Mixed Media Tag Trio

Welcome to the weekend and a Globecraft & Piccolo project! Today I have a trio of tags to share. When you're short on time, but still want to make a little something try a few tags!

Each of these tags were made using the same techniques. Supplies listed below. Using an old credit card or gift card spread a little gesso on the Rectangle Bezels, moving the paint up and down and back and forth with the card. It will leave an uneven layer - exactly what we want!

Using 2 colors of 3D Enamel Gel, add another layer. Spread with the card. Because the 3D Gels are transparent, the gesso layer will show through adding interest to our mixed media tags!

Below is what the Rectangle Bezels look like after they've dried. The 3D Gel colors used left to right:

Rose Pearl + Satin Gold

Mars Black + Satin Gold

Turquoise + Titanium White

I used Embossing Enamel Powders (Ruby Red Slippers and Mossy Glen) on the roses and 'colored' the open spaces (Deep Red) and 'crown' using (Satin Gold) 3D Gel. Wouldn't this make a cute tag for a new baby girl?

I think this tag is my favorite! I love the way the background looks like the river bottom - just perfect for my fish...and it was a 'big one!' The fish are painted using gesso and 3D Enamel Gels (Satin Gold and Rose Pearl).

I love the beach and this tag was fun to put together! These accents are definitely sea worthy, wouldn't you say? The seahorse is coated in Glastique Gloss and the steering wheel in Burnt Umber 3D Gel.

I like these simple, but you can dress the tags up by adding jump rings and beads or even smaller Accents.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Inky hugs,
Angi


      
     

For an Offbeat Bride (last of the components)

Good morning - Teresa here again with today's inspiration - 

I've completed all of my components for this bouquet. (actually I've started assembling and it is turning out AMAZING) 

So for today - we just a few more ideas for the "brooches" - 

I'm going to do this post a tiny bit different today. I'll be listing the supplies with each picture. I'm doing this because I used several different Piccolos and enamels for these. 

Here is the link for the main store page ---- Globecraft and Piccolo

First off - a beautiful openwork rose. 

The rose was embossed with 

Ruby Red Slippers Enamel for the flower and Shamrock Dreams for the stem and leaves.

There are 8 of the roses in the package. 

This little Pinwheel Flower was embossed with

Bahama Aqua embossing powder. 

I used the solid and the openwork frame and embossed them the same color. 

Then, I used  Matte Glastique to glue tiny beads to the center only. When that dried, I flexed the openwork petals a bit for a 3D effect. 

I've used lots of the Stacking Flowers in various ways in this creation. (there are 24 assorted flowers in the package)

This looks like the tropics to me. The top one is embossed in Cranberry Wine

and the larger is embossed in Bahama Aqua. 

I then used Matte Glastique to stack them and add the tiny rhinestones for sparkle.

The one above is my absolute favorite of this batch. 

A little brass Pinwheel Flower. 

I used the Gilded Rose Gold  Powder on this and it really does look like aged brass. 

I offset the two pieces and added a vintage brass button for the center. 

(just a note ---- I may have gasped a little when I put this together. )

This is a crappy lighting picture of the 3D effect you get when you glue just the center of the shape and then flex the petals up. Just a bit of dimension for that. 

This is the inspiration picture for flower just above. Stacks of shapes. 

I recommend taking a look at the full range of Piccolos  available. I then do an image search for Vintage Brooches on Google and pick and choose inspirations such as above and start a version of the piece. 

Last creation picture for today ---- 

The tutorial for the little pink flowers was in the first week's post. 

I've assembled them using fine wire, frosted glass beads, and seed beads using the inspiration photo below. 

This will become the boutonniere for this Offbeat Wedding Ensemble. 

Note all of the embossing is done using the Embossing Enamel Adhesive.

Week one components tutorial can be found here.

Week two components tutorial can be found here.

Week three components can be found here.

Offbeat Bride - components week three

Good morning all. Teresa here. I've been busily making more flowers and such for this offbeat bouquet. See previous tutorials HERE and HERE.

Today I'm featuring two more shapes and both were super easy to do.

So let's shop.

Vintage Cross Piccolo Set
Fairy Wings Piccolo Set
Mermaid Tears Embossing Powder
Mossy Glen Embossing Powder
embossing enamel adhesive
glastique Matte 
fine applicator tip
A pearl button
Assorted bead
Bead wire.
glitter - I mixed a fun green, copper, silver, and blue from my stash

Gather your shapes - carefully punch them out - keep that little round piece in the center of the cross.

Emboss both sides of the cross with the Mermaid Tears Powder - this is such a versatile color.

Add a pretty pearl shank button to the center - I glued this with the Glastique Matte Gel. For the final assembly, I will wire through the shank of the button.

The cross element is now complete.

Wiring any of the shapes into the bouquet has to be considered. Each of these has a designed in way for that to happen - those details will be added in next weeks final assembly post.


