A Merry Mosaic December Daily Journal For Therm O Web

Hello everyone, popping in to let you know that I have a tutorial over on Therm O Web's blog today for my Merry Mosaic December daily journal.

I used lots of products from Rebekah Meier Designs Mixed Media line, Deco Foil Transfer Foils and some brand new very sparkly Gina K Designs Fancy Foils.  Eileen Hull's Journal die from Sizzix started it all and many of Tim Holtz's dies were used as well (Broadway Alphabet die, Prancing Deer, Holiday Knits, Holiday Words 2: Script, Mini Retro Packages, Mini Wreath & Bow and Garden Greens).  Tim's layering stencils and stamps from Stampers Anonymous came out to play as well along with Distress and Archival inks, hope you can stop by for my how to!

I'd like to enter my December daily journal into the following challenges if you don't mind popping over to Therm O Web's blog to see the details :O)

- Mini Album Makers Challenge blog launch challenge
- Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog - Shimmer and Shine challenge, there's a whole lot of shimmer and shine on and in my journal from the Deco Foils, Perfect Pearls and embossing powders!

Deb xo

Thankful For Fall Mixed Media Home Decor Plaque For Southern Ridge Trading Company

Hello and thanks for stopping by, I'm popping in today to let you know that I have a tutorial over on Southern Ridge Trading Company's blog for my Thankful For Fall mixed media plaque.

I used Southern Ridge's Bare Branches, Pumpkin Leaves, Fall Leaves and Maple Branch to create this home decor plaque for fall along with Tim Holtz's Broadway die, Burlap stencil, Idea-ology embellishments and Distress products and the Aspen Trees stencil from The Crafter's Workshop.  Hope you can pop by for my how to, see you there!

Deb xo

Fall Fair Mixed Media Reverse Canvas

Hello and thank you for stopping by!  I have a mixed media reverse canvas to share with you today that I made several months ago for a magazine submission.  Unfortunately it didn't make the cut and wasn't chosen for publication but I do love it and with fall in the air it seemed the perfect time to show it to you.

I don't have any step out photos I'm afraid but will show you some close ups and try and remember how I made it, it was quite a while ago!

I started with a 6" x 8" stretched artists canvas, reversed it and covered the front edge of the frame with some of Tim Holtz's Travel and Aristocrat Design Tapes and lined the inside and outside edges of the frame with some strips of digital paper from Crafty Vintage Girl.

Tim Holtz's On The Farm stamp set was the inspiration for this piece, I stamped the ledger stamp from the set onto Distress Mixed Media Heavystock that I'd inked with Antique Linen and Tea Dye Distress Ink and adhered it onto the inner recess of the frame for my background.

The On The Farm critters were stamped with Ground Espresso Archival ink, clear embossed and then watercoloured with Tea Dye and Walnut Stain Distress Inks.  Each animal was fussy cut and stacked one atop the other on the ledger stamped background, sealing the whole piece with Distress Matte Collage Medium.  The critters were shaded with Walnut Stain Distress Marker.

The blue ribbon from the set was stamped with Blue Jeans Distress Ink and clear embossed and the center coloured with Stormy Sky Distress ink,  '1st' was stamped with some $1 store stamps and gold embossed.  A Star Adornment was inked with Butterscotch, Sunshine Yellow and Gold Mixative alcohol inks and added to the left side of the canvas and the 'best in show' phrase was printed out onto white cardstock and added below the star.

Love the detail on these farm animal stamps!

A vintage CNE poster that I found online was printed out onto cardstock, sealed with Distress Matte Collage Medium and adhered to the left side of the frame.  A couple of 'admit one' digital tickets from Vectoria Designs were resized and tucked in behind.

Three putka pods were stacked in the bottom left corner and some oak leaves punched with a Recollections punch from Distress Ink coloured cardstock were scattered about.

Acorns from a vintage Acorn stove advertisement were fussy cut, gently curved with a stylus and popped up in each of the corners with a pop dot overtop more oak leaves.

The 'Edward Foster' advertisement from the On The Farm stamp set was stamped onto more Distress Mixed Media Heavystock that had been aged with Ground Espresso and Walnut Stain Distress Inks and was added to the bottom of the frame.

The judging of canning and preserves are a big part of any rural fall fair so I found a vintage WWI Victory Garden poster online and added it to the right side of the frame.

The Fall Fair header was created from a vintage Acorn Stove advertisement, I removed the advertising from the center with my editing program and wrote in 'Fall Fair' (think this font is Armenian Circus?), fussy cut the ad and added it to the center top of the frame, flanked on each side by more acorns and oak leaves.

