Art Doll Tag

This is my last post for Zeus and Zoe, and I just want to say a big thank you to Marivic (owner) and the design team members -  I have enjoyed this venture so much! Working with amazing designers, and the wonderful products supplied to us through the Zeus and Zoe Etsy shop, as well as the sponsors, has made it a real pleasure.  Thank you for having me as part of the team, and for making me so welcome!!

The Zeus and Zoe sponsor this month is Donna Salazar Designs.  You can find Donna's Blog 'HERE', so inspirational and well worth a visit. We received a beautiful array of papers - including dictionary papers to play with, and some die-cut elements.  I incorporated these papers into a doll art tag, along with the use of some lace, beaded fringe, ribbon, spray mist, die-cuts, flowers, doll stamp and large tag.  The doll was actually stamped on some very old paper from my DT kit, it is so gorgeous.

Die-cuts were used as foliage around the Manor House flowers, and to match the flowers I edges the leaves and foliage with gold stickles paint.  As you would have read earlier, I have a large collection of laces, and just had to incorporate one of my favourites, along with some beaded fringe.

  You can find a full range of beautiful vintage and intricate items in the Zeus and Zoe shop, and Marivic specialises in kits made personally to suit your own taste.  Don't hesitate to contact Marivic with any questions and ordering information, she is only too happy to help you make product choices.

In the Donna Salazar Designs paper pack I received, was some gorgeous printed papers resembling dictionary pages.  I used these words to do my journaling on the tag. 

...and before I sign off, there are still a few days left for the June challenge - see the challenge post 'HERE' with all the details. 

Happy Creating

Sandie

My (Marivic) projects for June with a few of my favorite things

Hello this is Marivic sharing with you today a couple of projects I made using Donna Salazar's GCD Studios  Mixed Media Stax 2. I love this product so much I made 2 projects also following Denise and Norma's theme for this month's Favorite Things Challenge.

First I made this journal. I was going to keep this one but my daughter, Alyssa had asked me if she can have it so she can draw her favorite things...I was going to keep it for myself but she said she wants to keep practicing her art so she can be just like mama. Now, how can I say no to that...I told her I have to remove the embellishments, little girls can't have the "blings" yet. So she agreed that I can take the metal charms off and replace it with kid-friendly embellishments after the photos are taken.
Other than Donna's Mixed Media papers, everything else were from Zeus and Zoe Kit.

I took photos from my phone as I go to the progress of making the album pages. The rest is just embellishments.

After I am done, I covered the pages with lace and just went to town with the embellishments.

The flowers I also made using the smooth mixed media paper that is part of the stax.

The flowers are tedious to make, but it worth it. I hand-cut the shapes, painted with Luminarte Paint on both sides.

When it was dry I applied Faber Castell Glaze twice and glued to make this flower.

For my second project I made this canvas art using the printed paper, smooth paper, and the textured paper from the same Donna Salazar Mixed Media Paper Stack line.

I liked the antique color of the flowers...

These are all my favorite things...art, flowers, lace, mixed media, and pretty little things that make up a big beautiful things.

Thank you to Donna Salazar and to Couture Creations for sponsoring us this month.

Make sure you join our challenge, you still have a few days left.

Follow the link HERE...

You can win prizes from 

and

Little Gift with a decorated box

Hello everyone! It's Riikka here with my second project for June. We got some lovely papers from Donna Salazar and dies from Couture Creations and I created my project with those together my Zeus and Zoe kit. The creation has two parts - a little gift box made of two sheets of 6x6" papers and a necklace inside.

The gift box is made using an origami box instruction. I made the top part using the 6x6 sheet as such. To make the bottom part, I trimmed a centimetre of the other sheet. The origami instructions are really simple and you can make a box like this in no time!

To decorate the cover, I used items from my kit together with sponsored goodies. The butterfly is fuzzy cut from a piece of Donna Salazar paper as well as the "Beauty" tag. The little banner is a diecut. The heart underneath is cut with a Couture Creations' die. The lace, the flower and the rhinestones are from my Zeus and Zoe kit.

Inside the box you can find this necklace. The blue heart is cut from transparent shrink plastic with  Couture Creations' die. I don't recommend to use the die for shrink plastic as it can damage the die, but I just had to give it a go! After shrinking the piece with a heat tool, I colored the heart pale blue with alcohol inks.

The little rings as well as the chain are from my own stash, but other pieces in the necklace are from my Zeus and Zoe kit. The necklace includes some key charms, a few pearls from an old piece of jewellery and also a sparkling "diamond" chain.

Thank you for your visit! I also want to thank Marivic for this awesome opportunity to be a part of a great, super talented design team. Thank you all team mates, too, you rock! Wishing you all a great day and lovely summer!

