Unity Stamps Challenges

Hello again friends!!

Last week I entered two challenges at Unity Stamps.

The Color Challenge April 14 – 21

 

Using teal and green combination, I made this card for baby. Earlier in the day I made a card for my sister who was going to a baby shower but I didn’t take a picture of it.  So I made this one using a Sizzix die I found on sale at Hobby Lobby, by Stephanie Barnard,  Triple Circle Flip-its.  I couldn’t find teal cardtock so I took white cardstock and my acrylic paints and made some!  Easy peasy!

When  you open it, it reveals another sentiment.

These cards are hard to photograph, but I did the best I could.  I used the Hello Little One kit.  I first stamped the animals on gray cardstock using black ink, I cut them out and added the small hearts in red.   I added the black, gray, and white cord for added texture.

The second card is very similar, but instead of using the die, I just made an old fashion 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card using coordinating papers from a 6×6 stack.

I just happened to have some googly eyes in my stash small enough for these elephants.  Aren’t they cute!!  I also added three hearts in three different sizes.

Here’s a close up of the elephants.

Anything Goes Challenge – April 21 – 28

This time, I didn’t have to spend time making a card, because I created a card for my cousin’s daughter when she got married in Phoenix two weeks ago.

I used the Cherished Moments kit by Angie Blom.  You can see more on this card in one of my previous post here: 

Lastly, Angela Magnuson, the owner of Unity Stamps made a video on the Face Book  Unity Stamps Show and Tell group  and challenged us to “RE-CREATE a card like Angela made (using any UNITY stamp) and post it in the comments below for your chance to win a grab bag of {100 stamps/sentiments!!!}”

Wow! I want to win 100 stamps!!

So this quick card was created in less than five minutes!

I used a feather from the  Beautiful is Never Perfect kit by Angie Blom.  I so love the detail!!

Angela stamped her feathers one on top of the other one, but I just randomly stamped mine so the details could be seen.  I used three different colors of distressed inks, and “wallah!”

I also used one of the sentiments that comes with it inside double stamping it for a shadow effect.

So much fun playing in my craft room!

I just finished reorganizing my craft room and I found so many things I don’t use any more.  I will be posting what I have for sale here and my FB page.  There will be stamps, stamps, and more stamps, as well as a “never used – new” Making Memories Slice machine with design cards and accessories, Cricut cartridges, embossing folders,  a gypsy, two Jukeboxes that hold six Cricut cartridges each for designing or combaning your own images, and lots more!

Until next time, you have yourselves a great week and keep on creating!!

Carmen

 

Unity Stamps Anything Goes Challenge

This week’s challenge over at the Unity Show and Tell Facebook page is to use any Unity girl stamps to create a card, scrapbook page, mixed media project or anything else, using Unity Stamps only.

I love mixed media so I took the opportunity to play with Donna Downey’s stamp Kit, Calliope.  The girl’s image is 5×7.

This is an 8×11 canvas board that I primed with clear gesso so I could work on the face.  I first worked on the background and left a space for the image.  I used several Unity Stamps after laying down three different colors of Deco Art media fluid acrylics in Pthalo Blue, Hansa Yellow Light, and Liquitex heavy body acrylic in Payne’s Gray.

After the acrylic colors dried, I started stamping randomly using Unity Stamps Numbers, Etc.; the script from the Let it GO & Focus set; Donna Downey’s Peony and She; and Layers of Life kit Paper Hearts.

 I also added some doodles with my white Signo pen.

Then I went to work on the girl’s face and body.  I first stamped her on Rice paper so I could get a good impression then glued her with matt medium.  Some of the colors I used on the face were Americana acrylic in Fresh Tone, Golden Brown, Natural Buff, White and Liquitex Basics in Light Portrait Pink. For the lips, and cheeks, I used  the Tombow Art markers.

While that was drying, I used Donna’s stencil and applied gold and green Art (C) molding paste I found on clearance at Michael’s.  Great stuff, by the way!  It came in three small containers with three different colors – enough to try out!

