new year, new adventures, new crafts!

Good day everyone! Today is the first day of 2013!!! Can you believe it? I am extremely excited to start fresh, wipe the slate clean, and start to tackle some of my new goals for this year. Jimmy and I have an important move coming up in April and I will spend many, many hours in the few months ahead preparing for it, packing away, organizing and getting rid of unneeded things. We are embarking on a cross country journey and moving back to his home state of Oregon. I am very, very excited to experience life in a different part of the country and hopeful that there will be better job opportunities for his field of work there. We are both able to transfer with our companies, but I have been with mine for almost 6 years and he is looking for something better as soon as we get out there. We might even be renting a HOUSE instead of a tiny apartment which is very, very exciting!! All firsts for us as newlyweds. And I do have some life-goals in mind for myself for this year, but for now, I want to share what my 'crafty' goals are for 2013:

1. To turn my little Vintage Vixen Crafts blog and fb page eventually into an Etsy business, selling handmade mixed media canvasses, embellishments, custom albums and mini albums.

2. To expand my repertoire of crafting skills, by taking up something new or using a new product or tool.

3. To attempt Tim Holtz's 12 tags of 2013! Starting with January!

4. To complete my some of my list of pinterest projects!

5. To build/design my ideal crafts studio in our new home in Portland, with LOTS of organization!

With that said, I would like to share with you my very first mixed media canvas that I completed yesterday. I am not sure that I will be selling this one yet, but I have plans on making some more in the very near future! I have lots of ideas! I have to admit, I got this idea from one of my very favorite scrappers, Kelly Foster from her blog All the Pretty Things. A few weeks ago, she posted about how she was puzzled about how to use this cool cork piece that came in her DT kit, and instead of stowing it away in the pile of  stuff she was saving to alter, she ended up pulling it back out and making this cool canvas. I was really inspired by the quote she used, and I thought it would be a good starting point for not only my first canvas, but also for the new year! Here's a photo of her canvas as seen in this post:

Simply amazing, right? How could you not be inspired!! So even though I got the idea from her...well I used the quote but I didn't really use any of her design except for the layout of the words a little bit and the tags she used. I went for a totally different color scheme and I think my canvas is a little larger because I was reusing something that I already had. I tried to take step by step photos so you can see how I started building it, but got lost towards the end in the creative process, sorry! So here is a recap of what I did to create my canvas:

First, I started off by spray painting an old canvas I had lying around...one that I painted myself a while back that I didn't really like anymore, its about  13x24 size I think. 

Next, I let it dry for a while and took it into my craft room. I wanted to start my background using a mask, which I don't own any of yet, but I had this cutout paper with a pretty damask pattern so I used that to start with some of my new Gesso! It got kinda messy:

  After I masked both corners of the canvas using my fingers and a plastic knife, I heated it to dry. then I ripped my paper in half that I used the gesso on and sprayed it with Smooch Spritz in candleglow and caramel mocha. Then I heated it again and you could see the texture ridges on the paper from the knife, which was cool!! Also, while the gesso was still wet I scrunched up some tissue paper on the edges to add more texture. I had fun ripping away and making several layers with it.

I also pulled out some of my favorite papers, and decided on a color scheme of taupes, greys, yellows, whites, creams, and teal with a hint of black. Alot of colors I know but I knew it would work, this is my color scheme for my dream living room too! LOL!

I started to pull out all the other supplies that I thought I might need. They are pictured here except for the different adhesives I used including Sticky Thumb pop dots, large glue dots, and a permanent glue stick.

After I had my first 2 layers dry, I began to place my other background elements, including a 12 x 12 piece of corrugated cardboard, the remants of my masking sheet, and some patterned paper that looks like wooden planks that I cut into strips, distressed, and inked. I laid that behind the masked sheet and then used pop dots to pop it up. Also I pinned down the cardboard piece with lots of glue gloss and some tiny brads poked through the canvas, one in each corner. This is what it looked like in that step:

For the next step, I punched some large circles out of the mini grey dot paper, inked them in black, and tucked them under the edges on each side of my middle cardboard piece. I also started fussy cutting out some of the flowers from the Authentique paper and pop-dotted them up into place. I also tried stamping my large Heidi Swapp chandlier stamp and music notes stamp in a few places and used my new distress embossing powder in black soot, but it didnt' come out how I thought. I think my surface was too wet or sticky or something cause the image didn't really come out very clear.

Next, I fussy cut some cute cameras from the American Crafts' Amy Tangerine paper and colored them in with distress markers in antique linen and broken china.

 After that I inked them up good with Top Boss and sprinkled over generously with UTEE, then I was ready to heat them up for that cool, glossy look!