I can never leave the back of any project unfinished (I'm a bit obsessive about finishing projects on all sides and edges so they look good no matter what angle they are viewed from!) so printed out this fab Brackendale, B.C. fall fair poster and added it to the back.  I want to know what a zucchini race is, will have to pop down to Squamish one of these years and check it out!

I hope that you've enjoyed seeing my Fall Fair reverse canvas, love Tim's On The Farm stamp set and how it inspired this whole piece!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and as always happy creating (and make sure to get out and visit the fall fairs in your neck of the woods!).

Deb xo

Canada Travel Diary For Emerald Creek Craft Supplies

Hello and thanks for stopping by, hard to believe but the month of September is upon us and that means it's time for a new challenge over at Emerald Creek Dares.  This month, we are celebrating Canada's 150th birthday with our Canada The Beautiful Dare.  Kim is asking us to highlight Canadian living, be it mountains, rivers, snow, water, trees, red and white, maple leaves, wild life, etc.  For this Dare I decided to make a start on a Canada Travel Diary for the journey that my hubby and I are going to make across this amazing country of ours.

My husband is retiring this year and our retirement plan is to explore Canada from coast to coast to coast but rather than visiting the conventional places and sights we plan to explore the back country and wilderness that encompasses so much of our amazing nation.  In keeping with our travel plans, I used many of Emerald Creek's wildlife stamps along with some of their embossing powders and charms to make a start on my travel diary, read on for the how to!

Emerald Creek Craft Supplies used:

Orca stamp

Big Horn Sheep stamp

Moose stamp

Aldergrove stamp

Summer Camp stamp

Pine Cone stamp

Filigree Leaf charm

Squirrel charm

Heart brad

Candy Red embossing powder

Oh Canada embossing powder

Weathered Wood embossing powder

Burnt Copper Leaves embossing powder

Verdigris Sparkle embossing powder 

I wasn't sure how many pages I would need in my Canada travel diary so decided the easiest way to design it was to create individual pages joined together with a loose leaf ring so I could add pages as necessary.  I am just starting with a front and back cover and one other page right now and the rest will follow as we start on our travels this coming spring.

The base for all of the pages was a vintage map of Canada that I found online, printed out onto 110 lb cardstock.  Two maps were adhered together back to back to form each page and the edges inked with Ground Espresso Distress Archival ink.

The chipboard word 'Canada' from Southern Ridge's Canada 150 Set was inked with Barn Door Distress Stain and then embossed with Emerald Creek's Oh Canada embossing powder.

Emerald Creek's Orca was stamped onto white 67 lb cardstock with Black Soot Distress Archival ink, clear embossed and fussy cut (love this stamp!).

The Moose, Big Horn Sheep and Pine Cone were stamped with Ground Espresso Distress Archival ink, clear embossed and fussy cut again.  All of the stamped images were watercoloured with Distress Inks as you'll see in the pics below.

A Heart brad was embossed with Candy Red embossing powder,

and a Squirrel charm was inked with Mushroom and Caramel alcohol inks and then embossed with Burnt Copper Leaves embossing powder.

A Filigree Leaf charm was embossed with Verdigris Sparkle embossing powder on one side of the leaf and with Burnt Copper Leaves embossing powder on the other.

The small maple leaves from Southern Ridge's Canada 150 set and the Skeleton Maple Leaf were coloured with more Barn Door Distress Stain (which is the perfect Canada red!).

And then the pages were put together.  The front cover was embellished with the embossed Canada word, one of the small maple leaves and the embossed heart brad.  Each page had an eyelet set into the top left corner.  The Filigree Leaf and Squirrel charms were hung off the loose leaf ring.

The fussy cut orca and another small maple leaf on the inside of the front cover, I left lots of room for journaling and for adding pictures from our travels on the West Coast.

The front of the middle page was stamped with the Aldergrove stamp and Distress inks and some mountains and trees from Tim Holtz's Snowglobe die were added along with the fussy cut big horn sheep stamp.  I added one of the small maple leaves to each of the pages front and back.

The Summer Camp stamp was stamped a couple of times with Distress inks on the back of the middle page as a backdrop for the fussy cut moose.

The inside of the back cover was embellished with the bear from the Canada 150 set that was embossed with some Weathered Wood embossing powder and then inked with Mushroom alcohol ink.  The bear was positioned over top another small maple leaf and the fussy cut pine cones.

And finally the back cover was adorned with the Skeleton Maple Leaf from Southern Ridge.

