Mixed Media Altered Dresser and Artist Spotlight

Hi

Today is my turn to take on the spotlight at Anything but a card challenge blog. Apart from talking about myself ,I have put a up a mini challenge of sorts out for the readers. Do check it out and maybe you would want to play too. Here is my inspiration project

My challenge has to do with my current fascination with black and metallic colours. I think Black is the perfect base for metallic colours and accents to shine through and I wanted to play with that.

I used modelling paste and some stencils for the texture. Everything was covered with black acrylic paint first. For this project I tried something new to me. I used Decoart's Antiquing mediums for highlighting the texture. These are awesome and perfect to give a vintage-y aged ,patina look. However, I needed some more colour, so I busted out my Silks acrylic glaze and dabbed them randomly.

Even after that, I was not very happy since I wanted the textures to stand out more. So I finally decided to use my newest buy i.e. Viva Décor Inka Gold. How fantastic it is! I am so happy that I finally broke down and bought it. I have been making do with acrylic paints for metallic accents but this paste is something else.

That's all for now. Hope you visit us at ABAC blog and participate in my challenge. I will be thrilled to see you there.

Cheers
Pallavi


submitting for Mixed Media Place Creative Gym Exercise #5

 

Anything But A Card Challenge #44 -Friendship

Hello,

It's a new month and a brand new challenge at Anything But A Card Challenge. The theme this time is Friendship and this is my take on it. Please visit the blog to check out all the inspiring projects from our design team.You can make any kind of project as long as it is NOT a card. We would love to see you there.

I created this piece in my art journal. I used collage, stencilling,and stamping and some finger painting too.This year I am trying to explore other style of art journaling and not just stick to grungy mixed media pieces.

This is heavily inspired by the art of Artists Junelle Jacobsen and I had a lot of fun doing this.I took some of her classes last year and only now getting down to practice.Using such bright colours was scary for me though.:-)Bummed about the mess I made with the quote, but then this is my art journal,mistakes do not matter.:-)

Hope you like it and seriously hope that I can gather enough energy to get back on the blogging bandwagon.

Please do
Till then,
Cheers
Pallavi

 

Anything But A Card Challenge # 43 : New Beginnings

Hello!

Another super short and quick post to share my DT project for Anything But A Card Challenge Blog. This month our theme is 'New Beginnings'. With the start of a fresh new year, this theme is so appropriate. You can interpret it any way you like. Maybe you want to document something that you plan to do this year, or may be you want to recycle something old and forgotten and give it a new beginning. For inspiration, do check out the blog and the fabulous projects made by the design team. We share inspiration and the team's interpretation every week.

For my project, I had very limited time since my life has been crazy busy this month. I decided to incorporate a quote about new beginnings in my brand new art journal. Since the project had to be done super fast, it's not very complicated or involved but I like what I achieved. Hope you like it too.


I used Gesso, Silk acrylic glazes, acrylic paints, some new stamps and stencil for this. The sentiment is created using vinyl stickers. For some reason it looks crooked in the picture which is driving me nuts. I did ask my husband to look at it and it looked okay to him, so I don't know.:-)

Anyway, that's all I have for now.Do visit the ABAC blog and participate. We would love to see you there.

Cheers
Pals

Anything But A Card Oct Challenge #40 - Autumn Magic /Spring Wonder

Hello,

Today's quick post is to share my DT project for Anything But A Card Challenge #40.This time we want you to play with the theme Autumn Magic/Spring Wonder. You are welcome to submit for either season or better yet combine both. For some fabulous takes on the theme, do check out the blog.

For my project I stuck to the Autumn theme and attempted to create a mixed media painting of sorts.

I started with laying down a thick coat of gesso and scratching and texturizing it before it dried. For the tree line I used a mixture of some sprays and acrylic paints in shades of red ,orange and a little bit of brown. To highlight the texture, I added some Prima Clear Crackle on top. Once it dried, I used a wash of Burnt umber Acrylic paint and rubbed the excess off.

As an Additional step, I added some gold mica flakes with matt medium to showcase the gold tones of Autumn.

The Quote is by Emily Bronte and I just printed it out on my printer and glazed it with Yellow and orange watercolours and outlined with black waterproof ink.

