Lets Play Tic Tac Toe

Hello

 Is it really the middle of May already, I think I blinked and missed the first half of the month.

Have you participated in our monthly challenge yet, if not we would love to see you play along with us and if you have thank you for playing.

 

 Do you remember how to play? Just choose a straight line, vertical, horizontal or even diagonal. The line I chose to play with was the one on top, stamping, flowers and a paper bag.

 

 

 Would you like to see how I create my inspiration?

 

I went through my stash and found some paper bags, wasn't really sure which ones I had planned on using.

 

First I sanded the box as the outside was shiny, then I covered it with a couple of layers of gesso

I didn't just want to use a canvas or an artist board so I found the box in my cupboards, now I am not sure how long I have been carting the box around for, at least 12 yrs but I am positive its a lot longer than that, over the years it has been used for different things.

Once the gesso was dried, with the help of my heat gun, I worked out where I wanted my horizon line to sit, I marked this with a water colour pencil so if I needed to get rid of it all I need to use was water and wipe it away. If I had used a grey lead it would have been harder to remove and grey lead can leave an oil residue when you cover them so it still could show through depending on what you are covering it with.

 

I decided to use the black paper bag as at this stage I still had no idea what colours for the background I was going to use. I used a metal die and bigshot to cut a circle. I placed my die just off the edge of the bag so I had a flat edge, you will see on the finished piece that I actually cut another piece of the circle, so that I had two flat edges. 

 

To create my table I used tissue paper, a stamp, watermark ink and clear embossing powder.

 

Using a matte gel I glued my tissue paper to the surface of the box. I also put a layer of the matte gel all over the surface of the box, this could prove useful as if I don't like something I can wipe it away and start again.

 

With a make up sponge I added my paint to the heat embossed tissue paper, keeping the layer of paint light so the texture of the embossing came through. I did loose a bit of the texture under the matte gel but I hit it with some heat and a bit more showed through.

 

To create the wall again I used a make up sponge to lay the paint down to keep it light. I used some ink and a stamp to add a little bit of interest. I didn't want a full impression of the stamp, so once my stamp was inked I used a piece of scrap paper to take some of the ink away.

 

Using matte medium I attached my paper bag vase and put another layer of medium over the surface of the box. Once this was dry I then found my green water colour pencil and drew the stems of my flowers, not that you actually see them but it gave me a shape to work with when sticking down my flowers.

 

To create them flowers I used a brown paper bag, a die and ran them through my die cutting machine. I folded my bag in half so I had four layers of paper. I ended up with 50 flowers, which I then used a white pen to draw around the inside edge and attached a small pearl to the middle.

 

 

Do you remember me saying that I covered the entire surface of the box with matte medium and in doing that if I didn't like something I could wipe it away. This came in handy when I was stamping the  sentiment. Even though the surface of the box was flat it was slippery and also gave a little when I pushed the stamp onto so the sentiment was not great. I wiped it away and tried again, this time placing a hard surface underneath for support when I stamped.

 

 Here is a list of the products that I used that can be found in the shop. Dylusions paint - melted chocolate, VersaMark - watermark stamp pad.

 

If you decided to visit the shop please use the code DO5 to receive a discount on your purchases.

Happy Creating

Tic Tac Toe May Challenge

Hello crafty friends, Sarah with you today - feeling so inspired by the May Tic Tac Toe challenge that I have two layouts for you! The first one, as pictured above uses a red and white striped paper bag (from D-lish Scraps), patterned paper (some of the last of my Crate Paper Cool Kid collection available in store here) and cardstock (from my stash). Let's have a look at the challenge set by Shop and Crop...

For this layout I created the background smearing on Dylusions paints in Postbox Red and Campso Teal with a palette knife. The range of Dylusions paints is available in store here. I left this overnight to dry as I tend to be a bit heavy handed with paints! I then used some stamps from my stash to add a little more background interest. The Shop and Crop online store have a great range of stamps, particularly mixed media ones.

I used the paper bag in this layout as a pocket to hold a large tag. I used the small piece of vellum I had left over from the Cool Kid collection to cover the tag and wrote on the back some points about my son at the age of 3 that I wanted to remember - his favourite foods, traits about him I love, what he calls himself etc. The photo is layered on Cool Kid patterned papers and stickers from this collection were used as embellishments. That cute handmade heart embellie is from Charms Creations. Let's take a closer look...

Now for the second project, a Planner Page layout. This is a Basic Planner Kit from Scrapper's Delights. I am pleased to have been offered a position on their Planner Design team. For more information about setting up and decorating your own planner, pop on over to their website by clicking here. I designed this layout also inline with in the Tic Tac Toe challenge, I used cardstock (300gsm cardstock that the planner page was printed on), stamps and embossing powder (gold from Stampin Up).

The background of the planner pages were completed using distress ink and the 'smoosching' technique. The range of distress inks can be purchased instore here. The stamps used with the gold embossing are the Kaisercraft Captured Moments Calendar stamps - also instore here. The day and date stamps are stamped with black ink with the Echo Park Paper Co Through the Year Calendar stamp that is also available in store here. The cute bear stamps are the 'Honey Bears' by The Ton. Lets take a closer look...

Whilst I have never really been in to 'planning' in the creative sense, I am using this planner to capture my Design Team commitments and a few photos of my children week to week. For more planner layouts, please see my blog here. I like to include reminders of everyday chores, appointments, events etc - all in a pretty format that is alot of fun to design and create. Lets take one last look at those cute bears - they are stamped in black ink, embossed with clear embossing powder and coloured using Zig Clean Colour real brush markers.

I hope you enjoyed these projects and the versatility in creating projects with the May Tic Tac Toe challenge. Until next time...