Dandelion Sunrise Mixed Media Panel with Deb Riddell

Hello everyone and happy June!  It’s Deb Riddell here today and I’ve created a mixed media panel celebrating the onset of summer to share with all of you.

I made my Dandelion Sunrise panel with a page from Southern Ridge Trading Company’s Zen Dragonfly Journal, Dandelion Seed Stems, Delicate Lace Doily, Small Bird Mix and Clouds stencil.  I`ve some step out photos on how I made it so read on for my how to.

I started with one of the blank chipboard pages from Southern Ridge`s Zen Dragonfly Journal and slip slapped on a coat of DecoArt Americana Cool White acrylic paint.  Stenciling came next through the Clouds stencil with Broken China Distress Oxide ink and a bit of spritz and flick with water.

I needed to cover the ring binder holes on the right side of my stenciled panel so I tore a length of Therm O Web Rebekah Meier Art Tape in half and inked it with Twisted Citron and Broken China Distress inks.  I then stamped some dandelion images and dragonflies with a discontinued Crafty Secrets stamp set and Vintage Photo Archival ink and added a bit of shading to the edges of the art tape with Frayed Burlap Distress ink.

The inked and stenciled Art Tape was adhered to the right side of the panel (the Art Tape has an adhesive backing so easy-peasy to apply) and I then stippled some Therm O Web Deco Foil Liquid Adhesive all around the edges of the panel.  After letting the Liquid Adhesive set up till it was tacky, Amber Watercolor Deco Foil was applied overtop (remember, silver side down!) and rubbed on with my finger.  Love the lost and found distressed look of the gilding around the edges.

I had half of the Delicate Lace Doily left over from a previous project and when I saw it in my stash it reminded me of a rising sun.  So I painted the doily with Tarnished Brass Distress paint

and once it had dried, applied some Deco Foil adhesive to the painted doily with the Therm O Web Deco Foil Adhesive Pen.  I used the pen on this delicate piece as I had more control over where the adhesive was being applied.  Once the adhesive had set up, I applied more of the Amber Watercolor Deco Foil over top, again rubbing it on with my fingers for a lost and found effect.

The Dandelion Seed Stem heads were painted with Americana Cool White acrylic paint and while the paint was still wet, Iridescent Shimmer embossing powder was sprinkled on.  Once the paint had dried, I heated the embossing powder to melt it.

I neglected to take an in process photo but after heating the embossing powder I coloured the dandelion stems with a diluted wash of Americana Avocado Dip acrylic paint.

One of the birds from the Small Bird Mix was painted with Americana Slate Green acrylic paint.  After assembling the panel I found the bird`s colour to be a little too prominent so added a wash of white to tone it down before adhering it.

And finally, a phrase from Tim Holtz`s Small Talk Occasions stickers was cut in half, lightly coloured with Old Paper Distress ink and edged with Frayed Burlap.

The panel was then assembled, the Dandelion Seed Stems were adhered first with bits of black fun foam under the medium and small stems to pop them up slightly.  Love the sparkle from the Iridescent Shimmer embossing powder complementing the Amber Watercolor Deco Foil.

The Delicate Lace Doily half was then adhered overtop of the Dandelion Seed Stems along the bottom edge of the panel with a few wee pieces of fun foam underneath the central medallion to stabilize it.  Anyone else see the rising sun?

And finally, the bird from the Small Bird Mix and the sentiment were adhered at the top of the panel.

I had forgotten to seal the Distress Oxide ink on the background panel before adhering the sentiment so didn’t want to do any shading with inks and water as it would reactivate the Distress Oxide ink.  A simple HB pencil came to the rescue, adding just enough of a ‘shading’ line to bring some attention to the sentiment.

This was the first time I’d used the Rebekah Meier Art Tape and love how it is ever so slightly transparent, you can still see a bit of the stenciled background underneath it which I love.  It tears beautifully as well for that wonderful ragged distressed edge.

I hope that you have enjoyed seeing how my Dandelion Sunrise mixed media panel came together and that I’ve given you some ideas on different ways to use some of Southern Ridge’s wonderful chipboard pieces.