For my trees, I used a script washi tape. I did a wash with white acrylic paint over that to tone it down a little bit. The foliage is done by sponging some acrylic paints with a dish washing sponge.I also stamped some text over it with Sepia Archival ink.

Hope you like the project.

See you soon!

Pals

 

Shimmer and Glimmer

Hello

I am back with another altered jewellery box. This time I experimented with metallics and shimmer and used colours which I hardly ever reach for, so I am not sure if I like it or not ,but I did enjoy making it.

I covered the whole box with Tim Holtz Tissue paper and then used a mix of purple and green metallic gelatos and acrylic paint for the colours. You can't see it in the picture but the design on the tissue paper shows up underneath the paint.

I then used the Prima Elementals stencil with modelling paste for some texture. I painted some of the circles with metallic paint and splattered some yellow paint for some contrast. I coloured some gauze with metallic purple gelato and water and painted my chipboard pieces silver.I also added some pearls to the lid to carry forward the circles/polka dots theme.Everything is sprayed with Lindy's Scintillating silver spray.

The flowers are a mix of Prima and some I am roses flowers.I used some resin pieces from my stash too.As my last step I stamped some text using my all time favourite stamp and Black Archival ink.

I kept the sides simple with some stencilling, paint and stamping.

I hope you like it .See you soon!

Cheers
Pals
 

Lulupu Sparkle With Prima blog hop

Welcome to day 3 of Lulupu "Sparkle with Prima" Blog hop! I am very excited and honoured to be a part of this month long celebration organized by the Lulupu team to celebrate the festive season.The blog hop has a lineup of some amazing crafters and awesome prizes to be won.

All the rules and the fantastic prize details are available on the Lulupu blog.Do check it out!

You must have reached my blog via Priya Sondhi's blog! If not please click HERE for the complete list of the hop participants or to start the hop from the top.

For my project, I really had to struggle to think of a project worthy of the blog hop.I finally decided to alter a book box in a style that I am most comfortable with. It's messy and grungy and I am hoping at least some of you will like it.:-)

I do have a sort of a tutorial.I hope its helpful.So sit back and enjoy.

1. Die cut a few doilies using the Prima Marketing Purple Metal Die Doily #2

2. The die cuts as well as some torn pieces of Prima Epiphany paper were adhered to the box using Prima Marketing-Art Basics Soft Matte Gel

3.  Use Prima Damask stencil with Modelling paste to add some more texture.

4. Cover the whole box with watered down gesso to unify all the elements and use some Heidi Swap Gold Color Shine mist to add some touches of gold. I also watered down some black gelato to make my own mist and sprayed it on the box.

5. Apply Prima Art Extravagance Clear Crackle Texture Paste on random areas of the box and let it dry.

6. Use Pearlescent watercolours to add some colour and shine to the black section of the box.I also added some more gold and bronze to the lighter areas to highlight the gorgeous crackle texture. I also added Prima's Art Ingredients Gold Leaf Mica Flakes using Matt medium.

These are all the steps that I took to achieve the texture.

Unfortunately it got really dark by the time I was done with this,so I do not have pictures of the rest of the steps.I am still outlining them and hope they will help.

7. I die cut some circles from the Prima Epiphany papers and adhered them to the box.

8. I added some seed beads coloured with alcohol inks with matt medium

9. I used some cardstock die cuts and metal pieces from the Epiphany Cardstock Die Cuts pack , some chipboard snowflake pieces , Studio Calico Tiny stars wood veneers pieces and a butterfly from Forever Green laser cut wood icons as my embellishments. The wooden frame is from my stash.

 

Some Prima Rodanthe flowers coloured with  pearlescent watercolours finish off the embellishing.

10. As my last step,I added some stamping using some word and texture stamps and  also added some sequins from the die cut pack and some splatters using white paint.

That's about all I did for this box .I love the texture achieved by stencilling and the clear crackle paste. Hope you like this project and find the tutorial helpful. I would love your feedback, good or bad.It does not look like much in the pictures but its gloriously shimmery and textured in real. I wish I had better photography skills.:-)

 

Don't forget to play along the hop and the challenge.You can find all the details here. Keep checking the  Lulupu blog to see the project reveal by the next crafter Deepti Stephens.. A fantastic card maker and crafter.

See you soon,

Submiting for Primatober BAP

Cheers
Pals

 

Altered boxes with a mixed media touch...Again!