Next - lets make a dragonfly - now let me just say, this may be my favorite creation ever. This turned out far better than I imagined.

Emboss two large and two small of the fairy wing set with the Mossy Glen Powder. Also emboss the little circle from the cross with Mossy Glen. Glue to tissue paper - let these dry and trim. Then using the fine line applicator tip and the glastique- and the technique described here - fill in the areas you want to glitter.

Sprinkle on the glitter and patiently wait for this to dry.

Once dry assemble the dragonfly wings.

To assemble these - glue them to the little circle from the cross center. I used quick dry tacky glue and as you can see, I propped up the wings so hey would dry level.

While this dried, I beaded a dragonfly body using a variation of my own, but from these basic instructions.

I glues the dragonfly head and body to the wings (again with quick dry tacky glue).

Just look --- yes I like this one A LOT. There will most likely be a blue toned one in the bouquet as well.

I'm looking forward to putting all these elements together with some lace, buttons, and silk florals for a wonderful - Vintage Brooch inspired bouquet.

Be sure and visit the archives, I've used a lot of the ideas and techniques from the blog in several of my creations. There is a wealth of inspiration and how to in those previous posts.

Have a wonderful Thursday.

Hanging Snowflake Altered Art

I love to make use of items that I’d normally throw out and the main components of this project contain exactly that.

Hopefully you saw my two previous projects using the Globecraft & Piccolo Bejeweled Snowflakes accents set, if you need a refresher you can find them here (Snowflake Votive) & here (Happy Winter Card).  For this project, I used the little snowflakes that are in the set and my "stencil" that I made and used for the Happy Winter Card.  There are 6 adorable snowflakes, measuring about 3/4", that I had left in the set, so I used them up!  

Before I get into the tutorial, let me tell you about the products I used:

Small Snowflakes from Bejeweled Snowflakes   

Stencil I used in making the Happy Winter Card (from Bejeweled Snowflakes)   

Vintage Silver Embossing Enamel 

Embossing Powder Adhesive Fluid 

E600 Adhesive 

Glasstique Gloss Finishing Glaze 

Frame, 7” x 7” square

White Gesso

Distress Paint in Stormy Sky

Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue

Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black

Fishing Line (or other clear string material)

Oval Word Charms

Piece of White cardstock

Sentiment “Warm Winter Wishes” by Quietfire Design 

I know it seems like a daunting amount of stuff but most of it you use only once.  First thing I did was work on the snowflakes.  I had originally wanted to have one side glitter and one side embossing enamel but that didn’t work out very well. 

I know I could of made this work, but I didn't really like the glitter

The detail in the flakes was a wee bit too defined for the glitter I had so I switched to embossing both sides.  

These are only embossed once - like my fingerprint?

I embossed both sides about 3 times (don’t forget to roll your jar of embossing enamel – it blends all the granules and colors perfectly!), which was tricky because each time I embossed a side the other side grew hot as well and would end up either slipping off or making a finish that I didn’t like.  My solution was to go slower and use a lighter touch with my heat gun; I also wonder if the fact that I have a Weller Heat Gun which is actually made for industrial applications may have caused the powder on the other side to keep reheating so much. When I find my regular crafty heat gun, I will do an experiment and see if the heat was too hot.

Once the flakes were embossed to my liking I set them aside to completely cool.  At this point, I wasn’t sure how I was going to hang them but I had a very vivid picture in my mind of how I wanted the assemblage to look – I thought about threading fishing line through each flake, of tying each flake to cord, using fibers, and a few other ideas.  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of having the flakes hang invisibly – so I used fishing line! 

In the picture, you can barely see the fishing line stretched across one of my homemade art boards (cardboard covered with wax paper) and held in place with painters tape.  I then glued each snowflake to the line with E6000.  I made sure I used plenty of line and I matched up the snowflakes so they would all be in about the same place.  I let them dry overnight.

Way too dark!

I went to work on what I think is the focal point of the assemblage, the “stencil” I made from the Bejeweled Snowflakes set – the stencil is actually made out of the waste leftover after all the items are punched out.  This is the third project I am getting out of just one set.  When I made the Happy Winter Card, I had spritzed the stencil with Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue to make the image on the card.  The stencil was really saturated with the spray ink and much darker than what I wanted for this project so I painted some gesso over the London Blue and got the perfect, icy baby blue color I wanted.  Then to give the stencil a bit more stability I painted over it with Glasstique Gloss FinishingGlaze.

Perfect!!!

The frame that I used came from a picture bought at the Dollar Store and had gotten ruined – and the frame was originally black. So I gessoed over the black, twice to be sure it was covered completely and then colored it with Distress Paint in Stormy Sky using a paint brush dipped right into the bottle.  I finished it off with a few light spritz of Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue, let it dry a few seconds and swiped it very lightly with a baby wipe. 

I had already stamped the sentiment on a piece of white cardstock using Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black; all I need to do was trim it up a bit and it was ready to go!

