Traveling Art Journal Crafted with Canvas Corp

I am participating this year in a traveling art journal group with designers from Canvas Corp.  Our group is from all around the world.  Many of the participants made their own art journal - I was about to start some traveling so I found one in the correct size.  I am in Group Two.

If you wish to see the journals from Group One check out the post at this link.

Group Two will post their journals on the 15th of each month.  You can find them on the Canvas Corp Blog The Creative Studio.  

Here is a picture of the two page spread.  I learned many things doing this page.
Be careful when you use sprays.  They can bleed through your page even though I had put clear gesso on the pages.  All paints and sprays are from Tattered Angels which is owned by Canvas Corp.

Here is a close up of some of the corners of each page.  The brushes are from a sheet of patterened paper from Canvas Corp.

This pot of paint was also on the same page as the brushes.  You can see some of the embossing paste I used and some of the stamping I did on the background.

This is a Hero Arts stamp.  I thought it was a good quote to use on the first pages of my traveling journal because I would have so many new friends when it returns to me.  I stamped it with Versafine Black Ink and then embossed with clear embossing powder.

Here you can see a paint tube and another paint brush.

This is the first page of my journal.  I love this little bird and his sentiment "why hello there".

Canvas Corp Products Used.  You can shop at this link.

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Patina
Tattered Angels Baseboard Paint:  Blue Bird and Iris
Tattered Angels High Impact Paint: Lime Green, Yellow, Orange
Canvas Corp Heirloom Collection: Brushes on Ivory

Please visit Canvas Corp to see all the other journals in Group One and Two.

Creative Journal, Canvas Corp August Challenge

It is August and time for a new challenge on the Canvas Corp Bloghttp://blog.canvascorpbrands.com/august-challenge-do-the-planning-enter-to-win/.  This month it is all about some wonderful colors and planners, calendars or notebooks.

Here is your inspiration photo.

I decided to alter the cover of a notebook that I found at a big box store.  I did make two of them since I am getting together in September with several friends for a crafting workshop.  I am so very excited and I hope they do not read my blog and know they will be receiving this little gift.

I use Tattered Angels High Impact paint to color the Canvas Corp Black and Ivory French Script Paper.  The larger flowers were cut with die out of buckram - an old fabric staple which frays up so beautifully when you color and crumple it.  The other small flowers were purchased but I did color them with the Tattered Angels High Impact Paint.  I tied a couple small black thread bows which were tucked in among the flowers to add a little more black to the front of the cover.

I die cut the scalloped trim with my Silhouette.  I wanted to finish the edge of the notebook.

Here are close ups of some of the different parts of the cover.  I love that little stamp I bought for a dollar.  I also did some stenciling with a navy ink and also used the navy ink around the edge of the front cover.  The orange dots have glossy accents on them.  They added the perfect finishing touch to the cover.

Aren't those pink flowers fun?  I love making my own flowers.  The flowers I purchased, I am going to get more of those.  They work really well with on mixed media projects.

Please come join us at Canvas Corp and play along with our fun challenge.

ATC's With the Canvas Corp Brand Team

I recently became a new design team member with Canvas Corp Brands.  A team building activity was to make ATC's.  There were 12 people in my group.  Each ATC I have received have been beautiful and everyone of them very unique.  Today I am going to share my ATC.

I think of all the ATC's I received mine was the only painted/stamped one.  I guess I had a hard time leaving my card making skills behind me.

Here are the supplies I started with.  The base of my ATC was Canvas Corp ATC Artist Trading Cards (White).  There were 25 ATC's in the package.  They have the basic ATC cards in many different bases - ie black, kraft, cream, burlap.....

I used all these paints from the Tattered Angels line at Canvas Corp to achieve my watercolor look on my ATC.

The flower stamp is from Penny Black and the sentiment is from Paper Smooches.

Here are pictures of the process of making the ATC's.

Yes the color of those poppies started out with yellow with pink on top.

See what a beautiful orangey color I achieved.

I then watered down my paints and colored the background of the cards.

I decided my cards needed just something a little extra on the left side.  I found my trusty Cardstock Pad and carefully cut a single row of black with ivory dots.

They were adhered  to the side of the ATC.  After this step was done, I am sure I went and placed all the ATC's in the press.  The press is four books.  It is amazing what a good heavy press will do to flatten out painted paper.

I sent my ATC's to 12 people and I believe half of them were outside the United States.  It is nice knowing that a small piece of my creative soul is now all over the world.

If you have not tried ATC's, you really should.  It is fun but sometimes difficult to work in such a tiny space.  It is always good to stretch our creative souls.

Here is a look at the finished ATC.

Thanks for stopping by.

Laugh, Create, Smile

I think those words are perfect words to base your retirement on.  I love to create and now I have time to create - my job will no longer suck the creativity out of my soul.  I can get up every morning and if there is nothing on my calendar for the day, I can create anything I wish to.  This makes me smile and sometimes I even start laughing.  It is a laugh of joy because now my time is my own.

I am on the Design Team for Canvas Corps and they asked up to create a 4 x 4 canvas that somewhat describes us.  Here are the things from the canvas that represent me.

• The words are a favorite of mine now, especially the CREATE.  
• I love flowers.  I love to play in my flower beds.  Before I had paper therapy I had dirt therapy.  Now I have several drawers full of flowers for card making and I also love to make my own flowers.  (The orange flowers on the canvas were made from burlap from Canvas Corp.)
• I love bright colors.  Teal/aqua is a favorite.  I love pink (there is both a light pink and bright pink on this canvas).  Pink is also my Mom's favorite color so I always think of her when I create with pink.  Orange has also become a favorite.  At one time in my life, I thought orange only belonged to fall and Halloween but I had a student worker whose favorite color was orange so she opened my eyes to how versatile the color orange is.
• Do you see the fabric on my canvas?  My first love was fabric and sewing.  Although paper has become my favorite things to craft with, you will often see fabric showing up in my designs.  
• There is a twine bow in the flowers.  I know if you asked many of my card making friends, they would mention all the bows I make.  