I used one of Heidi Swapp’s stencils and her glittery silk screen molding paste here…

…and here.  It was the first time I used it and was very impressed with the creaminess and the shine – just like her glimmer mists!

after everything was dried, I stamped the She stamp on regular printing paper so it would have a good impression, cut it out, and glued it on the canvas with matt medium.

Then I worked on her hair, glasses, and dress. I used three different colors of Tombow pencils and ArtDeco Interference to make it shine.  I also added shading to her face and body using Pitt Markers.

I added glossy accents on the glasses and a few white lines to make it appear as the glare on the glass.

Thanks for stopping by to see my project and leave me some love in the comments.

Happy creating you all!

Carmen

Life Book Week 13 with Rae Missigman

This week’s lesson, given by Rae Missigman, was as usual challenging for me because it was about layers and intuitivity – if there is such a word.  (My spell checker didn’t recognize it, but I’ll add it anyway, ha!)

After I finished the project I had to leave it alone overnight to see it with new eyes.  So, it wasn’t that bad after all this morning!

She does lots of layers in her projects and I like layers, but the intuitive part just doesn’t resonate with me, so I thought about it and and made a plan.  I used a stencil without flowers!  I picked two by Claudine Helmuth with different shapes of bird cages and the Love Birds stencil.  The other one by Heidi Swapp that has the bird on a branch which includes the mask and another stencil.

So after layer and more layers, this is what I came up with.

I used watercolor paper, acrylic paints, a black pencil, splash colors, molding paste, and napkins for collaging.

I guess you can say I made it my own because instead of using flower stencils, I used the ones I mentioned above.

Here are some close-ups.  Since I also stamped different birds, cages, and bold stamps, I was surprised to see these birds come out after the layers.

I like the idea of circling the different parts you want to highlight.

I also added some doodling and more stamps to the empty spaces.  I also used modeling paste for the birds.

I stamped this sentiment on tissue paper I used with a gelli page.  I love how all the cages stand out with different objects inside of them.

The only flowers were these on a napkin I added just for fun.

This picture shows the bird on the right side and more bird cages hidden by the acrylic layers of paint.

Thanks for dropping by to see my project for this week and please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!!

Happy weekend everyone!!

Carmen

Life Book 2016 Weeks 11 and 12

Hello my artsy friends.  Did you survive Daylight Savings Time?  Oh, it took me a week to get over it and I’m still taking my naps to catch up!

Arizona is the only state in the Union that doesn’t follow DSM.  I guess it’s a rebel thing!  LOL.  We lived there for about five years and enjoyed it very much, but we couldn’t stand the heat.  In the summer it was impossible to enjoy the outdoors because of 115 F heat, so we moved to Las Cruces, NM.  Our family was in El Paso, TX, just a short hour away. Unfortunately, my dad, hubby and I all got Cancer and we decided to move back to El Paso to be closer to the family and closer to the hospital where we had our treatments.

Anyhow, we are having a blast here, the weather is pretty much temperate – we have hot summers and cold winters, but loooong Springs and Autumns.  Love it here.

Now on to  Life Book!

Week 11 – Roots & Ground, Wings & Light with Tamara Laporte

This week Tam gave us a lesson on mixing colors for dark skin girls.

I managed to use my Caran D’ Arche and Tombow artist’s markers to come up with a fairly dark skin girl.  I wanted to make her a cool angel so I gave her a rainbow hair do.  i really like how her eyes came out!

Here are some details:

A closeup of her cute sunburned face and green eyes.

For the background I used some napkins with birds and flowers and this birdie wanted to come out, so I outlined it.  I also used some zentagle stamps to fill in all the open spaces.

For these flowers I used a stencil and modeling paste and outlined them with a black pen.  I also added white and black stars and gave her wings the same colors as her hair.

Here are more stenciled/modeling paste flowers and more stamps.  I mostly used the crayons and some acrylics for the background.

I added more zentangle stamping on her dress and a heart to fill in the blank space here too.