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- Zen Dragonfly Journal

- Dandelion Seed Stems

- Delicate Lace Doily

- Small Bird Mix

- Clouds stencil

Other Supplies Used:

- Therm O Web: iCraft Deco Foil, iCraft Deco Foil Liquid Adhesive, iCraft Deco Foil Adhesive Pen, Rebekah Meier Art Tape and Rebekah Meier Mixed Media Medium

- Tim Holtz for Ranger Ink: Distress Oxide Ink, Distress Ink, Distress Paint and Distress Archival ink

- Tim Holtz / Advantus: Small Talk Occasions Stickers

- DecoArt: Americana Acrylic Paint

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Iridescent Shimmer Embossing Powder

- Miscellaneous: Black fun foam, HB pencil, Crafty Secrets clear stamps, paint brush and stippling brush

Thanks again for stopping by today and happy creating!

Deb Riddell ~ Paxton Valley Folk Art

Mixed Media Art Journal Beach Page with Karen Bearse

Karen Bearse here today with a mixed media art journal beach page. I just came back from Spring Break with my daughter. We went to Amelia Island, FL for the first time, followed by Myrtle Beach, SC to break the trip up as far as the driving went. It was nice to just sit on the beach and recharge my batteries!

Here is the page I did to document the trip.  I decided to break out my Prima Watercolour paints and pretty much everything is coloured with them. I started with the backside of an art journal page made out of a folder.

The reeds were painted with gesso & coloured with the watercolours. The cattail ends were embossed with Charred Gold.

On the retro TV I had to do a few coats to get good colour. I used less water to get the darker colours. The antennas and feet were embossed with silver. The seagull (another chippie that I can’t stop using) was gesso-ed in white & the tips of the wings coloured.

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- Cattail Bushes

- Retro TV

- Small Bird Mix

Other Supplies Used:

- Prima Marketing: Watercolour Set - Tropicals

- Tombow USA: Aqua Liquid Glue

- Tim Holtz Stamp

- Photo App: Rhonna/Designs

Added a little doodling. You can see some of the fun texture layers here. The square #’s are from the packaging of the individual paint cubes. Thanks for joining me today. I hope you get the chance to check out the new releases!

- Karen

Mixed Media Canvas with Karen Bearse

I am here today to share my mix media canvas that I made for Creativation 2017. Every member was asked to design a canvas with their photo for the booth. It was great to see all of us together on the wall!

Here is my canvas, very grungy and inky and way over done! I had so much fun making this. I will give you a bit of a tour of this technique layered project. Starting with a canvas with multiple layers of heavy gesso, lots of stenciling with molding, Grit, and Crackle Paste and a little glass bed gel thrown in for fun. Pretty much hit it with everything but the kitchen sink!

This took some pre-planning as some of my chippies were cut & embedded in the molding paste- like the Brick Pattern, while the paste was wet. Then removed, painted and put back in one the paste was dry & the background was painted. This way the pieces were part of the canvas and easier to adhere. Once that was all dry the squares were coloured with Stained Glass and seed beads were dropped in. I repeated this on one of the sides of the canvas as well.

I used Glimmer Mist for the first layer and added Glimmer Glam in places to get that glitter look. The high points were hit with High Impact paint in copper- I am just stuck on copper for this look, just adds such lusciousness!

The chip doily was covered with emboss powder, and topped with a painted gear and jeweled brad. I cut my doily and adhered the other piece on the side of the canvas so it looks like it wraps around.

As this canvas was supposed to represent me I had to use a couple of my favourites- the birds. This one was painted with the copper paint & once very dry (otherwise the emboss powder will adhere everywhere) I heat embossed a stamped image in white. The word Life was highlighted with a black pen to make it stand out.

I totally love this new chippie- one of the Retro light bulbs. This was gessoed first so the yellow would show up & again painted using Glam. The base of the bulb also has a sprinkle of Hammered Metal emboss powder- yes a little detailed but adds to the overall look. The bird was also painted with glam. As a final touch for my canvas I needed some metal so the feather charm dangles cause I love feathers!!! I hope you enjoyed this tour and it inspires you to make a canvas or 2! I think I may make one for each member of my family and hang them together, brilliant! Have a wonderful inky day & I hope that you check out our new releases they are very awesome!