DIY floral pennant

Hi there!! Janel here from NellieBellie ...I’m back with a second fabulous project for the month using Zeus and Zoe projects. Today I wanted to share with you how you can customize these wonderful fabric pennants (that came in my Zeus and Zoe box, of course!)…

I simply dip any stamp that I love, in this case a floral set, into fabric Puffy Paint. Dip, stamp, dry. To add a bit of color use colored Sharpies and fill in where you like. It’s that easy!

Because I had only 4 stamps and wanted to use 6 pennants I used some adorable paper from Zeus and Zoe for the final 2. I cut my favorite section out of the paper and Mod Podged it onto the banner. So easy and oh so sweet! How lovely would this be done in a patchwork effect on each banner? Makes me want to do it all over again!

I tied all the pennants together in twine (my favorite for getting a simple and sweet look!) and hung it on my chalkboard wall above my desk. It is now my favorite thing in my little living room office. So sweet!

Mixed media on a miniature bottle...by Yvonne Yam

I love these miniature alcohol bottles you get on the plane...they are so fun to upcycle and make pretty decor for your desk.

I started by scrunching some Donna Salazer Designs crepe paper and adhering to the bottle. The I added some gold and bronze paint with my fingers. When that dried, I added some Golden glass bead gel for even more texture.

Then I added some washi tape and Golden gold mica flakes. And finished off with a gold button from the Zeus and Zoe store.

Now I'm off to make more of these mixed media bottles to pretty up my desk! Cheers, Yvonne.

My favourite things: Creative inspiration by guest designer Debbie Burns

Hi! My name is Debbie Burns and I am so excited to guest design this month for Zeus and Zoe.  Thanks Marivic for inviting me! I am currently on the design team for Berry71bleu, sister site of Zeus and Zoe. I live in Maryland with my 

two children ages 23 and 26 and one precious dog. I started scrapbooking 13 years ago after I received a completed scrapbook album "all about me" for my birthday. I took one beginners scrapbook class and the rest is history.  I don't really have a defined style, as all of my layouts are different, but I do love to layer and cluster, flowers and butterflies being my favorite. I would love for you to stop by my blog Love Life's Little Pleasures.

I love June's theme, My Favourite Things, hosted by Denise and Norma.  For those of you that know me, I have quite the love for flower gardening.  I love this time of the year.  My flower beds are full of perennials and I fill in the bare spots with annuals.  My favorite annuals are Geraniums, thus the focus of my layout.

Marivic sent me a few goodies to work with.  One being the Emporium Tag die from Couture Creations.  Here I have used it in a few spots.

I also worked with some Magical powder, Ghostly Gargoyle White by Lindy's Stamp Gang.  I mixed the power with some water and lightly brushed it on the little pink roses.

I did some masking on my background, using the Circular Lattice mask by Prima and added some ink, and misting.

Here is a closeup of my cluster:

I hope I have inspired you!  Thanks Marivic for having me! 

Beauty Unrefined Tag

TGIF! Dana here today sharing a tag that I put together with some of the gorgeous jewelry and buttons from my Zeus and Zoe Kit and some leftover bits and pieces from the goodies that Donna Salazar provided this month.

The Donna Salazar Natural Beauty collection comes with a sheet of glossy images that are ready to cut out and add to projects. I used several small roses and leaves here in addition to this "Beauty unrefined" sentiment. I really love the subtle shine!

I created this butterfly embellishment using a Faux Paper Casting Technique and Donna's mulberry paper from her Mix'd Media Stax, Mix'd Media Inx, Butterfly Stamp (DS1127) and Fairy Dust Glitter.

The vintage jewelry and buttons from my Zeus and Zoe Kit are fabulous and I love to include those special pieces on my projects. I also added 2 "Zs" from Donna's Chipboard Alpha set, for Zeus and Zoe, to my tag.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! There is still plenty of time to enter the June Challenge for your chance to win! There are some fabulous prizes up for grabs, one of which is autographed by Donna Salazar!  How cool is that?!

Main Prize: 

Donna Salazar

http://donnasalazar.typepad.com/

Donna Salazar is a wife, mom, grandma, artist, designer, teacher and kid at heart. Her playful nature tends to come across in her products and classes because she believes that art should be fun. Donna is known for blending contrasting elements to create what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Donna's style is especially appealing to mixed media artists, however her love of flowers and all things sparkly seems to appeal to crafters of all types and styles. 

Donna is a licensed designer and has product lines with 5 different companies: Clearsnap, GCD Studios, Spellbinders, Want2Scrap and Zutter. Donna offers free video tutorials, e-classes and a LIVE webshow, called Tuesday Tutorials, where she gives away lots of prizes from her partner companies and/or original artwork created during the show!

Random Prize:

Couture Creations

http://couturecreations.com.au

An Australian owned and loved brand, Couture Creations is the culmination of 20 years experience in the scrapbooking industry. From its final inception in 2010, Couture Creations has been devoted to producing expertly designed, high quality products overseen by veteran designers and crafters for a result that is both simple and elegant.