Hello,

I would first like to start with a happy news. I was a winner at a new challenge blog for my Steampunk Canvas. The Mirror Crack'd is the newest blog on the block and they have monthly challenges. If you love to try your hand at mixed media and journaling,the challenge is just right for you.

I know you must be a bit fed up with my fixation with altering boxes.It's one of my favourite things to do. Taking a plain unremarkable thing and transforming it totally. That is magic to me.:-)

So no surprises here, I have another set of boxes to share today.

For the first one ,I covered the lid with a doily stencil and texture paste and use various shades of Lindy's sprays for the colour. I have heat embossed and fussy cut a doily stamp with ranger's Platinum embossing powder. You can see it peeking out beneath the die cut which is one of my favourite dies and a very recent purchase. I cut several pieces of the die for some dimension and added glossy accents to the top for a faux epoxy look.

For this one ,I die cut a heart and layered several pieces. The heart was then painted with Lindy's Dark chocolate truffle and Cocoa bean copper sprays. I did the same thing with the clay bird pieces and the Prima resin fairy. I also coloured the lace with some green and brown shades of Lindy's.

I love the texture on this one. I used a memory box stencil with Liquitex modelling paste and then coloured it with various shades of green and gold.

That's about it for today's post. I must warn you that I am not done with altered projects. I have several more coming in subsequent posts. I can't help it. Most of my September was spent doing just this.:-)

Cheers
See you soon
Pals

Altered Mixed Media Box

Hello!

How is everybody? I have another altered box to share with you. I have to say that I have a soft spot for this one. I wanted to create a white/cream toned box and I love how it turned out. Doesn't happen too often in my neck of the woods.:-)

I used papers from Prima's Sunrise Sunset collection. Though it's not visible in the picture very clearly, I used Prima's Damask stencil with some glitter paste on the lid. The whole box and all the embellishments are sprayed with Lindy's Scintillating silver.

I used some dimensional magic and tiny beads to fill up a bottle cap. The flowers are a mix of Prima Rodanthe flowers and some foam and mulberry flowers bought locally. The butterfly chipboard piece is from Itsy bitsy.All the papers are distressed with Vintage Photo distress ink.

The sides of the box are textured with a Kaisercraft doily stencil. I used some twill tape and a chipboard corner piece with a metal flower. I have fallen in love with these metal flowers. I am already running out. Have to get some more.

And, that's it for today. Have a lovely Saturday.

See you soon!

Cheers
Pals

 

Steampunk Mixed media canvas and a little announcement!

Hello!

I am back after a long break. I have my usual list of excuses, but I will bore you with them in some other post. Today I have something a little more exciting (for me) to share.

Sometime back I found a blog called 'Anything But a Card" or ABAC and found out that they were looking for design team members. If you know me, you know my struggle with making cards, so I was intrigued and applied. I am thrilled to announce that I have been SELECTED! Yayy! I think it's a match made in heaven.:-).The challenge blog comes up with great themes every month and you can submit any type of project as long as it's NOT A CARD.:-)

This month's theme is called STEAMPUNKtember. Do check out the challenge blog and I would love to see you participate.

Steampunk is not something that I really understand very well or have done too much of. My understanding is limited to the usual clichés of machinery, gears, clocks etc. and that's what I did in my project.

I used the reverse side of a deep edge canvas for a shadowbox type effect. To create the background,I used some Cheery Lynn die cut gears and stuck them down using matt medium.

I also used the Tim holtz eye chart ,Crafters workshops Time Travel 6 by 6 and Art is stencil with Liquitex modelling paste for added texture.The coloring mediums were a mix of Ranger's Color wash and Lindy's sprays.

I used my all time favourite Tim Holtz's Reflection words stamps with Archival ink to add a little more texture.

The colourful heart ,which you can't see much of, is a hand cut chipboard piece, which I covered with embossed aluminium tape and then coloured with multiple shades of alcohol inks. The rest are embellishments from my stash.

That's about it. Hope you like the project.

Cheers
Pals
Submitting for Simon Says Monday challenge : Stencils and stamps
The Mirror Crack'd -Anything goes

 

Something I made for myself

Hello !

