Anything Goes at Anything But a Card Challenges # 37

Hi! I am so glad you stopped by today! It's my turn to share a project for Anything But a Card Challenges.  We are having an 'anything goes' theme this month which means you can share just about anything under the sun with us! Gotta love that!

I have been doing some major cleaning and purging of my home this summer and came across some cardboard jewelry boxes. They weren't anything fancy, just plain white boxes with the store's logo.  I'm not sure what my original plan was when I saved them, but they were the perfect size for gift cards, so they were covered and decorated to be used as pretty packages for some thank you gifts.  

Rather than cover the entire lid and base with paper, I cut scraps to cover the top of the lid and glued ribbon to the sides.  Then I added a strip of paper around the base.  This kept them from getting too bulky.  I colored a couple of stamped clay pieces that I made ages ago, added some punched leaves and a few candy dots.

This one seemed like it needed a little pizazz, so I added

stickles to the flower in the center of the clay piece, and 

some cherry cobbler dazzling details to the candy dots.

This one had a more masculine feel, so I left it pretty basic.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my repurposing project and we would love to see what you have been creating this month!  Please stop by the challenge blog and share your creation with us-as long as it's not a card, you're set!  Have a fabulous week!

Project recipe:  Paper-Junior Varsity and Summer Smooches dsp (both retired), Stamp Set-Riveting (ret), Ink-old olive, real red, daffodil delight, rich razzleberry, Accessories-simply pressed clay, real red grosgrain and old olive scallop dot ribbons (both ret.), brights candy dots, cherry cobbler dazzling details, non SU leaf punch, non SU yellow stickles

Anything But a Card Challenge 21-The gift that keeps on giving...

Hello! Today is Father's Day here in the US and I will be spending part of the day with my two favorite guys, my Dad and my husband.  So it's quite fitting that today's project aligns perfectly with the Masculine/Dear ol' Dad challenge at Anything But a Card.  We are in week two of this challenge and it's my turn to share a project.  Be sure to visit the challenge blog and check out the team's inspiring pieces.  I would love to see you link up your projects too! Remember, they can be anything but a card-that leaves a lot of different art forms to play with!

For those of you who follow my blog, you know that my DH loves to give me a hard time about saving everything for my 'someday' projects.  Last year, his Father's day card included some corrugated paper saved from our souvenirs from Disney.  This year, part of his gift includes a lot of 'saved' items. Now you would think this would curb the teasing about digging through the trash, but I know him well enough to know that he will simply direct my eyes to the containers and shelves of things I've yet to use... Oh well!   I also had some assistance from my two girls on this project!

Before you see my altered shadow box, I need to apologize for the horrid photos.  I just couldn't get the shadows off of my shadow box!  I'm also not overly thrilled with the watercolor background, but I'm cutting myself some slack since I'm still in the experimental stage on this, and I had some input from my crafting partners that didn't quite achieve the effect we were going for. So I'm filing this one under the belief that art is in the process not the product.

The wood shadow frame was once the home to a kid's stamping kit.  The pieces, I'm sure, have long been lost, chewed up by Shadow (in his puppy stage), or visiting the socks that always disappear from the dryer.  The thin plywood back was cracked and loose on two sides so it was promptly removed, and the frame was put on the shelf with other 'someday' items.  When I was trying to decide on a project for this challenge, I just wasn't in a scrapbooking mood, which was my obvious choice, so I dug through the treasures on the shelf to see what might spark some creativity.  The frame kept catching my eye like it really wanted to be repurposed, so I decided on a shadow box.  The backing was a piece of watercolor paper cut to fit the frame, and I even managed to squeeze in some fancy chocolate liners behind the girls' pics. You should have seen the manly eyeroll I received for saving them...

I started by painting the frame with fawn acrylic paint.  When it was dry, I added a layer of clear rock candy distress crackle.  Then I set the frame aside to dry while I created the background.  I started painting all of the areas with crumb cake ink, when the girls got all excited about watercoloring.  So we added some wild wasabi and chocolate chip ink as well. Fawn paint was also dabbed on there to tie the background to the frame. When we were finished it reminded me of the camouflage fatigues  DH wears for trainings.  I added some stamping using chocolate chip ink.  See the index finger stamp and the special delivery stamps? They were two of my treasured finds from an antiques and craft fair.  The finger stamp was so caked with old, black ink, and the rubber is really hard, but I love the distressed style it leaves behind! I also used an alphabet set from my wonderful blogging sister, Lisa, to spell out different names for dads. The #1 is from the set Blue Ribbon.

The center space is paper from Woodland Walk.  I added fawn paint to this and the brown candy liners too.  A few retired chocolate chip corduroy buttons from my stash finished off the background.  By this time the frame was dry and I glued the watercolor paper to the back of the frame.  I also added some crumb cake ink to the crackle to make it stand out a little more.  The heart is a stamped sculpey piece that was sitting in a bowl waiting to be used, and the enamel dots are from another wonderful blogging friend, Sherry. They were a little too 'pretty' for this distressed piece, so I added a little brown sharpie ink onto them to distress them a little.  The natural trim ribbon was added to the center wood pieces to cover a groove that once held another divider (who knows where that went...).

So that's it for me!  I hope I've inspired you to make something manly for the special guys in your life too! Have a wonderful week and happy crafting!