Here you can see more zentangle stamps in between her wings.

Now on to:

Week 12 – The Simple Things With Angela Kennedy

If you go to her page, she has some sweet-faced girls done very simply, but beautiful!

This was a bonus lesson to give us a chance to catch up with our projects and time to breathe in between.

All she used on this project was a stabilo pencil and a few pastel colors and a quote that has to do with grounding.

Here is my interpretation:

I didn’t have a good Stabilo pencil so I used the black Inktense watercolor Block, but it came out a little bit purple and brown, but I still like the effect.  I used orange and red for the flowers, and two shades of green pastel pencils for the leaves and branches.

Sorry about the light, I was fixing it up in my loft at night, hence, the sepia color. I found out I misspelled the quote, so I typed it using one of my favorite fonts and glued the paper to cover up the misspelling.  I was thinking about my daughter, a masseuse, and how she really heals through her hands after grounding herself on her feet.

Here’s a closeup of the flower in her hair.  The trouble with pastels is that they come off easily on your hands, so I applied a fixative when I was done.

A closeup of the face.

and a closeup of the left hand side flowers,

Alright friends, thank you for sticking with me through this process of sharing my Life Book projects.

Until next time,

Happy painting!!

Carmen

 

Unity Stamps Sketch Challenge

This week the challenge at Unity Stamps is to make a card using this sketch:

I decided to make a sympathy card for a dear friend who just lost her mother last week.  She is loved by many people so this sentiment is perfect for her.

I used watercolor paper because I wanted to use my Brushos color crystals.  They are intense paint powder that is water-based. The colors are brilliant and transparent.  They’re mainly for impressionistic work, but I love the way they run on water color paper when I use the wet-on-wet technique.  You can also do sprinkling, spritzing, and other techniques.  I’m still getting used to the intensity, and at first I was getting mud.  I’m getting closer to liking them much more now that I can control them better.

I started out by brushing gesso on the paper and after it was dry I then used a stencil and modeling paste with this awesome stencil.  I let it dry, then I used the Brush powder adding a little water on my palette and coloring the branches.  Then I just spritzed the paper with water and threw a miniscule amount of the crystals on the background.

I used a Unity Stamp that came with one of the Kit of the Month collection, What Lies Within Us.  I wanted the girl to be walking in a field of grass so I masked the stenciled branches and stamped her directly on the watercolor paper using Memento ink.  I also used the Brusho crystals.  I then went back and used a pen to outline the scarf, the branches, and the hair.

For the sentiment, I used printed vellum and outlined the edge to make it stand out, then I aded a few sequins.  If you look closely at the vellum, you can see it has faint leaves all over.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my sympathy card.  I want to give it to my friend personally, but she leaves on the west side and there is construction going on, so I’ll mail it.  Be sure and stop by the Unity Stamp store this week, they are having a FUNtastic sale!

Until next time,

Create something awesome today!

Carmen

Life Book Week Six Your Quirky Amazing Life

Hello my artsy peeps!  Here I am again with another exciting post, LOL!

Week Six was taught by the amazing Tamara Laport

We were to think and write down about all the things we are grateful for and how we would depict our family.  Since this week was about quirky bird, I first thought about what the different personalities make up my amazing family, then I sketched them.

Here’s the sketch:

My daughter is a Yoga instructor and is always meditating, my son loves the drums and was in a rock band, now he works at a music store.  My husband  was hard to sketch, but I thought a toucan would be a good representation, and I’m the chick with the umbrella.

 

Here we are!  I also added my grandsons whom I adore!

I created this project on a 11×14 watercolor paper and used watercolor pencils, crayons, markers, acrylic paints, molding paste, stencils and love!

As I mentioned before, my daughter is a Yoga instructor.  I made her a Yoga outfit and the glitter all around her is her aura.  She’s such a loving, giving, and caring person!  She’s meditating and going “Ohmmmmmm” LOL

The Rock Star!