A while back, I had a request from a friend to alter a mini dresser for her. I had some spare MDF so I got it constructed by a local carpenter. Unfortunately,the finishing of the product was not so good and I couldn't give it to her.I altered a store bought one for her (will be showing it soon). This meant.that I could keep the dresser for myself and do whatever I wanted to do with it. You know me and my love for mixed media ,so this dresser got a lot of artsy love.:-).No flowers on this one.Yay!

 I was planning to work directly on the dresser but then chickened out and created my own pattern paper (would you call it that?) with Kraft cardstock, Tim Holtz tissue paper, washi tape, stencils and lots of spraying and splattering.

I used some clay butterflies made using mod melts moulds (that's a mouthful!) and painted them black. I also used Tim Holtz's ornate plate for the middle drawer.

The front pieces are darker than the sides because I did not seal the surface before adding Mod podge and that made the colours run a little bit, but I don't mind it too much.

The sides are a bit brighter

I have yet to decide what to use it for.I am happy that I made something for my craft room.:)

That's all for now.See you soon!

Pals

.Submitting for Simon says Monday challenge :Anything goes
The Artistic Stamper challenge : Anything goes
The mixed media monthly challenge : Stencils with modelling paste

Image Transfer : An experiment

Hi

I have been meaning to try image transfers for a while. I did try it once, a long time back and it was not a total fail, but this time I wanted to try a technique called Splash and Image transfer as shown by Andy Skinner. I love his work and am saving up money to take his classes. Love how he plays with paint and medium and makes such awesome projects.

For this project, I tried to follow his instructions to the letter. Of course, I did not have everything that he used, so I had to make do with what I did have. The image is also very generously provided by him and can be found on his site.

I did not take a step by step picture, since I wasn't sure if this attempt would be successful.:-) . I was also worried about the image transfer part since I do not own a laser printer, but it was not too bad. Sorry about the not so great pictures. It's dark and gloomy here.

Once the transfer was done ,I added some bling to her hair. I also used Versamark and Lindy's Poinsettia Red gold magicals on her shawl to give it some interest. A little bit of stamping and some shading with charcoal all around the image and my main work was done.

I could not leave it alone though, since I wanted to try out crackle on the canvas ,so I used Clear rock candy crackle all over it. Once the crackle was dry ,I glazed it with watered down brown paint.

I hope you like this project. I am thrilled that the inkjet transfer worked. Well it does not look as good and clear as Andy's, but I am not too disappointed with mine either.

If you would like to see a step by step for this kind of project, let me know or you can just take a look at the video link and try it out. It's very well explained.

Thanks for visiting

Cheers
Pallavi

Submitting for Simon Says Monday Challenge : About a Face
The Artists Play room #115
 

Texture Magic

Hello!

I am back with a mixed media project.I try and do all kinds of crafts but creating and working with textures is my favourite thing to do.This is one such project and one of the very few where the end result matched perfectly with the vision I had in my mind.

I altered an MDF pencil box from Craftslane. I had recently cut some foam letters and numbers for people at work and had some of them lying around. I also glued down some paper napkins for added texture and used various shades of Lindy's sprays for colours.

Here are some more views of the gorgeous texture.I love it.

I did some random stamping with archival ink to add some more dimension. Here is a look at the sides. Love how that turned out too.

I hope you like this project. Life has been busy these last few months. I took up a job again and had some orders to work on, leaving me no time to make new projects. Things are not as busy anymore ,so hopefully I will be more active with my blog.

See you soon!

Cheers
Pallavi

Submitting for Simon Says Stamps Monday challenge : Anything goes
Our Creative Corner Challenge : Flaming June (I have used tons of orange, so I hope this qualifies)
 

An affirmation for myself and mini tutorial (Pic heavy)

Hello everybody,

First of all a million thanks for your comments and feedback here and on facebook. I am truly grateful for all of you who take the time out to comment and encourage.

Today's project is entirely for myself and I have been meaning to do it for the longest time. I am a big scaredy-cat and have long periods of self doubt and often question my capabilities ,so I decided that I needed something to motivate me and reaffirm the faith I should have in myself ( heavy stuff,heh heh ).This is why I made this.

You might not know that even though most of my projects are in the shabby chic, overly embellished style, my first love is mixed media and I have a fascination for textures. I am not a painter and not very good at sketching, so mixed media gives me the opportunity of playing with paints and mediums.

