One of the requirements for being part of Canvas Corp Crew is to do up a 4" x 4" canvas that best represent yourself. It was a rather busy week for me last week, however I manage to get my canvas all done up! Can't wait to share it around and here I am sharing this today! Yeah!!!
It was indeed my very first time doing such a small canvas art. Though I felt I might not have enough to work around with, I managed to come up with a composition that's within the context I'd want to express. Using various Tattered Angel's mixed media products as well as Finnbair's old mechanicals, this is what I came up with. As the canvas itself requires no priming, you can pretty much work straight to it. I die cut out a few florals from some of the papers within 7gypsies Architextures 8.5" x 11" Mix and Match Book using Tim Holtz' Tattered Floral Bigz Die, distressed the edges and layered over the canvas to create some texture before all the misting and painting comes it.
Those pretty lace I wrapped around the canvas is from 7gypsies which unfortunately it's a retired item. To give it a little rustic and ragged look, I misted some bandages with Tattered Angel Cork glimmer mist to go over the lace, and secured it with some Prima jute straw.
Not wanting to spare the empty space at the back of the canvas, I decided to do up a miniature Art Room within. That cute little frame is from my paperclay try outs using one of my Martha Stewart silicon moulds, which is of a good size to fit within.
Nonetheless, it was a rather fun process to do up such a small mixed media canvas work. I'm pretty please with the final composition though I was a little concern about the small space given. Below is a list of supplies I used for this project with some links to various sources should anyone of you are interested to get them:
It's 2018! I hope everyone has a pleasant New Year. Over at my tiny country where I reside, it was raining over the countdown period; practically rained through the last day of 2017 to the first day of 2018. Quite a significant day to remember; raining through 2017 to 2018.
From this year onwards, I'm coming back with more updates and video tutorials, continuing to share and inspire people alike within the community. And I hope I'm able to do this for as long as I could. Your earnest support and encouragement in the work I share do means a lot to me. Though I may be slow in certain ways and may not be able to respond, I do value each and every one of you who has shown your kind support and encouragement towards my work throughout these years. As I promise before, I'll make an effort to bring more exciting projects and tutorials that's easy to follow and learn. Pretty excited for this and I'm looking very forward for this come back.
Without me saying further and get carried away with my excitement, I'm moving on to share this altered patina photo frame which I made it as a belated birthday gift for one of my sisters within the Church of Christ.
Throughout the years, I've been buying and collecting quite a number of "alterable" items which I've this tendency to keep them first, then think later what to do. At the end of the day, I'll always ended up forgetting what I've bought and never get to use them. It's because of a patina paint set I had bought since early last year, I decided to whip something up. While digging into a huge box of "alterables" (this is where I tend to keep them, conveniently sealed beyond my physical eyes), I found this Ikea Kvill photo frame which I had already torn away the plastic packaging. So right on the spot, YES! YOU'LL BE THE ONE I'M GOING TO ALTER! Without much further thinking, it got to me that I should also do up a start to finish video tutorial for this.
There's an abundant amount of patina effect tutorials available online which I believe there's isn't a standard way in obtaining the effect. Neither is there any straightforward way as well. Previously, I've created a "non-traditional" method in creating patina using mists and solvent ink during my term with Graphic 45 which I still enjoy doing it this way. Certainly, with ready-made paint set available commercially, it just makes creating the patina effect much easier.
In most of my projects, I've this tendency to match the colours and design elements as closely as possible. Basically speaking, they need to be in harmony and collectively a theme. As I was planning this project out, I already had in mind what kind of effect I want, and I had this Unearth paper from Kaiser Kraft Antique Bazaar paper collection which I took the design as a reference to create the patina effect.
Unearth, from Kaiser Craft Antique Bazaar collection
Besides owning a number of "alterables", I also have several dies I bought and never put into good use. Decided to use this opportunity to use my stash, I dug into my die collection library (once again) to search for suitable dies to use together with this frame. The rose die from Susan's Garden collection and Tim Holtz's tiny tattered florals dies finally came to their pilot use, after being kept for years (Oops!). Because it's patina, I do find using bronze/copper metallic papers for these flowers as one of the better options over regular cardstocks. Very unfortunately, the bronze metallic paper I used from Time Holtz's Kraft Core collection is no longer available. This does shows that I do hoard onto things long enough till they could go into retirement. Nevertheless, it's not really the end of the world, I manage to find alternatives which I've stated a few in the list of supplies below at the end of this post.