Couture Creations is part of Artdeco Creations growing collection of quality craft brands available worldwide. Distributed through a network of the best industry representatives in scrapbooking and craft internationally, Artdeco Creations has the ability to test and meet global expectations for quality and precision beyond local trends and markets.
 

Create Happiness - Art Journal Page

Norma here with you today to share my second project of the month featuring the beautiful products from our sponsors Donna Salazar and Couture Creations.  

I was inspired to art journal by the Donna Salazar dictionary pages so I chose to highlight: artistic, journal and happy.

I like to use my excess inks and paints in my art journal so that nothing goes to waste.  So I flipped through my art journal and found this page filled with the over sprays of a previous project.  Next I dug through my Zeus and Zoe kit and found an unfinished page that never made it onto another project along with jump rings and it hit me!  Create an art journal page within an art journal page, does that make sense, lol?  I punched holes on my art journal page and the mini album page I found then connected them with the jump rings, easy peasy right?!

Then I began by adhering torn and inked strips of Donna Salazar papers from the Natural Beauty collection.

Once I figured out the basic design, I focused on adding the layers of inks and paints to grunge it up a bit and give it my "Norma twist" ;D.  I used a doily stencil with an acrylic dauber to create texture.  I really like the way the acrylic paint puffed up.  This allowed the inks to really get in those groves to help define the shape.

With all the stencil work done, I started layering more of Donna Salazar's Natural Beauty papers and even ran some through my sewing machine.   I used a beautiful flowing vine stitch, distressed and inked all of the edges.  Next I added the dictionary strips that I wanted to use.  I highlighted the edges with fluid acrylic using my finger then outlined the entire strip with a black pen.  I created a small banner using the Donna Salazar Natural Beauty die cut pieces.  To give them a little more presence in my design, I glued them on some of the paper and cut around them leaving about a 1/4" border.  Then I added the Natural Beauty Chipboard Alphas with a little pen work to make them pop.

For the insert, I focused on journaling about why I love to art journal.  I wrote:
"These pages are so much more to me than a place to learn through my creative play.  
They see me through the darkest days.  With each layer, the troubles of the day fade away and I'm transported to my happy place."
This is so true for me, my art journal gives me wings to soar above whatever challenges I might be facing.  I truly believe in the the healing power of art.  Being creative has a wonderful way of lifting the soul and one of the beautiful things about art journaling is that it can be done with no expectations or pressure.  You don't have to worry about incorporating a photo or story.  All you have to do is play, let the page become whatever it wants to be.  If you don't like the way it's turning out, just keep going.  Add another layer of paper, ink or paint; whatever you want until you feel that smile on your face and twinkle in your eye.  You know the feeling you get when you're so happy with what you've just created.

For the cover, I used a page from a mini album that I received in my Zeus and Zoe kit.  It already had paint and stencil work on it from before.  I was gonna use it on a layout but ended up leaving it off.  So all I needed to do was add some of Donna's Natural Beauty paper, a little more stenciling and chipboard alphas.

To finish off my pages, I added some doodle work, strips of torn fabric and cording from my Zeus and Zoe kit.  I also added the key and hanging sign Couture Creations dies.  I love the grungy feel of these art journal pages and the bonus mini page tucked in.  If you've never art journaled before, I encourage you to give a try.  Just remember to have fun and JUST PLAY!!  It's also a wonderful way to use up all those scraps, odd letters and embellishments you have laying around.  Well I hope I've inspired you to give art journaling a try!!

Oh and don't forget to enter this month's challenge: My Favorite Things!!!  There are wonderful prizes up for grabs including this autographed kit from Donna Salazar, so get to craftin peeps!!

The Main Prize

Donna Salazar is a wife, mom, grandma, artist, designer, teacher and kid at heart. Her playful nature tends to come across in her products and classes because she believes that art should be fun. Donna is known for blending contrasting elements to create what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Donna's style is especially appealing to mixed media artists, however her love of flowers and all things sparkly seems to appeal to crafters of all types and styles. 

Donna is a licensed designer and has product lines with 5 different companies: Clearsnap, GCD Studios, Spellbinders, Want2Scrap and Zutter. Donna offers free video tutorials, e-classes and a LIVE webshow, called Tuesday Tutorials, where she gives away lots of prizes from her partner companies and/or original artwork created during the show!

Random Prize:

Couture Creations

http://couturecreations.com.au

An Australian owned and loved brand, Couture Creations is the culmination of 20 years experience in the scrapbooking industry. From its final inception in 2010, Couture Creations has been devoted to producing expertly designed, high quality products overseen by veteran designers and crafters for a result that is both simple and elegant.

Couture Creations is part of Artdeco Creations growing collection of quality craft brands available worldwide. Distributed through a network of the best industry representatives in scrapbooking and craft internationally, Artdeco Creations has the ability to test and meet global expectations for quality and precision beyond local trends and markets.

Also included in the Random Winner Prize Pack is this 6x6 paper pack from Donna Salazar:

Thanks for joining me today and have a BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRED day!!!