My son has been playing drums since he was grade school and later was part of a group.  Now he’s in his 40’s and he’s feeling the results of again!  His elbows hurt, he can’t hear very well, etc.

I tried to make him as flambouyant as possible, but not over the top.  I gave him a KISS face.  I added an ant so there would be five characters.  He’s holding a tiny heart and a leaf.

Next up is my husband.  Originally he was going to be a Toucan, but after adding his feathers, I don’t know what he is, ha ha.  He does have a heart of gold!  He is very giving, loving, and caring also!

My oldest grandson has been hiding behind people lately; I don’t know why, but he is the one in the family who also loves music and has the sweetest voice you’ve ever heard!

My youngest grandson is a jock!  He loves playing baseball and wants to be able to play professionally one day.  My husband has been encouraging him to do well in school and perhaps he can get a scholaship to go to College.  He’s already been admitted to Humboldt College in California.  We’re so proud!

Last, but not least, the chick representing me!

I put glasses on her because I like to read, and the umbrella is for when I go out in the ministry on a sunny day.   I’m one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and do volunteer work teaching the Bible and helping people get to know it better.  I added Zentangles to the umbrella, which I also draw to relax.  I also added doodles all over the pages and a few quirky stamps.

And that’s the project for this week, friends!

Thanks for coming by and I hope you leave me a comment.  I love comments!!

Carmen

Live With Promise

I had some spare time this weekend (I don’t know how that happened!) so I watched a free video on Youtube “Fawn Whispers” with Tamara Laporte while waiting for Monday to roll around so I could start on another Life Book 2016 lesson.  It is going to be all about quirky birds! I watched the first two videos while snuggling on my couch.  The weather turned ugly today; cold, windy, rain, and probably snow!

As I was saying, I followed along as she created her project because I wanted to go through her process.  The face came out a little different than hers.  The video is in fast speed, so I had to stop it and do my thing, then start again.  All in all I really liked how my piece came out.

I used 11×14 watercolor paper again for this one.  Collaged it with some tissue paper I found on clearance at Michael’s and lightly used my Caran De Arche watercolor crayons. I also used acrylic paint, and watercolor pencils. I’m usually very heavy handed when it comes to paint, but since I used watercolor crayons the paper showed through and I like it!

I’m always looking for the opportunity to use all of my crafty finds that I’ve picked up on sale and I was able to use the Faber Castelle Texture Gems in gold and white for the heart and the crowns.  Some may call it hoarding, but I call it preparing for the future!  LOL

I also used a Tim Holtz stencil to give the crown and her dress and cape some texture.

I first used the gems for the crown on the girl and decided to add some dots to the fawn’s crown as well as the heart.

I found my stencil with this quote and used a black molding paste so it would stand out.

The tiny butterflies are from the same stencil.  You can see the tissue paper that I used for the background.  I finished it off with throwing some white dots all over it.

Here is the stencil I used to add the flowers and leaves with a black ink.

I also added doodles with a white marker and a white gel pen and acrylic paint through another stencils in other places throught this piece and a script stamp.

My husband liked it a lot too, but he said that I need to make darker skinned gilrs too.  Yes, dear, that’s my next project.

Thanks for visiting and have a warm, cozy, day crafting!

Carmen

 

And It Begins: Life Book 2016

Hello again, crafty friends!

I put together my projects for Life Book 2015, but there were so many pages, I had to make two albums.

I made the covers out of hard white mat board and covered them with the designer paper.  I didn’t want to make holes in my pages, so instead, I made some corners where the pages would be inserted, and glued them to the 11×17 paper I found at JoAnns.

This is when I found out I couldn’t put any more pages in the album even though I used three inch rings.

As you can see, I made a lot of art last year!

Life Book 2016 – Week One

Now, I start on Life Book 2016.  I’ve been working on my projects as fast as I  can so I don’t fall behind.  This year I want to conscientiously make all the projects because I’m still learning and I’m finding what I like.  I don’t want to get into a rot, so I feel that if I try all the different classes, I can learn new styles and more techniques.

