Friday, August 28, 2015

How to Colour Clay

Hello, colouring air dry modelling clay is possible with pencils.  Today over at the Creative Paperclay® Blog where I am a Designer on the Design Team I have a post where I share my latest attempt at playing with the CP clay.

So it turns out that once the clay is dry it is possible to colour it with regular colouring pencils!  I coloured some embellishments I had made and found the results very pleasing.  I also found that it is possible to stamp an image onto a flat piece of Creative Paperclay® and colour it with pencils or crayons.

Here is an example of what I tried.



I hope that this quick tip inspires you to try colouring air dried clay too.  Thanks for stopping by.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Making Christmas Cards During a Heat Wave

How do I keep cool during a heat wave?  I make crafts down in my air conditioned craft room!  I keep cool and get a head start on the pre -holiday season preparations.  I know that sounds zany to some of you but in the world of Design and Crafting it is how we work.  Although it is hard to get into the frame of mind of December when The August heat is upon us, it helps to have AC!

So for today's post over at the Linnie Blooms Blog where I am on the Design Team I made this card:


As you may already know I do love nature and birds.  We have so much wild life including lots of birds where we live, so it is easy to be inspired by all these critters.  I don't see many Blue Jays during the summer months but I do see them a lot during the winter, they like to munch on left over dried up berries, crab apples, and rose hips.  Yummy!   So that is where I got my inspiration.

Working and playing with basic surfaces and products made by Linnie Blooms is a joy especially when a lot of the guess work has been done for me.  I save time by using already die cut canvas shapes and the shapes themselves help to inspire me.


Here is a list of the supplies I used:

Linnie Blooms Bird
Linnie Blooms Stencil "Flutter"
White pre-folded card Recollections (Michaels)
Card stock in Dark Blue (scrap from my stash)
Metallic Scrapbook paper scraps in Light Blue, and White (From my stash)
Little B™ Die "Party"
Snowflake punch
Red Glass Beads (MultiCraft)
Puffy Fabric Paint in Black (Craft Medley--MultiCraft)
Black Rhinestone (Dollarama)
Gales by Faber Castell (White, Teal, Blue, Green)
Double sided Adhesive Tape (3m)
Aleene's Tacky Glue

To read how I put together this card all you have to do is jump on over to the Linnie Blooms Blog over here.

I sincerely hope that you too are inspired to create something spectacular out of such simple materials too.   Be inspired.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

#pawgustart #mixed-media Feline

Here is my latest video made for the YouTube Creative Arts Collaboration with the theme of Animals.  Come see hundreds of free to you videos from creative people creating projects all in the theme of Animals.  This event is running live from August 20 through the 22nd, and the videos remain on YouTube forever.  Check out my videos, subscribe and check out lots of other great videos.  You can even narrow your choice of the videos you watch by using the  hash tag (#) that were created just for this event.  To see all the videos in this Animal theme use  #pawgustart.  To narrow your search to mixed-media videos use #mixedmedia in addition to #pawgustart.  There are also hash  tags (#) for painting, scrapbook, art journal, and more. Broaden your horizons and go on a binge and watch ALL of the videos!  Anyways enjoy!

Monday, August 17, 2015

How to Press and Dry Flowers

Pressing and drying beautiful flowers from my gardens used to be somewhat of a tedious and long process for me.  Although it is a relatively simple technique, I just lack the patience to wait for the beautiful blooms to be completely dry before I can use them in a project.  Often I would collect some flowers in order to create some craft project,  I would pick them and press them in a handmade press (an old telephone directory topped with a brick!) and then forget about the project as it took several days, sometimes weeks for the flowers to be completely dry. Not anymore because I am the proud owner of the Microfleur®.



As a Designer for the Arnold Grummer Paper Making blog I get to work and play with some really fun tools and products, including the Microfleur® (which can be purchased through the AG store here).  The Regular Microfleur® is a Microwave Flower Press which enables you to press and dry flowers in minutes in your microwave oven.  In my case it takes merely seconds!  What a bonus for this impatient crafter.  Note that there is a larger model available.

The kit consists of 2 platens (tough microwave resistant plastic type plates with perforations), 2 clips or 4 clips for the Max size model, 2 pads, and 2 sheets.  To load the Microfleur® you just place one platen ribbed side down on a surface, place one pad on top and then one piece of fabric on top of the pad.  Next, place the flowers and leaves to be pressed on top of the fabric, making sure they sit as flat as possible and do not overlap each other. Carefully place the second sheet of fabric over the layer of plants, and then place the pad over the top.  Cover this with the second platen making sure the ribbed side is facing outwards.  Apply some pressure while adding the clips to hold this "sandwich" together.
Be careful not to overfill and apply too much pressure when installing the clips, so as not to cause any damage.



