e Picks Challenge 'Do something with a Bag'

Welcome to another e Team Picks Challenge. It's Toni here to take the stage and introduce you to the latest challenge and I'm asking you all to 'do something with a bag' and that means that you can choose any kind of bag, be it paper, plastic, leather or even that old Louis Vuitton case you don't use any more!  (and if you've got one of these, I'll give you my address later ! ) You can use any technique or medium you wish and in the true spirit of the eclectic Paperie challenges, just let your imagination fly ! I've chosen a canvas tote bag I've had knocking around for years. It was actually a magazine freebie. I've given it a fresh new look with lot's of Studio Paint and applied stamped tissue. I must say, I love the new look. Here's how I got started on the transformation.......

The first picture shows the rather sad, old bag I started with. I gave it a coat of Studio Gesso, all over including the handles, and already it was looking possible. Being somewhat impatient, I dried it with my heat tool, and then waded in with the paints. I chose, landscape Green, Purple Palette and Painterly Pink and applied them with a broad flat paint brush, in overlapping patches. Once dry, I repeated painting of the other side, varying the layout of the colours slightly.

I then chose some of the fabulous stencils I've received in in my DT packages from Kim. Here you can see Wendy Vecchi's Dots and Stripes, Crafter's Workshop Mini Harlequin and a Donna Downey Flower stencil. I used Antique Linen Distress paint and positioned the stencils in places where the colours butted up against each other. I think this helps to 'meld' it all together. I quite liked it at this point but .... why leave it there when I was having so much fun? I love the technique of stamping on tissue and layering it onto canvas, so I decided to use this on the the surface of the bag. As the bag has lovely spring  like colours, I thought it would be fitting to break out the new Tim Holtz Bird Feather stamps. I also delved into my stamp collection and found a selection of other botanical stamps. I stamped onto several tissues, using black Archival ink.

I cut around each shape and layed them on the surface of the bag. Once I was happy with the layout, I separated the two layers of  stamped tissue and adhered each image to the bag using Studio Matte Multri Medium. If you have never tried this, you really MUST have a go ! It's easy to do and if it goes wrong you can scrape it off whilst its still wet and try again. It's amazing, you really can't see the tissue once it's dry Here a close up..... 

 

To finish off, I added a little Maya Road wooden tag which I first painted white and then stuck on a little bird charm I made by stamping onto a piece of Polyshrink and heating to shrink the image. Just gives it a classy finish! 

I hope this project inspires you 'to do something with a bag' Remember it can be any kind of bag, as simple or as complex as you like just go ahead and have some fun ! x

 All of those who play along with our challenge will be entered into a prize drawing for a $15.00 gift certificate to the eclectic Paperie store.

So grab your supplies and play along! 

 Here are a few things to keep in mind for this challenge…

 -You do not have to use products sold in the eP store…but we do love it when you do!

-Share a direct link to your creation, not just your blog, using the Linky Tools feature at the end of this post.  If, for any reason, the Linky Tools doesn’t cooperate, please add a link in the Comments section of the blog.

-When uploading to any online galleries, please use any of the following keywords; eP, eclectic Paperie or eTeam Pick Challenge.  Link your creations to the eP blog.

-If you’d like to be considered as one of our featured projects and be entered into our prize drawing, please be sure to add your link. Winner will be announced on the first Thursday of the month. 

Here are some of the supplies available from the eclectic Paperie Shop, which I've used on my project. Good Luck !

Ranger Heat It Craft Tool	Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso	Claudine Hellmuth Studio-Multi-Medium Matte	Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paints - Painterly Pink	Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paints - Landscape Green
Claudine Hellmuth Studio Paints - Purple Palette	Tim Holtz Distress Paint - Antique Linen	Tim Holtz (Stampers Anonymous) - Bird Feather	Wendy Vecchi - Studio 490 - Dots & Stripes Borders Stencils	Prima - Donna Downey 6x6" Art Stencil - Floral

Hope Springs Eternal

Hi there ePers!  It's Erin here today on this fabulous Saturday!  I have an art journal entry for you today!  I've been trying to find time to create in it, and this week I was able to carve out some time to get a page done!  Whoo hoo!

Here we have the complete page.  Below, I will break the page down.  This is a VERY simple page!  I keep looking at it, like I need to add something!  Some sort of hardware, but then it would lose the softness!

Ok, so how did I start?  Well, I started by flipping through my (now half torn out) Sweet Disposition stack by Cosmo Cricket.  I LOVE this stack!  It's SO versatile, and the colors blend so nicely together!  The theme in this stack is, I don't know, can you tell?  HEXAGONS!  My favorite shape!

One of the pages is just florals, which I usually turn to.  It's my comfort zone.  I thought about different layouts, but then I decided, because of the way the paper was created, to cut the paper and create two corner pieces.  There are cream scallops with the flowers, so I used those as my guidelines.

Then, I took my Hexagon Grunge Stencil by Donna Downey, and w/ a paint brush and Titan Buff Golden fluid acrylic paint, I stipple painted the hexagons all over the page.  I wanted to create a mask on top of the blue floral paper to kind of hide it, as well as create a subtle background without adding more paper.