All the pieces ready to be assembled!

Now that all the pieces were done the fun part – putting it together!  This is when I discovered my fishing line refused to stay straight and kept curling up on me.  No fear! I dug into my charms stash and decided that these oval word charms would fit the bill nicely.  I attached one to the bottom of each snowflake line and they worked like a charm (pun intended), in addition to tying the fishing line, I also added a dab of E6000 to each knot.  Now that my curling issue was fixed, I moved on to getting the stencil ready to be attached to the frame.  First thing I did was poke 3 holes into the stencil and thread the fishing line with the snowflakes through the holes, being careful to make sure all the lines were even with each other, then I flipped the stencil over and used E6000 to glue to fishing line to the back so the rows of flakes would stay put.  I let that dry overnight.

The finishing touches are easy – I glued the stencil to the inside of the frame & then attached the sentiment.  It took a bit of thinking and problem solving but I think this is an awesome winter decoration.  I hope you had as much fun reading about it as I had making it!

Another view

Next week I officially start spring, regardless if the weather cooperates or not.

Thanks for reading and I hope you & yours have a fabulous week!

Christi

Grace

Good Morning. Teresa here again. When i applied for this design team, one of the things I included in the biography was that I consider myself a mixed media artist. I also use a lot of upcycled and repurposed materials. 

Today's project encompasses all of those descriptions. 

It's an altered bottle. I use a lot of bottles, jars, and other repurposed containers in my studio to store bits and pieces. I most likely would store beads in one this size, but even empty this one is just pretty to look at.

Here's the shopping list.
-  A128 Lil Flowers Leaves, Birds, and Bows Accents. (These are tiny - you get 32 assorted shapes in the packet)
- A124 Vintage Cross Accents 
- Deep Red 3D Enamel Gel
- Victorian Bronze Embossing Powder
-Mermaid Tears Embossing Powder
- Enamel Powder Adhesive 
- Glastique Gloss Finishing Glaze
- Glastique Matte Finishing Glaze

Additional Materials (Links to SweetStamps products are provided)
- Velvet Hydrangeas (these are gorgeous)
- lace and assorted trims
- a paper appropriate adhesive (I used The Ultimate)
- A paper of your choice ( Mine is a cut from an old hymnal)
- a discarded bottle of your choice (Mine is a perfume bottle from the stash)

And here we go.

Over the weekend, I prepped several of the Lil Accents. You will be seeing these in the next few projects. And it was very relaxing to work up several of them at once.

I covered these with assorted 3d Gel Enamels (the colors are amazing and this link goes to the main category of the site)

For this project, the tiny heart I used was covered in Deep Red Gel.

Using the Enamel Adhesive, cover one of the small crosses from the Vintage Cross set with Victorian Bronze Powder.

See how I have picked this straight up from my paper. I leave the thick layer of the powder on the shape. Heat it from underneath initially until it starts to melt, then finish it from the top. This keeps the powder bits from being blown off the shape. You can also control how these powders finish, any where from a rustic "grainy" finish to a very smooth yet varied finish (simply stop the heating process where you like the look)

When you get your cross embossed set it aside.

Measure and cut your paper of choice to fit around the bottle. I used a "higly accurate" method here. I wrapped it around and simply trimmed to suit me.

Apply the Embossing adhesive to the edges of the paper  and emboss for a more finished look. For this I used the Mermaid Tears Powder

Go ahead - click on the picture for a better look - this color is stunning.

Set this aside and now we really get to play.

The top for this bottle was some sort of plastic with a metallic finish. I first made sure the heat from my gun would not melt the cap. I wanted it to have a mottled textured finish to coordinate with the rest of the materials

 More Enamel Adhesive and Mermaid Tears Powder. I held it carefully with needle-nosed pliers and worked my way around the cap. Emboss a section. Turn. Emboss.

After finishing that, set it aside.

Now for some assembly.

Glue the paper around the bottle.

I added some cording to the top and bottom areas. A bit of Gold and Cream Lace. Then glue the Cross to that lace. I added the heart to the cross and coated the entire cross with Matte Glastique ( I did not want a glossy finish to this one). I snipped the larger GRACE from the song title and adhered it with Gloss Glastique. I also covered that word with the Gloss as well.

(Note - the Glastique comes in two sizes - a 2 ounce and a 4 ounce size. This is a versatile adhesive/finishing glaze. I find myself using it for so much more than these projects.)

To finish off my bottle, I made a bow from seam binding and one of the beautiful Velvet Hydrangeas, that I ordered from Sweet Stamps.

(Globecraft & Piccolo and Sweet Stamps are sister companies)

Here are some closeup pictures of the finished bottle.

Grace ---

This one shows a bit more of the Hydrangea.

And the finished bottle. 

I think this would be a nice little gift for a beautiful friend. 

Come back for more inspiration. There is a new post every day. 

Life is beautiful.