Next, use the microwave oven to press and dry.  Now, note that each microwave oven has different powers and will require different amounts of time.  Also, the pressing and drying time is affected by what type of flower you are pressing and the amount of liquid that is retained in each plant.  This will have to be done in trials.  It is best to use the microwave oven in short bursts.  In my case as my oven is quite powerful it took very little time, between 10 and 30 seconds.  Also, be careful when handling the press as there can be a surprising amount of heat generated by such a small device!

I truly enjoy using my new Regular Microfleur® Microwave Flower Press and hope to invest in the larger model soon.  It will be the best way that I know how to preserve a little bit of our very short Summers here by drying some flowers and admiring them during those long Winter months.

Thank you for stopping by, enjoy the rest of Summer and keep Crafting!

Friday, August 14, 2015

How To Make A Minion

Today over at the Creative Paperclay® blog (here) I am sharing a How To on making your very own little Minion type character out of air drying modelling material.  To read how I made this little guy just check out the blog post I wrote.  In the mean time here are some pictures of my project and the list of supplies I used.




Supplies:

Creative Paperclay® Modelling Material
Craft Acrylic Paints in Yellow and Blue (DecoArt®)
Black Chalkboard Tape (Dollar Tree)
Black Micron Pigment pen (Sakura)
Google eye (my stash)
Black Puffy Fabric Paint (Dollar Tree)

* for more ideas and how to's using Paperclay® , or for purchasing directly from Creative Paperclay® go here.


Thanks for stopping by!



Monday, August 3, 2015

How To do Paper Casting

Hello, Paper Casting is a form of handmade paper making that is dimensional.  Today I am sharing some examples of mould castings I recently made with Cotton Linter.  As a Designer for the Arnold Grummer Design Team Blog (here) I get to play with all sorts of interesting materials to make paper.  I recently played with some new to me moulds from AG and some Cotton Linter squares.  That's right: Cotton!   What I used is actually a by product of the Cotton making industry that is pure natural fibre and when mixed in a blender with some water creates the finest and whitest of pulps that is excellent for using in moulds.  The strength of the cotton fibres make the resulting projects very strong,  The finesse of the fibres when mixed into a pul make this a wonderful medium that moulds almost perfectly and takes on all the fine details of the moulds.  The end result is also a very white finish which is great for leaving as is or altering with any colour desired.



Here I have taken just a few squares of Cotton Linter, about 3 cups of water and used my trusty old blender to create a cloud like pulp.  Which I drain of water by using a sieve and pressing the pulp firmly into a mould.  I let these moulds dry over night.  It is possible to dry these in a low temperature oven as well.



Once the shapes are completely dry I just prop them out of the moulds with my finger nail.  Or you can also use a pin.  The pieces are then ready to be used as is or altered.  Mind you, this is made of 100% natural cotton fibre and will soak up any wet medium quickly.  I choose to work with mostly dry mediums such as pencils and pastels, and limiting my use of wet mediums to one choice.



Thank you for stopping by.  If you would like to stay informed of when I post new projects just subscribe to my blog by clicking in the left hand side bar.  Also, I make videos on YouTube where you can subscribe to my channel.  You can get there from here by clicking on the link in the top left hand corner of the left hand sidebar.



Keep staying crafty

How to Canvas Art Journal Pages for Summer

Hi there!  Thanks for stopping by today as I share with you my latest pages done in my Linnie Blooms Mixed Stitched book.  You can see the full posting I did here (post) for The Linnie Blooms Design Team.

I work in several journals and each one has a different surface or surfaces to create on.  In the LB book the pages are made of two layers of raw canvas with recycled paper in between, like a sandwich.  These pages are a joy for me to paint and do all sorts of mixed media things with.  This week I show a couple of pages I completed using paints and stencils.  Here are a few pictures:

                                                             2 pages in my journal


                                                             some yummy colours I used



                                                                        left page


                                                             right page (notice the kitty!)


For more ideas and laughs please check out my YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/annmakes and subscribe.  Also, please leave some comments below and follow my blog by clicking in the box in the left sidebar.

Thanks again for your visit today, and come back soon.

Supplies:
Linnie Blooms Mini Mixed-Stitched Book
Page 1:
DecoArt® Media™Misters in: Primary Magenta, Primary Cyan, and Primary Yellow
DecoArt® Crafter's Acrylic ™Paint  in Black
DecoArt® Stencil Andy Skinnner 6"x6" "Vogue"
Stamper's Anonymous Tim Holtz stamp "City-Central"
Page2:
DecoArt® Media Fluid Acrylics™in:  Cobalt Teal Hue, Quinacridone Magenta, Hansa Yellow Light
Stamp (my stash)
Ranger's Archival Black Ink(used ion both pages)
Faber Castell Black Pitt Pen
DecoArt®Americana stencil 6"x8" "Daisy Chain
Quote Sticker (my stash)
Respect Green Metallic pen
Decoupage by DecoArt® glue-Sealer-finish (used on both pages)