This beautiful Spellbinder's ornate die-cut frame is also making it's debut. Yeah! I know! A crafter can never have enough. Suddenly, I took noticed that I just have too much things that haven't been put into good use. Guess I'd need to make several craft debuts in the future.
I got the son from my sister-in-Christ to quote some bible verses that will describe his mum well and got these verses printed out onto premium paper. The print-out was subsequently tea-dyed and distressed. I mounted the print-out onto a piece of chipboard before placing it on top of the die-cut frame. I trimmed the Unearth paper to size to fit the window and I used the patina design as the backing of the sentiment. If you take a closer look, the altered patina frame does matches up quite well with the designed paper.
To perk up the look, a little golden fleur dresden will be just nice. And a final lettering completed the whole project.
Here is a full list of supplies I used for this project, with links to various places you can get them if you're interested:
First of all, for people who has been faithfully following my various entries in my blog even till this point of time... Thank You, sincerely from the bottom of my heart. I know it has been a long long time ago I last posted on my blog. I'm terrible sorry and equally guilty for unable to update as soon as I could. Nonetheless, I've finally made a serious effort to come back despite all my procrastination and those busy hours.
Before I start introducing my latest project (not exactly new because this was completed on late July. Oops!!!), I'd like to share a small fraction of my current life story that forms part of this project. There has been turmoils in my life that I'd have to put my various crafting projects and teaching plan on hold. Such a halt actually ended up close to a 2 years hiatus. Seems long, yet I felt as if I had been living for almost a century. Indeed, a lot of things happened, with some still feel like a never-ending event. Not to dwell into the details of the issues I'm facing, perhaps going straight to what led me to do up this project will be more meaningful.
A couple of you have probably read some of my life events that I had recorded down in my past entries. To begin as an introduction (to most whom don't really know), I was a "Christian" for the past 13 years and seriously, I thought I was really one though not a very pious one. As life wasn't very promising for me during those period of difficulties, I decided to renew my faith with Christ. The journey begun somewhere between last Winter and beginning of this Summer, I found myself starting to develop an immersing interest towards the Bible, on how historical facts and evidences coincides so well with the Bible. And since then I embarked into a remarkable journey in Searching for the Truth that led me to know the One True God and become a Christian legitimately.
Currently, I'm serving and worshiping the LORD at my local Church of Christ and got to know this amazing sister-in-Christ Baby Tan who is one of the earlier Christians who planted the seeds in Singapore. Without her, my local congregation would not have started. It was my greatest honour and pleasure to be invited to do up a memorabilia for her as a special gift on her 90th Birthday this July. Without much of me saying further, here is the finished project...
It's a big 12" x 12" box, which I altered it using the shadow box from Graphic 45. Because I want to make it last, I tore down the outer structure of the box and rebuilt it using some muslin fabric to reinforce the edges before layering some Melange tissue paper from Tim Holtz. The entire deconstruction and reconstruction took me a day to process before any mixed media and decorative work could be done.
I learned from various members within the Church that sis Baby Tan loves purple, flowers and butterflies. And this really narrows down to the colour choice and theme for this project. Without much thinking, immediately I know which paper collection to reach out to - Sweet Sentiments and Botanical Tea from Graphic 45.
I deliberately chose one of her younger days photos and created a vintage layout for her at the front of the box. As I had done up a notable amount of stenciling, stamping and painting work on the entire box, I tried not to over-embellished the layout and kept it really simple with her picture as the main focal point.
At the back of the box, I further embellished it using this "inspiration" wordlet from ScrapFX over an ornate flourish frame I found in my stash which I had bought it many years back. This is probably one of my favourite portions of this project.
This is where all the treasures are, all kept safely inside the box. As you pull the drawer, you will be greeted with 2 albums and a scroll.
At the base of the drawer inside, I covered the entire surface with this very sweet floral paper from Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiment paper collection. And I fussy cut the main thematic "Sweet Sentiments" scroll image out and placed it at the center which blend in quite well with the entire theme and purpose for this project.
