Category Archives: Art

Camper Crazy Valentine

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make it monday-pink logoIt is Make It Monday blog hop! If you are stopping by from Connie Hanks at Clicky Chick Creates, you’re in the right spot. Our theme this week is Valentines. She had some great ideas for cupid, kisses, and heart banners!

Sometimes you just want to try something different. Why not take a more traditional valentine/love themed paper, with hearts and flowers, and combine it with a not so traditional set of images — like campers!

The Camper Crazy stamp set from Close to My Heart is adorable, and yet I still had not ever used it. These little campers would be easy to create if you would like to draw them. So if you like this idea, get started!

The campers were stamped on white card stock and colored with alcohol markers.

camper images

Since I was away from home this weekend, I had limited supplies. I totally forgot a lot of my embellishments! Oh, no! I had some shimmer trim in several colors, but nothing I wanted to use on my project. Then I remembered I could color the the silver shimmer trim almost any color with the alcohol markers!  I decided to create a heart, but I wanted it wider than my trim. I just stuck down three rows of the trim on a piece of plain card stock.

shimmer trim strips on card stock

Shimmer trim strips adhered to card stock.

Next I colored it red with an alcohol marker.

shimmer trim tinted with alcohol markers

Alcohol markers used to tint the shimmer trim.

Finally, I just cut a heart out of my colored trim!

Cut heart out of tinted shimmer trim.

Cut heart out of tinted shimmer trim.

CTMH Camper Crazy Valentine card, using Heartstrings paper pack

Here are “ingredients” for this card:

  • Heartstrings paper pack, using Lagoon and Whisper card stock
  • White card stock
  • Camper Crazy stamp set
  • Silver Shimmer Trim
  • Touch Twin Markers:  Peacock Green, Turquoise Blue, Carmine, Golden Yellow, Warm Gray-WG4, and the Colorless Blender
  • Ink pads: Lagoon, Whisper, Archival Black
  • Adhesive tape runner, foam dimensional dots, glue dots

Now, your next stop on the Make It Monday adventure is over with Jen Wright, to check out the Valentine collage she has for you!

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures,

KS

 

Wednesday Wonder – Winter Silhouette Painting

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This video shows a fun method to create a winter painting as a gift or for your own home! Stephen Lursen has been doing some work with Donna Downey, and he generously shares this winter silhouette painting! I hope you enjoy it.

For those of you with an electronic cutting machine, you are a step ahead! Cutting a stencil to use would be a breeze!

 

The Close to My Heart Artbooking Cricut cartridge has this reindeer image which would make a great stencil for the holidays. Otherwise, just search for an image you can cut with your machine!

Artbooking Reindeer

Happy Holidays!
KS

Easy Birthday Card with a Scrap of Patterned Paper

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A card inspired by a scrap of paper from the Chalk It Up paper pack.

A card inspired by a scrap of paper from the Chalk It Up paper pack.

Often we’d like to make a birthday card, but really don’t have a lot of time. This birthday card went together rather quickly! The whole idea came from a scrap of paper! I knew the recipient liked orange and I saw this scrap of paper on my desk and thought it was close enough to orange. It is from the Chalk It Up Close to My Heart paper pack. I liked it because it already had some other colors and it would make my color choices fast and easy. The color along the left side is the decorative “zip strip” I told you about the other day. It is the extra 1/2 inch on one side of a patterned 12×12″ paper, which is a bonus decorative strip that coordinates with the paper pack.

Since I was in a hurry (and maybe a bit lazy), my plan was to just use this scrap and try to get as much mileage from it as possible. So I cut it into strips and then arranged them across the width of the card, and adhered them.

One thing I like about using clear acrylic stamps is the fact that you can pull them off the backing sheets and arrange them before you ever stamp them. If you don’t like the look you can move them around until you are happy, or entirely swap out the stamps. When you begin to accumulate stamp sets, it’s fun to mix and match. I decided to use the cupcake and candle from the Birthday set from the CTMH Cricut Artiste collection, and the Happy Birthday sentiment is from the Build A Cake set.

