I'll be attending the Raevn's Nest Art Retreat in Cedarburg, WI in October. I've signed up for the chunky book that my good friend Pea has organized. Here's a look at the page; I've made 43 of these 4 x 4" pages. I started with some scrapbook paper that I thought would be a great background. But I didn't have enough of the paper so I scanned a sheet and made my own. Next I used a mini mask made by Heidi swap and sold on Suze Weinberg's site. I sponged Aged Mahogoney Distress Ink around the mask. I had a stamp that said "Let your spirit dance" from Angi B, but the word dance didn't fit with my theme. So I inked up only part of the phrase and then created the word "fly" with my scrabble letter stamps and shrink plastic. I made 43 "f's", and 43 "l's", and 43 "y's"...I am crazy, but I sure do like the result!
Here is the back of my page. I applied ink from 3 different colors of Distress Ink pads to a craft sheet. Then I sprayed with copper colored Moon Glow Glitz Spritz. I layed the water color paper down onto the craft sheet, placed pressure across the paper with my hand, and then gave it a little twist. When I lifted, if there was an area with no color I placed the paper back down onto the craft sheet where there was some ink left. I dried the paper with a heat gun and then went outside to spray them with a fixative; the Moon Glow product needs a fixative. After the papers were dry from the fixative I stamped the bird in the tree image, but decided the page needed more. So using various colors of ink I stamped the 4 words around the image.
I wanted to make some birthday gifts for my friends Pea and Maggi, and found a great idea in the book Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus. Here are the 3 mannequins I created; the one in the middle was my 'practice' lady. I have lots of painted/inked papers to use in future projects as I tried various water color mediums to create the petals of the skirts. Not only was finding the right colors and issue, but also the right kind of cardstock. But I finally found what I liked when I got out my Aileen's color mist sprays and some very thick cardstock. Both sides of the cardstock need to be colored so the cardstock has to be pretty sturdy. Another tip I can pass along is color both sides of the paper before you cut out the petals for the skirts. Based on the template I created for the petals, I was able to cut 5 petals from each 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper. And I used 10 petals on each of the skirts. The upper torso is draped with plain white tissue paper that I sprayed with the same colors I used for each of the lady's skirts. The flower petal corsages on each was also color sprayed.
This mannequin is still in my possession. I'm not sure if I'll keep her or give her to someone. I would work each step on this one first and then move on to the other two. For this one I sprayed a base coat of Asilomar Sand color mist first. One side I left just adding a little gold, but the rest of the sides of cardstock I then applied a different color once the base was mostly dry.
This is the mannequin I gave to Pea. Each side of the cardstock was sprayed with a color and once they were mostly dry I then sprayed over lightly with tungsten carbide. I like the deep rich colors that were created with the combinations.