As I had mentioned in my last post, today I have a tutorial for you. I don't know how many of you who read this blog, actually like mixed media, so I am kind of nervous about sharing the tutorial. Then again, my project today is a sort of positive affirmation for myself, so I figured to just go ahead and share it anyway.

Enough rambling and on to the tutorial.

Here is how I altered them.(Apologies for the not so great pictures. It was very late at night and my craft space does not have enough light)

Step 1 : The first step I always follow before painting any object, especially wood, is to prime it with Gesso. Gesso provides some tooth to the surface for the paint to stick on to and you also end up using less paint, since it does not get absorbed by your substrate.

Step 2: I tore out some pattern paper sheets and stuck them down randomly on the letters .I used Matt medium, but you can use glue or mod podge or watered down PVA glue. Remember, random is key. There's no plan or precision required. This should be fun and not a practice in being a perfectionist. (What a relief for all you cardmakers, eh )

Step 3. I wanted colour on my pieces but I also wanted the black and white designs to show through, so I took some stencils and sprayed randomly through them. Not too much, just a teeny bit to add shades of blue .

Step 4.I also used some stencils to add some texture using modelling paste. If you do not have modelling paste, you can use a thick layer of gesso or just use acrylic paint through the stencils. It's all about playing and experimenting, so make do with what you have.

Step 5. The last step I did was just pick up some red and yellow acrylic paints with my fingers and dab them randomly all over the letters. At some places, I focused on the stencilled areas to highlight them. Like I said, totally random. If you don't like what you did ,use a baby wipe to rub off the colour. If you do it quickly enough, you can get rid of the paint.

My next step is generally stamping, but in this case since the base layer has touches of black in it, I didn't bother to do it. I did go in with bubble wrap and some Gesso and stamped with it to tone down some of the very bright areas which were bothering me.
 
The last step was to sand the edges , distress all the sides of the letters with black ink and seal it with Matte medium. You can use mod-podge or watered down PVA glue.

And that's it. You are done.

Phew, that was a long post. I hope you had the patience to read all of it. I would love to know if you found this helpful or does it look like just a random hodge podge of paint and mess to you.:-).It's difficult to be objective with your own projects, isn't it?

Cheers
Pallavi

 

Submitting for
Color Conceptions Challenge # 10-Anything but cards
Altered Eclectics April challenge

 

Heart-art

Hello!

Top of the morning to all of you. Monday blues started yet? I start whining about Monday from Sunday afternoon itself, much to the annoyance of darling husband.:-)

Anyway, on to today's project. I altered a heart though I have to admit that I cheated on today's project. It is a larger version of a magnet that I had done some time back. You can check it out here. I just changed what I did on the background a little bit, but most of it remains the same as the magnet. Don't blame me, my client wanted it this way.:-)

I told you it was glittery! I hand cut some hearts with chipboard. The backgrounds on both of them are done with gelatos, some stencilling and stamping. On the bottom heart I also used a waterproof pen to outline the stencilled flowers.

Much of what I have done is not visible, since I glittered the heck out of it with Dimensional magic. I wanted it to have a laminated and tile like finish.Wish I had taken a picture before I did that though. Maybe you can see some of it here.

 

 

 

And that's it for today's post .Hope you liked the project. I will see you tomorrow. Have a wonderful week!

Cheers
Pallavi
 

'Artist' Mixed Media Journal cover

Hello,

How is Monday treating you? Hope you are all geared up for the week after the long weekend.

Today I want to share a mixed media project. I made this a DT inspiration piece for Crafters Corner blog.

I altered my art journal cover using stencils and Lindy's mists and a lot of other paraphernalia.

 

 

Since I was altering my art journal cover, I decided to use artistic or crafty supplies as embellishments. I have seen brushes used in projects by some artists and I love that idea. I also have a wooden ruler, some eyelets, stapler pin ,buttons, crayon, pen nib etc. I like how grungy and artsy it looks.

 

The background is made using Stencils, modelling paste,a cross stich mat, gauze, stamped tissue paper and Lindy's starburst sprays and moon shadow mists. List of supplies at the end of the post.

 

 

 

 

Here's the list of supplies

 

Lindy's sprays in Autumn Maple Crimson, Poinsettia Red Gold and Gossamer Gold

Crafter's Tiny circles stencil

Golden Modelling paste

 

Hope you like this project. Stay tuned for the next round of baby projects.

 

Cheers

Pallavi