The Warm Up

Tamara Laport, the genius behind Life Book has been conducting this series since 2012.  This will be my second year, and I enjoy going to my craft room and playing with all my crafty stuff.  I’ve also been able to take out different tools, paints, and stencils I haven’t used before.

Tam, is a very gentle, gracious, and giving person.  You can tell by her lessons and the details in each that se really enjoys teaching others what she knows.

The first week she did a warm up lesson about our word for the year.  I am struggling with overworking my art and so I figured that imperfection is better than getting frustrated.

A closeup of the lotus:

I used a variety of stamps to make it imperfect.

I stamped the word beautiful and the lotus with a Unity Stamp kit.

These two are also part of the kit.

Main Lesson, Happy Traveler.

I chose a lamb and an eagle to be my traveling companions.  I gave the eagle a little bit of attitude!

A closeup of my little lamb.  Yes, she’s blue, but she’s happy.

A closeup of the eagle leaning on the tree.

A closeup of the the traveler’s face.  Notice the doodling I did on her hair to add some dimension.

I also did some doodling on the bottom left corner with a white marker and other doodles with the black one.

And used a stencil on her cape and on the upper right hand corner.

Tam added a pouch to her traveling companing, but I didn’t add one to mine because I fuzzed too much over my lamb and I just wanted to finish.

I’ve been working today on Week two, and will post the homework tomorrow.

Until then, happy crafting!

Carmen

Life Book Weeks 39 – 41

Life Book Week – From Here to There

with Roben Marie

This week’s lesson with  Roben-Marie is all about finding connection with our wholeness again through the pages.  Roben-Marie talks about the therapeutic aspects of journalling and shows us how to create a beautiful journal page from ‘here to there’! 

Using watercolor paper I first made marks all over the page then started layering different media including stamps, stencils, pages from magazines,  sheet music, and old book pages.  I also made some of my own tools and applied them on the page.  It is not as bright as Roben-Marie’s but I like it!

These are the closeups of this page:

This is the bird cage stamp I used and the bird is a paper I punched out with a circle punch

Some of the marks we did were circles with a paper towel tube

I used them to stencil in some flowers

This is part of a magazine I used and left the image inside the circle also

This shows some of the book papers I used to make circles and attached them to the page where I thought needed to be covered

Lastly, we made tags and put them inside a pocket I made using my sewing machine so it wouldn’t obstruct the page.  By the way, Roben-Marie was making the tags along with each layer and I didn’t realize she would be using it for the journalling, but I went back and created three tags and will use them on other projects.  The stamp I used is from Unity Stamps.

Week 40 – was an interview with Chris Zydel she teaches intuitive painting and mark making and her class is sometime in November – looking forward to trying it out!

Week 41 – Kristin Vanvalkenburgh

I found this lesson by Kristin to be very moving. It was  a very therapeutic  exercise.  I got a little teary eyed when I was watching the first video because she shared some memories of when she was younger with us.  So this exercise was about writing a letter to your younger self and be accepting of the future.

I enjoyed working on this lesson too, because I allowed myself to be free and not think too much about the process.  One thing I did was use lighter colors and I really like the look.

This is the page I created using spray inks, acrylic paint, stencils, glitter and lots and lots of texture with gesso.

This is the heart I created with burlap using the circles stencil I made myself.  I attached a piece of card stock to the back of the heart and sewed around the edges with a straight and zig-zag stitches so the burlap would not unravel.  Since it’s a very personal message, I stapled it shut so no one else can read it but me!

Close up of all the texture I created using paper towel tubes, a comb and a plastic tool with a different edge on it.

I had never used glitter on top of spray inks before, but it looks like it adhered well.  I applied mod podge juste to be sure the glitter would not come off everywhere.

Finally, the left hand side showing more glitter and more texture.  This was so much fun, although, it did take me three days to complete.  I am keeping these techniques for future projects of my own for sure!

There you have it, friends, let me know what you think and have a fabulous week!

Hugs, Carmen