Anything But a Card Challenge 11- Tie it up!

Hello! I am so glad you stopped by to visit and  I hope you had a marvelous weekend! My youngest was not feeling well earlier this week providing me with an additional day at home. So while she rested, I managed to get a little housecleaning done and also squeezed in some crafting time. One of the things I finished was my project for Anything But a Card.  You still have time to join us with your own wonderful creation and the challenge is 'tie it up'.  We really love variety and there are so many different ways to approach this challenge.  I decided to use some bakers twine on my quotes journal page.

The 'tie it up'  portion of my page uses pool party bakers twine.  I braided three strands of twine and then tied that piece around my cardstock.  I also used some of my hand made stamped tiles. I used scupley clay and a stamp to create the tiles and then painted them with acrylic paints after they were baked.  I wanted my 'bling' to match the blues on my page so I colored some clear rhinestones with a blue sharpie.

My quotes journal is slowly being completed thanks to some inspiring challenges, and I am so happy that I will have such a pretty way to display these wonderful quotes when it is finished.

Project Recipe: Cardstock-very vanilla, Spice Cake DSP (ret), Ink-soft suede, Stamp Set-fabulous phrases, cute by the inch (tile), Accessories-large oval punch, decorative label punch, pool party bakers twine, basic rhinestones, sculpey clay, acrylic paints

Anything But a Card Challenge -Things With Wings

It is time for week two of the 'Things With Wings' challenge at Anything But a Card Challenges and that means that it's my turn to share a project!  If you click on the link above, you will go to the post with Mr. Linky (I'm trying to make it super easy for you to join us-wink!wink!), which is week one. I hope you take a minute to check out all of the wonderful inspiration and projects that have already been linked up!  

I had so many different thoughts running through my head for this challenge, and my dear blogging sister, Lisa did nothing to help!!  One of my first ideas was butterflies with a quote for my journal and it also was the first project I tried -yes...I did more than one!  

I have quite a collection of various brands of glitter glues, and a few bottles of liquid pearls.  Unfortunately, the clear and silver are the two glitters that I use most of the time, leaving all of the other colors feeling quite neglected.  I also realized I have never used my yellow pearls...  Well, I made a promise to myself over the holidays that I was going to play, and so I did!  I found my quote first (in a rather large stack of vellum quotes) and wanted to make a pastel background to be slightly visible behind the vellum. I had shaded the right corner to have the illusion of sunlight and it looked great until I put the vellum over it, then it just looked kind of muddled. I thought the yellow pearls would possibly make a nice sun.  I tried a 'dot' approach, my version of pointillism, but it didn't look right.  So I took my blending tool (aka pointer finger) and smeared the dots together, kind of a funky effect!  Then came the two tone ribbon (new SU goodies!!), a ribbon flower with some felt pieces tucked in for leaves and a punched butterfly to ensure that the whole wings thing was covered!  I didn't like the naked edges of the vellum and pulled out the green glitter glue to frame it.  When I was done, I was thinking maybe I should have bypassed the liquid pearls and just used all green, but oh well!  I have to say that the page is growing on me the more I look at it and it was a lot of fun playing with the different materials.

A few days later, and an unfortunate but necessary trip to Wal-Mart, I found myself in the craft aisle.  My youngest DD had Christmas money to spend and wanted some new art supplies and while she debated her options, my eyes landed on a package of Sculpey Oven Bake Clay. Hmmm... I know that many crafty people out in Blogland use this stuff to make all kinds of wonderful things and I did make that promise to play... (can you see this getting me in hot water with DH?)  So into the cart it went and somehow some metallic acrylics ended up in there too... Don't know how that happened!  I would love to say that the clay came out as soon as I got home, but the truth is it sat there all week taunting me.  Which may have been a good thing because in the mean time, I came across a very retired stamp set called Nature's Wonders.  There is this absolutely beautiful dragonfly stamp in this set and suddenly inspiration hit! I was going to stamp my clay!!  Didn't know if this would work; didn't know if it would clog up the stamp; didn't care! Well... I would have cared if it ruined my stamp, but I really wanted to try this!  So I kneaded the clay until it was really soft, then patted it fairly flat (a little less than 1/4") and then gently pressed the stamp onto the clay.  I had to wiggle it a little to get it to release, but I liked the slightly uneven appearance.  Then I trimmed the edges and set it aside to bake.  I tried this with a few different stamps and it was so much fun!  I followed the baking directions on the package and when they cooled, I painted them with the acrylics.  My girls asked if they could paint them and I selfishly said "Nope, not this time." But I did promise to let them make their own, so everyone was happy!

Here is my dragonfly-not sure it's completely done being painted, but I still like it!

and in keeping with the 'wings' theme, an owl...

Both of these are much smaller than they appear in the picture.  The owl is about 1" and the dragonfly is a little larger.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these yet, but I'm sure that will be fun too!

Have a great week and happy crafting!

Journal Page Recipe:  Cardstock-sahara sand, Stamp Set-Butterfly Prints, Ink-concord crush, Accessories-pastels, basic pearls, very vanilla seam binding, jumbo sticky round, vintage tag and green felt flowers (ret), butterfly punch, green glitter glue, buttercup liquid pearls

Clay Tiles Recipe:  white Sculpey clay, metallic acrylic paints kit, Stamp Sets-Cute By the Inch, Nature's Wonders