I hope that you have enjoyed seeing my Canada Travel Diary, I can't begin to tell you how excited we are to start on our retirement journey and fill it up with lots of wonderful pictures and memories!

Hope that you've been inspired as well to join in our Canada The Beautiful Dare, you have a chance to win a $50.00 gift certificate to their online store;

as well as receiving a 10% discount on your next purchase just for entering the Dare!

 Thanks as always for stopping by today and can't wait to see what you link up, happy creating!

Deb xo

Sweet Life Stenciled Birdhouses For StencilGirl Talks

Hello everyone, I'm thrilled and honoured to say that I am a guest blogger over at StencilGirl Talk today, I was tickled pink when Mary Beth Shaw contacted me to ask if I'd be interested and I very enthusiastically said yes!  I made a trio of little birdhouses with a whole bunch of StencilGirl Products stencils (Rectangular Patterns For Play, Circular Patterns For Play, Doodle It Bigger, Tropical Floral, Rembrandt's Words Small, Black Birds In Trees, Song Birds and Nature's Gathering) and Tim Holtz's Tiny Houses die.

Front

Back

I've a step by step tutorial over at StencilGirl Talk so hope you can pop by for my how to and thanks again to Mary Beth Shaw and her amazingly talented team for asking me to join them!

Deb xo

Something Wicked Halloween Mixed Media Canvas

Hello everyone, thanks so much for stopping by.  I have a Halloween creation to share with you today, I just received some of Tim Holtz's new Sizzix and Stampers Anonymous releases and had to have a play with them, I love how my Something Wicked canvas turned out!

As soon as I saw Tim's Claw Marks dies on his Facebook Live video for the new Sizzix Halloween releases, I KNEW I had to pair them with Southern Ridge's Coming To Get You! bony hands, what a match made in heaven!  I don't have any step out photos as I was having way too much fun to stop (it's been much too long since I just played and made something for me, have to make time to do it more often!) but I'll share some close-ups and try and tell you how I made it.

I started out with a piece of white cardstock and inked it up with Distress Oxide's in Twisted Citron, Seedless Preserves and Black Soot, spritzing with water and dipping repeatedly until I was happy.  Overstamping came next with the Skulls background stamp and Black Soot Distress Archival ink and then I die cut three of the Claw Marks dies as well as the Wicked word from the Vintage Spirits die set.

The Bigz Skull was die cut from white card, coloured with Distress Inks and spritzed with brown Distress Stain Spray.  The eyes and nose and were backed with cardstock coloured with Barn Door and Aged Mahogany Distress inks and the Skull die cut positioned behind the top Claw Marks die cut opening.

I adhered a piece of black cardstock behind and then tattered the edges with a pair of scissors and rolled up and tattered the edges of the Claw Marks die cuts as well.  Three of the tombstones from the Village Graveyard set were die cut from black cardstock that was inked with Black Soot Distress Oxide, edging them with Black Soot Distress Archival ink.

The Coming To Get You! chipboard hands were sponged with shades of beige and light green acrylic paints and then they were spritzed with brown Distress Spray Stain.  They were then adhered into the two remaining Claw Marks die cuts and I let the rolled edges of the Claw Marks elevate them off of the surface so they appeared to be reaching out to grab you, bwa-ha-ha-ha!

A couple of the wrought iron fences from the Village Graveyard set were added below each grasping bony hand!

The Wicked die cut negative was backed with cardstock inked with the same red colours as the skull eyes and then I die cut a second Wicked word from Deco Foil PeelNStick Toner sheet and covered it with black Deco Foil.

The Deco Foiled word was inserted into the die cut opening but it was getting a bit lost on the busy background so I outlined it with a black Micron pen.

A couple of the Ravens from the Feather & Ravens set were die cut from black cardstock and from black fun foam, layered together and added to the upper corners (I love these dies!).  I also die cut the branch from the Feather & Ravens set for this fellow to perch upon!

A piece of corrugated cardboard was spritzed with Black Soot Distress Spray Stain and added behind for a bit of textural contrast and my Something Wicked mixed media canvas was done!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing it, I know that I sure enjoyed making it and can't wait to display it for Halloween ... heck, who am I kidding, I've got it out right now and am enjoying it everyday LOL!

I'd like to link my Something Wicked canvas with Frilly And Funkies On The Cutting Edge challenge, I used lots of die cuts in this project!

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope that I've inspired you to head into your craft room and just play, it's wicked fun!  Happy creating everyone,

Deb xo