D1618 Build a Cake

CTMH – Build a Cake, # D1618

CTMH D1529 Birthday_Artiste

CTMH, Birthday – Cricut Artiste Collection

I stamped the “Happy Birthday” on white card stock, in Lagoon ink to match the color at the left side. This helped pull the Lagoon color across the entire card. The white card stock was matted with at piece of Sorbet card stock to coordinate with the color from the scrap of paper I started with. The cupcake and candle stamp were stamped in `black and were colored with the Touch Twin alcohol markers in Peacock Green, Barely Beige, and Golden Yellow. Then I added some glue to the cupcake to and sprinkled with glitter to make the icing look like it had been dusted with sugar.

Glitter was added for a little sparkle

Glitter was added for a little sparkle!

I was happy with the way it turned out, and extra happy that it didn’t take too long! Isn’t it funny how inspiration comes in many ways? This was simply because I only wanted to use one scrap of paper I found on my desk! What inspiration will you find today? Come over and share it with us on our Facebook Group! Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures! KS       If you are in the US, please feel free to shop in my online Close To My Heart store. Here are handy links for the products in this featured project.

Quote, Unquote – Class with Stephanie Ackerman

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Have you noticed how much of our art has words these days? So many of us are creating one thing or another and adding words, quotes, and phrases to our pieces. Sometimes we make something and feel it isn’t quite complete until we add words to it.

We often see people looking at paintings or other works of art and trying to determine what the artist was feeling while creating the piece, their vision, or what they want us to feel when we see it. The works that we add words to are no different, but it seems to give us at least a hint into the piece. Sometimes the words are the major focus, with artfully drawn letters and added embellishments.

Many times I make something and feel like it’s missing something, until I find the words I want to add. Then it feels just right to me.

If you’d like to learn some great tips on adding words to your work, Mark you calendar for November 3! Stephanie Ackerman from Homegrown Hospitality is going to be the guest on Lain Ehmann’s November scrapinar and will be showing us how she turns ordinary text into inspiring, faith-filled works of “Heart!” I loved spending time with Stephanie at a workshop in Phoenix this summer, and I’m sure you’ll love to watch this free video class! (Here is my Artful Adventure post about our Phoenix experience with Stephanie.)  But don’t forget, you’ll need to go sign up for free, to get the viewing info, and to have a chance to watch the replay if you can’t catch it live!

November 2014 Scrapinar

Click on the image for info

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

KS

Halloween Tag – CTMH Halloween Greetings Stamp Set

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As soon as I saw the Halloween Greetings stamp set for Close to My Heart, I knew I had to use it. I had a tag swap to make some tags for, so I decided it was the perfect time to use it.
Kristie Sloan Halloween-Tag-Ride-It

Halloween Greetings Stamp Set

Halloween Greetings Stamp Set

I decided to layer a cream color over a black piece of card stock, rounding the corners, and used black ink to stamp with. I knew I was going to color in the image with the Touch Twin alcohol markers, so I made sure I used an ink that would be suitable. You do NOT want to use StazOn ink when combining with alcohol based markers. StazOn is a solvent based ink, which is why it is suitable to use on so many surfaces. However, alcohol with dissolve the solvent and you can end up ruining your makers!

A zip strip from one of the patterned papers in the Scaredy Cat paper pack was going to be a great addition to the tag. Instead of leaving it as it was, I colored it with an orange Touch Twin marker to coordinate with the color I’d already applied. A zip strip is the extra half inch that is added to on side of the patterned paper in the paper pack. One side has a extra decorative element that will coordinate with the paper pack, and the other side has product information, including the paper and ink colors that coordinate with the pack. I think it is genius to add a little sumpin-sumpin, for us to use on a piece that would normally be tossed!

Broom straws were made by using a couple of small lengths of hemp twine, and knotting it near one end. Separate the fibers and you’ve got a great look for the broom! I used the open tip of scissors to help separate the fibers. Then a dab of Liquid Glass clear lacquer adhesive was used to make sure the knot stayed put, and it was added above and below the knot, flipped over and adhered to the tag.

The stars got a bad of glue and glitter, to help them sparkle. Then a bit of ribbon was secured with a tiny attacher, and I declared the tags to be complete!

Halloween Greetings tag

Shop Close to My Heart Products: kristiesloan.ctmh.com

Cheers to YOUR Artful Adventures!

KS