After the paint dried, I pulled my Teal Golden Fluid Acrylic Paint and Gel Medium, and mixed them together to create a soft teal gel.  Then, I smeared it on my Tattered Chicken Wire stamp like you would butter your bread.  The gel gets in all of the nooks and crannies, and when you stamp, some of it's goopy, but when you stamp again w/out re-inking, you get a really cool look!

{One thing I forgot to mention, is that I took pure Teal paint onto my palette knife and flung droplets on the page.  That's what the drops of paint are!}

Ok, then, I started cutting out hexagons on one of the pages from the Sweet Dispositions stack.  I took plain  Gel Medium, and essentially painted the middle of the page.  In this fashion, I'm using it as a glue.  Then, I arranged the cut hexagons over the Gel Medium and then painted over them to create a finish.

To create the shadows of the hexagons, I took my Acqua Dolce Gelato (found in the 50's Diner Collection), and colored the bottom and 1/2 side of each hexagon.  Then, I took my White Gelato and created highlights on the top and opposite 1/2 side of each hexagon.    Then, I had to get fancy, and add some calligraphy to finish the page!

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!  Thank you for stopping by!
Don't forget to stop at the eclectic Paperie store and get some new goodies!!!
Erin

Get Altered Challenge - Clocks!

Hi Everyone and welcome to another Get Altered with eclectic Paperie challenge.   The Get Altered Challenge is held on the first Thursday of each month and each challenge is an opportunity for you to be inspired by one of our eTeam’s creations, and to share your work, and be entered into our challenge prize drawing!

This week it's Erin's turn to host another fun and exciting challenge. 

After much thought, I decided on a Clock challenge.   I challenge you to alter a clock!  Any clock!  Old, new, borrowed, inherited!  Pick up any type of clock and alter it to fit your artistic style!  I can't wait to see what you create!!!

Ok, so after I shared what today's challenge was going to be w/ the eP Team, I really started looking for cool clocks.  I came up w/ nothing.  So, one day my husband was heading to Walmart, (he shops, I get to stay home!  Impulsive shopper right here!  :D ), I had him pick me up a $5 clock!

This is what he brought home!

 

I was so happy!  This was exactly what I had wanted!  Something SO plain, that the least amount of work would do wonders to this little diamond in the rough!

I took the clock all apart and spray painted it black w/ Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Spray.

Next, I painted the outer part of the clock with Black Soot Distress Crackle Paint.  Then, I rubbed some
Honey Amber Acrylic Paint all over it to bring the crackles out.

I took some MME paper and created the inside circle.  Then, I took a plastic canvas that you would use
for sewing and taped a Damask stencil onto it.  Using a palette knife, I pushed through some black gesso
through the design onto the paper.  The checked design is what your end result is!  I used to only use the plastic canvas for punching holes in an orderly fashion.  Now you can use it with gesso!  Whahoo!

 To create the flowers, I took Tim Holtz's Tattered Floral Die and die cut a few flowers and put them together w/ bronze brads.  I curled and sponged the edges for more dimension.

I cannot wait to see your fabulous altered clocks!!!
Erin

Working It Out.....

 Hi Everyone!

I don't know about you but this past week was somewhat trying for me.  No matter what I started, my craft projects just didn't want to come together.  Ever have those type of days?  Well, I was having one of those weeks!  The result was a great learning experience.

Because I've been working in my homemade art journals, I've not had a chance to work in my Dylusions Art Journal.  With no clear idea of theme or even color palette, I grabbed my Dylusions Ink Sprays and Inksessential Mini Mister and just started.  And didn't like it.  I could have gesso'd over the pages but instead I decided to just use this art journal spread as a means to play with the new goodies from eP.
I added random spots of paint using Prima's Donna Downey 12x12 Chevron Grunge Art Stencil. .  Next I added the Bert and Flossie silhouette stencils using Claudine Hellmuth paints.  I mixed some Blank Canvas paint with Gesso to get a gray color I liked for Bert.
Then I got an idea.  What if I used  Pan Pastels with stencils instead of ink sprays!  Why not, this spread was after all a 'learning experiement'.
 I layered the Bert stencil with the Flossie stencil then added TCW Mini Cursive Alpha stencil on top of all of that:

(I add blue painters tape along the edges of some of my stencils - helps my little fat fingers :-) hang on better)
I also used Pan Pastels along the edges with Dylusions Number Stencil.

I LOVE - LOVE - LOVE how the  Pan Pastels work with stencils.  The only thing to remember, is to apply fixative (I used hair spray) or the chalk will rub off as you can see in the picture above.  I outlined Flossie with the white Faber-Castell Gelato and was rubbing some of the chalk off before I realized it.

If you are wondering why the funky handwriting, it's actually my personal journaling.  I kept writing in the same area - over previous writing.  I wanted to keep the journaling personal and this way I know what I wrote but anyone looking at it would have a hard time deciphering it (I hope anyway :-) ).

All in all, I learned something even if the overall spread isn't all that pretty.  Honestly, I threw everything but the kitchen sink on the pages but it allowed me to play with all my new eP goodies AND it got me inky.

I hope this inspired you to step outside your comfort zone, to create just for the "what if", you never know what you might discover.

Supplies Used:

InLinkz.com