Southern Ridge Trading Co. Supplies:

- Brick Pattern

- Retro Lightbulbs

- Mini Wood Gears

- Small Bird Mix

- Swirl Doily (currently unavailable) but can be made with any of the doily’s available

Other Supplies Used:

- Tattered Angels: Glimmer Glam, Glimmer Mist, High Impact Paint and Stained Glass

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Charms and Hammered Metal Embossing Powder

- Tombow: Mono Aqua Glue

- DecoArt: Crackle Paste

- Ranger Ink: Grit Paste and Glossy Accents

- Golden: Light Modeling Paste

- Liquitex: Super Heavy Gesso and Glass Bead Gel

- Prima Marketing: Micro Beads

Happy crafting!

- Karen

Life's An Adventure Canvas with Deb Riddell

Hello and thank you for stopping by, it’s Deb here with you today.  I’d like to share with you a canvas I made for Creativation 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona that was displayed in Southern Ridge’s trade show booth in January.

I wanted to share my love of nature and the outdoors so used Southern Ridge’s Spruce Tree Cluster, Plump Spruce Tree, Adventure Word, Small Bird Mix and Friends Of Nature chipboard.  I don’t have any step out photos I’m afraid as I was making several projects at the same time when I made it in December but can share some close up photos with you and describe my process.  Hope you will enjoy seeing them!

I started out with a 6” x 8” flat artists canvas and primed it with gesso.  Stenciling came next with Ranger texture paste through several of Tim Holtz’s layering stencils, you can catch a glimpse of Tracks, Chevrons, Linen and Dot Fade in the picture below.

The canvas was then coloured with multiple washes of Distress stains in various shades of blue and once it had dried more stenciling was added through the mini Industrial Layering stencil with Old Paper Distress paint and some second generation stamping was done here and there with Tim Holtz’s Tree Line stamp and Ground Espresso Distress Archival ink.

The edges of the canvas were coloured with Ground Espresso Distress crayon and blended with my finger.

The Spruce Tree Cluster and Plump Spruce Tree chipboard pieces were coloured with multiple shades of green Distress Spray stains plus a bit of Picket Fence Distress spray stain to tone down the colour a bit.  They were adhered to the canvas with wet adhesive.

Three birds from the Small Bird Mix were coloured with Pitch Black alcohol ink and adhered to the top of the canvas.

The Adventure Word was painted with black acrylic paint and then heat embossed with multiple layers of clear embossing powder.   The word was mounted onto small pieces of black fun foam and adhered along the bottom edge of the canvas.

And finally, the grizzly bear from the Friends Of Nature set was embossed with Weathered Wood embossing powder from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies that I tinted slightly with some Ginger alcohol ink to tone down the white accents in the powder.  The bear was also mounted onto black fun foam and positioned on top of the Adventure Word.

As a final step, the back of the canvas was covered with a piece of scrapbook paper from my stash and I die cut a Small Easel die for displaying the finished canvas.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my Life’s An Adventure canvas, I love how it turned out and was thrilled to bits to have it displayed in Southern Ridge’s booth at Creativation, thank you for the opportunity Karen!

Southern Ridge Trading Company Supplies Used:

- Spruce Tree Cluster

- Plump Spruce Tree

- Adventure Word

- Small Bird Mix

- Friends Of Nature

Other Supplies Used:

- Tim Holtz for Ranger Ink: Distress Ink, Distress spray stain, Distress crayons, Distress paint, Matte Texture paste and Alcohol ink

- Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous: Layering Stencils (Tracks, Chevron, Dot Fade, Linen, Mini Industrial) and Tree Line stamps

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies: Weathered Wood embossing powder

- DecoArt: Americana Acrylic paint

- Miscellaneous: black fun foam and wet adhesive

Thanks again for stopping by today and as always, happy creating!

Deb xo

Sit A Spell Shadow Box with Deb Riddell

Hello, Deb here today to revisit some of my favourite chipboard pieces from Southern Ridge Trading Company for our current Your Favourites challenge.  I used these three chipboard embellishments - Andorandak Chairs, Bushy Trees and Small Bird Mix - on my Memories of Summer plaque in July and so decided to reimagine them for the upcoming fall season by incorporating them into a fall shadow box.

I started with a Vignette Box by Tim Holtz and gave it a wash of white acrylic paint.

