and some white, glitter puffy paint on top of that:

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed my tutorial.

Color Challenge #3

Thank you for checking out my third color challenge. I'm really having a lot of fun with these. I get to satisfy my love of a challenge as well as get some swapping done. 

My color palette was generated from colourpod.com:

For the swaps I had entered on swapbot, I needed to make two tags and an atc. I decided to make my tags the same size as an atc so I could use some pre-made backings. I looked through my stash and found several that would match my color scheme.

I made the atc first. There was no theme for the swap I made this for, so no limitations other than my colors. I chose the background I made that I call "alcohol ink dunk." I'll post a tutorial for that soon.

The embellishments and techniques I used are as follows:

🔹I used a few brads

🔹Some washi tape from the dollar store.

🔹I dabbed some alcohol ink on a piece of plastic and then embossed it. I       stapled it onto my atc. (It's difficult to see the embossing in the pic.)

My next two tags are for a swap that required an inspirational quote on the tag. We had to complete four tags in total. I made the other two in a previous color challenge you can see here.

In the first tag, I ended up using two of my pre-made backgrounds:

The bigger green star is a piece of chipboard that I cut out using my cricut. (Btw, I have bought the deep cut cutting blades for my cricut but it still doesn't cut through my chipboard all the way. Does anyone else have that problem and know any solutions?)

Here's my second tag:

This one is pretty simple. I used:

🔹Lace from the discount bins at Michaels

🔹A crocheted flower

🔹A few buttons

🔹And some fibers someone had sent me in a previous swap. I love getting     extras!

And there you have it! Now I've got to get started on this weeks art journal challenges. I added another sites (Color Me Positive) weekly prompts to my personal challenges. I, of course, would love it if you checked out my entries during this week.

In my text post, I'll be sharing another tutorial so make sure you check back for that also!

Mini Sparkly Stars Tutorial

I super like making my own embellishments. And lately I've been making a lot of sparkly ones. I needed some for my Journal52 journal page this week and so I thought I'd make a tutorial on how I made them.

Here are what they look like finished: 

And here's how you make them: 

Supplies needed: 

 - stock or recycled cereal boxes
 - small punch
 - mod podge

 - glitter
 - sparkly mod podge 

First you punch out your shapes out of card stock or sometimes I like to use recycled cereal boxes for added strength. 

Then you paint on some regular mod podge. Paint it on thick.

While the mod podge is still wet, pour on some glitter. 

Next, shake the glitter off or pour the excess back into the container. I knew my stars would stick to my page so I just dumped the excess back as shown:

Carefully put your shapes aside as you glitter them different colors. 

After they are all glittered, let them dry for a bit. Once they are dry, paint them again with "sparkle podge".

And again, here's what they will look like when you're done: 

I admit, they're a little tedious to make, but if you're like me and would rather make embellishments vs. buying pre-made ones, these are fun. 

For those of you who haven't seen my last post yet, this is what I used the stars for:

I would love to see any sparkly shapes you make so send me an email or leave a link in the comments!