Here they are done and stacked up together on my canvas:

So after that step, I kinda stopped taking pictures cause I was fully into the creative process! I just started laying my pieces around until I was happy with the placement. I started with my patterned papers on the cardboard piece, then started adding more flowers to my fussy cut ones, buttons, lace, tulle, canvas, brads, resin flowers, and really piled the stuff on! I also used some of my TH fragments that I made last week, tying them all with twine.

After I had most of my elements in place, I made sure everything was glued down well and added tiny bits of washi tape, stickles for sparkle, and also small stamps in random places to make sure to tie in more of the black on my page. Also, I place my alphas around almost as the last step. 

 And here are a few close ups of all around the canvas, so much prettiness going on I had to make sure to snap them all! 

 And my favorite, the cameras stacked up in my 'burlap' canvas camera bag made out of Maya Road burlap circles, brads, and twine.

  Best photo I could get of it hanging on the wall, I will take more in daylight when it's not so cold out! 

 I plan to make a few more of these and get them up on my facebook page and see if they sell! If you have any special requests for a specific quote, theme, color scheme, or style please comment or message me on my facebook page! I am super excited about making my next one, not sure yet if I will sell this one yet! Right now it's my 'baby'! Took me almost 8 hours do! Until next time crafty friends, Peace Y'all~ VV

Supply List:

Papers used- Basic Grey 'Out of Print', MME 'Miss Caroline' -curious, Recollections grey mini dot, American Crafts Amy Tangerine 'sketchbook', Echo Park 'note to self', Lilybee Designs 'memorandum time clock', Authentique 'Blissful' collection 'happiness'

flowers- Prima Marketing and Recollections

Tim Holtz- distress inks in black soot, vintage photo, and antique linen

distress markers- antique linen and broken china

fragment charms, memo pins, alpha tiles, metal key pieces

Purple Pumpkin- twine in yellow, teal, brown, crochet doily

Ranger Stickles- crystal and patina

Smooch Spritz by Clearsnap- caramel mocha, candlelight, river mossy, pralines n' cream

Stamps- Heidi Swapp, 7 Gypsies, Prima Marketing, Studio G, and Recollections

Thickers- Amy Tangerine in 'goodness' 'scene' and 'muse' also 'Doll'

StazOn jet black ink and Top Boss Embossing ink

Other- washi tape, vintage lace, vintage buttons, corrugated cardboard, brads, spray paint, Gesso, UTEE, Maya Road burlap pieces, paper distresser, adhesives, Martha Stewart tinsel glitter, 

& misc chipboard pieces

Altered Initial Tutorial

Good morning everyone!! I hope your December has gotten off to a good start. I know I always love this time of year. Giving gifts, especially handmade ones for me are the best part of Christmas! A great seg-way into our post for today, I made an altered initial for my sister for her birthday this year. I always feel like I don't really know what she wants because well she pretty much has everything, I could buy her like an Amazon gift card but well that's kind of impersonal, and I am her crafty sis, so it has to be something good!

Here is a pic of the original initials we did at class in May:

So I orginally took a class a few months back at weekend crop in Gulfport, MS for this initial. I bought an extra kit thinking I would do the same style again for Kelli and give it to her as a gift, but after looking over the papers and embellishments, I realized that they probably weren't really her style. The blue, white, silver and peacock feathers are really cute but wouldn't match her house decor. So I scrapped the whole kit- to use on another project, except for the intial! The first thing I did was hot glue a tube to the back of the letter to give it more stability when standing. I also thought that you could add some dried flowers or something for height when using it to decorate! Here are some pics and step by step instructions (forgive me for not taking a pic for each step!!) Pardon these pics too, I had to take them all inside because it has been dreary out!

Next, I chose my papers and traced the letter on it then cut it to fit. I used Martha Stewart crafts glue to adhere it to the letter, then my exacto knife to trim and get a good clean edge. These are some of the products I used: red chevron paper- The Paper Studio, element stickers from Carta Bella 'beautiful moments' line, mod podge in Glossy, Tim Holtz distress ink in vintage photo, StazOn Jet black ink, and chandelier stamp by Heidi Swapp.

After I had my paper down, I chose one of the larger element stickers and placed it on the letter. Then I inked and stamped the Heidi Swapp stamp over top of that. This is how it looked in that step:

 The next thing I did was take my ink blending tool with the TH ink in vintage photo and ink all the edges really good. Making sure to get in all the crevices and over all of the edges.