Ranger matte texture paste was colourized with Tea Stain and Gathered Twigs Distress stains and applied to the top and outer sides of the shadow box through Tim Holtz’s Burlap stencil.

I wasn’t real happy with the whiteness of the box against the texture paste, so ended up giving the outside and back a wash of Gathered Twigs Distress stain once the texture paste had dried. I also covered the exposed edges of the front and back of the shadow box with Tim Holtz’s Regions Beyond Design tape and sealed everything with satin varnish.

For the inside of the box, I chose two patterned papers from Recollections’ Blossoms and Bliss paper stack and did a second generation stamping with a script and flying bird stamps using Potting Soil Archival ink.  As you will see in subsequent pictures I also ended up stamping Emerald Creek Craft Supplies Eldergrove stamp onto the background paper.  The papers were then adhered to the inside of the box with Distress Matte Collage medium.

I gathered up my favourite chipboard pieces plus added a new favourite, Berry Branch, and coloured them all with acrylic paints.  I stippled the paint onto the Berry Branch and Bushy Tree with a small stencil brush to simulate the dappled colours of the leaves as they change in the fall.  All of the chipboard pieces were given a protective coating of the same satin varnish once the paint had dried.

The tree and bird were elevated on some black fun foam and glued into place and the berry branch was adhered to the outer frame of the shadow box (it’s underneath my Distress ink minis I was using to keep it in place as it dried!)  I added some putka pod ‘pumpkins’ to the base of the shadow box just in front of the tree.  You can see the Eldergrove stamp that I added to the background scrapbook paper in the photo above.

Leaves were die cut with Tim Holtz’s Tiny Tattered Florals die from some Distress ink stained cardstock scraps I had in my stash (I knew I was keeping all of those tiny pieces for a reason!)

The leaves were then scattered around the bottom of the shadow box and onto the putka pod pumpkins and glued into place.

The word FALL was assembled from Tim Holtz’s Alpha Dice.  The dice were sanded and painted with Walnut Stain Distress paint and after the paint got slightly tacky, it was wiped away from the front of the dice.  The four dice were then glued together.

Some flowers were die cut with the same Tiny Tattered Florals die from more Distress ink stained cardstock scraps for the top of the shadow box.

I added a strip of burlap around the Alpha Dice and applied them to the top of the shadow box.  The Tattered Florals flowers and more fall leaves were scattered about on top.

The Andorandak chair was adhered to the front of the shadow box and four mini wooden spools from my stash, painted with Walnut Stain Distress paint, were added for feet.

My cozy blanket wrapped over the arm of the Andorandak chair was made from a piece of the baby wipe I used on this project to wipe up excess paints and stains.  I just added some ‘plaid’ stripes with Distress markers and cut some fringes on the ends and voila, a blanket to wrap yourself up in on those crisp fall days!

Here are a few more closeups of the finished shadow box.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing how the shadow box came together and how I reimagined my favourite chipboard pieces for this project.

Southern Ridge Chipboard Supplies Used:

- Andorandak Chairs

- Bushy Trees

- Small Bird Mix

- Berry Branch

Other Supplies Used:

- Tim Holtz/Ranger Ink - Distress ink, Distress stain, Distress paint, Distress markers, Archival ink, Distress Collage medium, Ranger Matte Texture paste

- Tim Holtz/ Advantus - Vignette box, Alpha Dice, Regions Beyond Design tape

- Tim Holtz/ Stampers Anonymous - Burlap layering stencil

- Tim Holtz/Sizzix - Tiny Tattered Florals die

- Emerald Creek Craft Supplies - Eldergrove stamp

- DecoArt - Americana acrylic paints, Satin varnish

- Michaels - Recollections Blossoms and Bliss paper stack, Script stamp

- Miscellaneous - burlap, black fun foam, scissors, paint brush, paper cutter, mini wooden spools, putka pods, adhesive

I hope that you will feel inspired to join in our challenge and show us your favourite chipboard, ink, embellishments or any other crafting supply that you love!  Each month you have a chance to win 4 designs from the online store - chipboard.ca - a $20.00 (before tax) retail value of YOUR OWN CHOOSING!  Thanks again for stopping by and happy creating!

Deb xo