These are the two albums I did; one hand-stitched photo album and one tag album with all the hand-written messages.
I had handwritten some Bible verses and had use a couple of them throughout the albums' covers. Some were nicely contributed by our preachers in our Church.
The scroll is actually a written biography of sis Baby by our late brother-in-Christ Ira Rice. I was reading it for several times on the night I was formatting the font and text after extracting this article out from a book. Her story really inspires me greatly and certainly put me to awe. She's one seriously petite godly woman who truly belongs to the LORD.
And so that's me presenting this special box of memorabilia to sis Baby during her 90th Birthday celebration on 30th July this year in the Church building.
We managed to take a short video of this project, filmed by Rachel Poo (our fellow sister-in-Christ) and here is the orientation video.
List of Supplies used for this project:
Graphic 45 Botanical Tea and Sweet Sentiments Paper Collections
Somewhere not too long ago I was busy pinteresting and found a lot of works using ATBs, aka Artist Trading Blocks... It's till recently when I got myself into Alpha Stamps DT I manage to get access to some of these blocks...
As I excitedly received my first batch of blocks, as usual my excitement is far more than ideas, it took me quite a while to come up with something... As I was imaging French Ladies sewing meticulously in a room filled with roses, I decided to use Pion Design'sAlma's Sewing Room paper collection and From Grandma's Attic French Ladies pictures for this... I came up with these shabby chic ATBs duo... Using monochrome colours with a touch of pink, I'm trying to catch one of an old French feel and get these done up as La Rosa Especial...
These pictures actually don't do much of a justice as I had used quite a huge amount of Shimmerz products together with various Finnabair's mixed media range to give this vintage shabby French look... A lot of teeny weeny details such as the beauty of micro beads and glitter are not captured well, mainly due to the reflective nature of these products... However I'm listing them up for sale on my Etsy shop, and if by any chance you'd like to own them, feel free to get one home...
After teaching for coming to a year plus, I started to move towards to technique based teaching where I'll have more interaction with participants... It's also a channel for me to develop and share more interesting techniques and ideas to my fellow crafting peeps and make their mind blown away by the amount of creations I can develop...
As far as I'm concern, coming from an Artist's point of view I probably didn't get fairly paid for the amount of work done to bring these to the craft table... However, that's not my main agenda... What's really amazing during my entire craft teaching adventure is that I got to meet people who truly appreciate what I've done and the things I'm doing... This is one of my greatest accomplishments in life and no amount of my previous corporate years can compare to this...
For my next upcoming Prima class with Made with Love, I'm gearing away from the usual projects most people are doing. Influenced and inspired by Rococo, a form of late Baroque artistic movement, I'm taking Marie Antoinette's sentimental pouf as one of the main element for this project... It's not something overly done, yet subtly enough to own a little Rococo...
You will get to learn how to build and construct this hanger from scratch using wood plank and chipboards using Prima Epiphany paper collection and some images from Marie Takes Tea collage from Alpha Stamps... There'll be some mixed media involved and I'll be teaching to create a vintage baroque texture look using gilding wax... At the end of the day, you will take home this hanger which you will be able to use it as a decor piece for all your jewelry and accessories...
On today's Core'dinations and Graphic 45 Blog Hop entry, I'm sharing this altered bookend which was orignally built by my youngest sister as part of her Design & Technology school project... We managed to find this bookend at a drawer near her desk one day while doing some spring cleaning back in my mum's place...
To give this book end a new lease of life, I decided to alter this bookend as a gift for her... Using some embossed clock images on Photogenic cardstock from the Core'dinations Signature Series as a texture foundation, I white-washed it and added on tons of metal staples and embellishments to achieve this typographic grunge look… Typography certainly has some interesting verses that I find it applicable to serve some wisdom for my sister - a reminder that life is not just about dreaming and hope for the best, but to live, laugh, adopt, encourage and be genuine… Patience is key and hope this sentimental altered piece will serve as a good life reminder...
I've also created a video tour in how I came up with the idea in altering this bookend as well as concept behind... Hope this will give you some ideas in how to alter pieces as such...
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