 Next I did a light coating of mod podge over the whole thing smearing it pretty thin with my fingers, then dried it with my heat tool. After that, I cleaned my chandelier stamp and used my Stampendous clear embossing ink and restamped over the image again, then sprinkle over it generously with UTEE and hit it again with the heat tool. This is what it looks like before you heat it:

 And this is what it looks like after you heat it:

 So for the next few steps I forgot to take pics, but basically I just started layering on some more embellishments. I fussy cut out of some paper a large key, and from Tim Holtz paper I cut out a clock and made it have hands with a brad in the middle. I also layered on a few more stickers from the Carte Bella elements sheet. After I put my papers and other stickers on, I did another thin layer of mod podge and I heat embossed the chandelier again. then I started to add my other elements:

 I used vintage buttons, 2 kinds of washi tape for the sides, a resin rose, a metal key hole from Tim Holtz, some ribbon and a layered flower with a pearl. I also stamped another few small stamps from my Prima set with the jet black StazOn, a small bird and a spoon. This is what it looked like after I was done embellishing:

So I hope you have enjoyed my post today! It was so fun and quick to do this project that I am thinking about doing a few more for my lady friends at work, if I can get going! Christmas is only 14 days away!!! I don't think it would take me too long. We'll see how this one goes over for my sis, and then I guess I'll decide. Until next time friends, keep scrapping and PEACE Y'ALL!! ~VV

A Lil' Girlie OWL ART!!!

Happy Friday!! (the 13th OOH spooky!)  I am here to share with you a special project that I did this month for Scrapping Frenzy! I used some of my leftover scraps of patterned paper, a little paint, a canvas, and just a little creativity! I had originally thought it would be kind of challenging to come up with something to make, and then I just started browsing through my scrapbook magazines. In the newest issue of Scrapbooks, Etc. this project was featured in the back! So I can't take full credit for the idea, but I did totally make it my own and add a few things! This little art piece would make a great gift for a girl's birthday and that is what I plan on doing with it, for my little niece, Zoe!

To start, this is the page that inspired me in the magazine:

So I started sorting through my scraps and I mixed and matched several lines of paper to come up with quite a colorful palette. I first cut out all the circles, distressed and inked them, then hand drew the eyes, and the top of the head with ears. I glued the top piece down first to a thicker piece of cardstock, then started layering my circles. I moved them around quite a bit until I was happy with the color arrangement. Last I glued down the eye piece on top of the circles and added a small triangle for the nose. This is what it looked like before embellishments:

The last pieces I did were the wings, which I hand drew basing them on the thicker brown wings from the magazine page. I glued them on top of the circles, then started layering on some feathers. I thought it would be a nice addition of more texture so I picked maroon, cream, and natural looking feathers and mixed them together to come up with the 'wings'. I first tried using glossy accents to adhere them, which didn't work, then a tape runner, and in the end I figured out that large glue dots worked best!! This is how it turned out after I added everything!!

I really wanted it to be colorful, so I chose 2 different colors of blue for my canvas instead of grey or white. also I layered some large dew drops and xl brown buttons for eyes along with a tulle bow to the flower. I tied the bow by hand and used my fingers to smear some stickles in 'tropical tangerine' over it to add some sparkle!

To the otherside I added a grungeboard butterfly covered with stickles and a mini chalkboard. I used Tim Holtz distress markers in 'picket fence' to write on the chalkboard but it didn't come out too clearly so I went over it with some old school puff paint!! LOL

So here is another shot of the whole thing! I am really happy with the end result, even after all my stressing :D and I can't wait to give it to my little niece!!

So I hope I have inspired you today to step out of your scrapbooking comfort zone of layouts and cards and make something really special for your family or friends! Scrapbooking supplies can always be used for something great, like wall art!! I am taking a personal day today to get ready for a DT meeting and private crop at Scrapping Frenzy, can't wait to see my friends and get the creative mojo flowing again! I'll be back soon to share some more lovely LO's from tonite (depending on how much I get done, LOL)!! 

Until next time, Peace y'all~ VV

Supplies: cream, white, pink, orange, and brown cardstock- Bazzil, misc. patterned papers including; Basic Grey 'Out of Print', Bo Bunny 'a Gift of Love', American Crafts 'Neopolitan' line, and Crate paper. Clearsnap Smooch Spritz in 'caramel mocha'. Colorbox fluid chalk inks- creamy brown, pumpkin pie, Ranger Stickles 'tropical tangerine', paper doily- Crate paper, Tim Holtz distress markers 'picket fence' and 'antique linen'. Large clear dew drops by The Robin's Nest,Tim Holtz paper distressing tool, Tim Holtz grungeboard, turquoise-colored tulle, large brown antique buttons, mini chalkboard, misc. feathers-from stash. large pink  flower- purple pumpkin crafts, Modge Podge, Folk Art Acrylic paint in 'calypso blue' and 'turquoise', mint colored puff paint, foam brushes, and square canvas from art supply store.