I am having so much fun creating for Canvas Corp.  I love the versatility of their three lines:  Canvas Corp, Tattered Angels and 7Gypsies.  

I hope you enjoy this glimpse inside of my creative soul.

Here are some close ups of different parts of the canvas.

Here is a close up of two flowers that I made.  The orange flower is made from burlap which was painted orange.  If you have trouble with your burlap fraying, paint it with gel medium and it will not fray.  The aqua flower is strands of threads pulled from canvas fabric.  It is colored, wet with gel medium and wound into a coil.

The sentiment was stamped with black Versafine Ink and clear embossed.  It was fussy cut and was pop dotted on the front of the canvas.

Here you can see the different flowers and also the colored twine bow tucked among the flowers.

Thanks for letting me share a part of me.  Have a very wonderful day.  

Valentine's Day Ensemble

So you may ask, what is a Valentine Ensemble.  My ensemble consists of a card, a candy jar (which is a recycled dressing jar) and a small bag which could be used to hold treats or a gift card.

The bright pink dots paper, solid pink paper and white paper bag are products from Canvas Corp.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the circles, scalloped circles and hearts for my ensemble.  I used my Cuddlebug and a dot embossing folder to dry emboss the bag, background on card and white centers on the pink scalloped circle.  Isn't that bag cute embossed.  The embossing dresses it up.  The sentiment is a stamp from Simon Says Stamp that I won commenting on a blog hop.  I have used it so much this year on my cards.

I am entering this set in the Wednesday challenge at Simon Says Stamp where the challenge is "heart".  There are a few hearts on my project.

Well I must confess the candy jar is almost empty.  Those M&M's taste wonderful.  I hope the remainder of your Friday is awesome.

Pretty In Pink

As the cold winds blow in February and the snow falls, I start to think about flowers and spring.  Canvas Corp has a beautiful collection called The Watering Can.  I used the sheet of paper from this collection called The Watering Can:  Seed Packets on Ivory.  There are six images on the sheet that called out to me to make cards.

The images are beautiful in the black and cream but I wanted to highlight the flowers with the color pink.  Pink is my Mom's favorite color so I am very partial to it.  I colored the flowers with the Plain Jane Baseboard paint (Gerber) which has been mixed with water to make it more transparent.

The images are matted with black.  The images have rounded corners so I rounded the corners on the black mats. 

I colored seam binding with the paint.  I wet the seam binding and then put some paint and water in a small container with the seam binding.  Once I achieved the color I wanted, I scrunched it up in a ball and let it dry.  Once it is dry it keeps this crumpled look and makes the most beautiful bows.  These bows are very easy to make and because of the crumples, they hide any mistakes in your bow making.  (As an afterthought I wish I had added some Tattered Angels mist to the ribbon when it was wet to make it sparkle.) 

I wrapped a small piece of the ribbon around each of the matted card fronts.  After this was done, foam tape was added to the back of the fronts and mounted on the card front.  

Bows were then tied and adhered to the front of the card.  

   

Do these wonderful images make you think of spring and flowers?  I am looking forward to having some time to work on my flower gardens this year.  My Mom loved her flowers and so I plant lots of pink flowers since she is no longer able to have a flower garden.  

Canvas Corp and Words and Paintery Team Up

For the January Challenge at Words and Paintery, they are teaming up with Canvas Corp Brands.

Here is the challenge.

I decided to make a 6 x 6 canvas.  I was working on another project and had used a cardboard heart and decided to use one on this project.  I dug out my box of crayons, found somewhat similar colors, shaved them and placed them on my cardboard heart and melted them.  I think this is the first time I have every melted crayons for a project.  I covered my canvas board with a piece of paper from the 6 x 6 7 gypsies pad Epicurean.  I used a stencil and added texture paste to the top of the paper.  When you see the final project, do you see any of this texture paste?

This is where I started, and you know with any mixed media project, you never know what creative path you will take.  There were two sheets of red and blue patterned paper in the same 6 x 6 pad and you can see a little of them on the final project on the right side.  This is where my path started to go a little crazy.  At one point, I walked away from the project because I was not happy with what I had done.  After awhile, a few things came together in my head and I found some pags on a 12 x 12 sheet from 7 gypsies Ordre Du Jour Collection:  Seize the Day.  I hand wrote the quote on a tag which I fussy cut out of the paper.  I trimmed this tag and you can see the other part tucked in an opposite corner.  Another tag was cut apart and tucked here and there along with some pieces of the patterned paper.  One little drawer image was tucked in the wrapped cord on the crayon heart.  The crayon heart was wrapped with Canvas Corp Cord.  I tore a narrow strip off of a large piece of Canvas Corp Canvas for my bow.  A small cord bow was added to the top of the canvas bow.

Are you curious to see what came out of this winding path of creativity that I took to make this mixed media piece?  I will not keep you in suspense any longer.  Here it is.

Here are some close ups of some of the elements on the canvas.

The wrapped heart with the picture of the drawer tucked in the cord.

The verse tag along with some of the other tags that are tucked in this corner.

Here is the close up of the bow and the papers that are tucked in that corner.

Thanks to  Words and Paintery and Canvas Corp for stretching my creative wings.