shy crafty girl: gauche alchemy

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Let the music play!

So one night back in Febuary, I was watching a Ustream from Journal Artista. On that show she did a project from the book Kaleidoscope by Suzanne Simanaitis. She was making postcard backgrounds from light weight chipboard(cereal box). There was a list of different things you had to do and each thing was timed. I didn't follow along like some others did, but I did write everything down.I tried it and it was so much fun and very addicting.

Here is the result of I did using Viva Las VegaStamps!

I cut up a box of hot cereal. Using the front and box of the box. I gessoed both pieces of the side with the printing. You can do front and back I did only the fronts. Then I got my timer app that I downloaded on my Kindle and set it to either 5 or 10 minutes for each thing. The first thing I did was taking some ink pads and used them as stamps on there. Then I took a sharpie and wrote where I wished to go(VLVS! store was on of the places!). Then I took 2 craft paints in light colors and painted wherever on the chipboard. I then tore some not so cute scrapbook paper and glued them on with a glue stick. I scribbled with color pencils. and did some more tearing and gluing with magazine pages. Then 2 more craft paints in darker colors and painted where ever. It starts to look like a hot mess at this pint. But relax it gets better.

Now you take a black stamp pad and some VLVS! and stamp. I used the Water Drop background and the train track straight stamps. I know you cant really see it but they are there. melted in the background. Then I added some texture. I used some punchenllia and some sprays. You can also use paint. Using bubble wrap is fun too. You can see its starting to come together. Then I took some alphabet stencils and a number mask and sprayed with them Lindy's spray. I went back and added some more stamping and also did some drips with the S.E.I Tumble die in black.

Once I was happy with it I cut them to 4x6 sizes. I was able to get 1 post card with each piece of chipboard. I edge the sides with black craft paint. Now once the background is done its time to decorate it. I made some washi tissue tape using the brick background stamp, white tissue paper and Miracle tape. I cut three pieces of it and cut triangles to make a chevron banner. I stuck them on the corner of the postcard.

On white cardstock I stamped the cat with headphones stamp and colored her in with Prisma color pencils. I did light colors on her. I fussy cut her out and used Miracle tape to attached to the postcard. I then stamped I wish my life on white card stock. cut the lines apart and glued on the postcard with glossy accents. I went around the words with Gelly roll clear star pen.

This was a lot of fun to do. I like this project so much I did go out and get the book...well not really I ordered it online. lol Hope you all try it!

Stamps used

Water Drop background

Items used

cereal box weight chipboard

gesso

sharpie

glue stick

4 craft paints

scrapbook papers

magazine pages

color pencils

sprays

stencils

punchenllia

bubble wrap

white card stock

black memento ink pad

gelly roll pen

glossy accents

Thursday, July 12, 2012

altered tic tac toe board

When I found out that the Viva Las Vegastamps! Design Team was doing a swap with Gauche Alchemy, I was so excited. I have heard of them before. they have great kits. And my kit that I got for this swap was awesome. be sure to check out my video to see what I got in my kit.

For the project for this swap I chose to alter a Tic Tac Toe game by Stamp in the Hand, that I was given as a gift years ago. It sat in a filing cabin for years, as I had no clue what to do with it. This swap was a perfect excuse to play with it! This is what it looked like before.

I gessoed the game peices and the board. My orgnial idea was to use the game pieces like art tiles. Like you do with the scrabble tiles. As I was working with them, I wasn't liking what I was doing. So, I went another way.

I did start off with takeing 3 of the papers I got in my kit (music sheet, Asian text, and another text papers) and tearing some of it into small strips and gluing them down with heay gel medium. I used that, becuase that was what I grabbed and wanted to use it. But you can use white glue, or mode podge or matte medium. After that dried. I did different things to each tile. Some I put a little bit of white craft paint over the papers, some I used seedless perserves and Dusty concord distress ink on them. some I used different purple craft paints on them. I was just playing. I was used the purple family, becuase my little color kit that I got in my kit was purple.

When all the tiles were dried I took some of the punchinella I got in my kit and put it over the squares and used some white craft paint on it. I then I took the heart punchinella and used some black craft paint. I also used some plum craft paint on a couple of the tiles too.

I then picked up some small stamps like the brick wall and the lady in Chapeau . That is when I started not liking what I was doing. LOL So I took some of the word stamps from plate 1383 and stamped them on the tiles. I also pulled out some of the images to use on the squares. I then painted the sides black craft paint.

Next I stamped some of the images by Mary Vogel Lozinak on one of the left over text papers I used when I was gluing some of that paper on the tiles. One I stamped on an empty space from a music sheet. I colored all them in with Crayola Color pencils. I glued them down with the Heavy Gel medium. Before gluing the girl down I took 2 of the sequins and glued them behind her as wings. Then I took the puffy crown and glued that to her head. All part of the color kit. I glued a bog purple button on one the tiles and a purple flower on another. Used Glossy accents to glued them down. I cut out the 2 girls that were from the Sears catalog paper that was in the kit. after I glued all the pieces down I did trim the access paper off of them. I stamped some of the sentiments on to the empty space from the music sheet. and glued them onto the tiles with the heavy gel medium.

Before glueing anything to the game board. I did paint it black. Painting the inside of the board was somewhat of a pain. but i did it. lol I then took some of the punchenllia and sprayed some Lindy's Stamp Gang Voodoo Violet Blue on the front and the back. I then hot glued all the game pieces to the board. I really liked the bottle cap that was in the color kit so I made that the center square. Glossy accents didn't want to stick to it so I had to use hot glue on it. The tile on the bottom I made him a juggler. i took 3 of the sequins and glued one on each hand and one in the middle of the of the frame.

I really really like how this turned out!