Breast Cancer Awareness Collage

At McMahon Five Designs, Shawne (Studio 313) drew our BCA image for this month.  I feel in love with it the minute I saw it and new that I wanted to make a collage with it using some batik type paper that I had in my stash.  This is the result.

Remember, if you promise to do your monthly self check, this image is free in the store!

I used a few collage techniques on this one.  I cut a piece of DP from the same stack the batik paper was in for the background and then covered the whole thing with a very light coat of soft pink paint.  I then stenciled butterflies onto the background with a sand colored paint.  While waiting for that to dry, I printed the image on the batik paper and on music paper and cut them out.  I podged the images to the canvas and then started shading and highlighting the image.

Although I use music or book paper on my She Art girls, I didn’t like it on this one so I ended up coloring over it for her skin.  After painting, I re-drew the lines with a Micron pen.

I used some spackle compound, with acrylic craft paint added for color, and a stencil to make the little doily designs and then did an image transfer with the sentiment that I had printed out in reverse.  After all that was dry I added a few rubons to complete the look.

I didn’t do as much to the background as I  normally do because I’m giving this to my mother, who is a breast cancer survivor, and she likes a cleaner look.  While working on this, I got the idea to make some of these using this and some of the other BCA images from M5D and take them to the Cancer Center where my mother went for treatment.  She thought that was a great idea.  I think that they would be a wonderful addition to the packages that they give the patients when they come in for their first treatments.  Maybe give them a little strength to get through the procedures.

For those who might be wondering, my mother is almost at the 5 year mark so that’s all great news!!!

I hope you enjoyed my creation today!!!

Blessings,

Christine

Corset Transfer Tutorial

Whenever I see tutorials by all the wonderful artists out there, I always want to see the finished product at the beginning of the post so I can envision the steps along the way, so I’m going to post the after picture first!  Plus, that’s what Tim Holtz does in his tutorials. *giggle*

 

Supply List

1. Collaged Background.  I used an 8x10 canvas collaged with Basic Grey Capella design paper, acrylic craft paint and my favorite soul glue, Mod Podge!
2. Gel Medium.  I like to use Matte Medium because I don’t like much sheen.  You can use gloss or other finishes as well.  The brand and type doesn’t matter.  I’ve read that you can also  use Mod Podge as well as acrylic paints for a transfer medium.
3. Paint Brush or other item (spatula, craft spreader, expired credit card) to used to spread the medium.
4. Photo Copied Image.  I’m lucky that my ink jet printer works for this use but many don’t.  If the ink isn’t water fast, it’s possible that the transfer will not work or will be faded and blurred.  Try it on a safe surface before doing it on your collage.  My image is just printed on the Inkjet printer paper that I get at Walmart.  I don’t think it really matters what type of paper, however.  I think that the lighter weight the better.  I haven’t done it yet but you can also use patterned paper, magazine pages, old book pages, etc., for this process.
5. Spray Bottle and Water.

 

Step 1.  Spread Gel Medium.

Spread a thin coat of gel medium over the surface on which the image will be placed.  It must be thick enough that no part dries before the image is placed down.

 

Step 2.  Place the Image.

Place the image directly on top of the layer of gel medium that you just put down.  With a brayer, craft scraper or old credit card, starting on the inside of the image, smooth the image out towards the outside smoothing any wrinkles.  Sometimes with these vintage images, however, wrinkles can add some character.

While you are smoothing, some of the gel medium will come out.  I just continued to scrape that gel off of the canvas.

 

Step 3. Let it Dry!!!

 

As the paper dries, the image is transferred from the paper onto your prepped surface.

Now, this is the most important part.  Give it plenty of time to dry.  How do I know you ask?

This is how I know.  I’m not afraid to share my mistakes!!!

I started the process on another canvas.  I applied the image and let it dry for a bit (maybe a couple of hours) while I was doing laundry and stuff.  When I sat back down to peel the paper off, part of the image came off as well.  These spots were still wet.

For the next attempt, I spread just as much gel medium on the canvas but removed more during step 2 while smoothing the image.  Plus, I let it dry overnight!!!

 

Step 4.  Remove Paper.

(Sorry for the photo quality.  I was working on this at night.)

I used a spray bottle to soak down the image before attempting to remove the paper. 

I let it sit for about 5 minutes, dried the surface with a rag and started peeling.  This is a very tedious process, especially with an image this big but be patient and take care.  If you try to take the paper off before it is wet enough or try to peel too much paper, you will end up smearing the  ink.  Thankfully I was able to fix those spots on this canvas because I had the collagey, vintage thing going and that just adds a bit if character.  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. *giggle*

You will need to alternate between spraying, waiting and peeling until you have all the paper removed.    This is really the hard part because it takes so much patience, for me anyway, to not continue peeling when it’s not quite ready.

Some people like to use a sponge to help in peeling the paper.  I just used my fingers but I rubbed it gently with a rag after I was finished to remove any bits that strayed.  I probably should have let it dry completely and then wipe with a damp rag but I’m too impatient!

I left a VERY thin layer of paper on my collage because I didn’t want the background to completely show threw.

 

Step 5.  Embellish.

Finish and embellish as you wish.  I made a quick wash using the same colors as the background and covered the entire canvas so the whole thing would look cohesive.  Then I added two more coats of Mod Podge.

While the Mod Podge was still wet, I placed a strip of lace and then, after the Podge was dry, I glued the buttons down with craft glue.  Warning:  Hot glue does not stick to Mod Podge!  That’s another one I learned from experience.  I’ve been re-gluing a lot of stuff!!!

And that’s it.  I embellished this very simply because this is one of a series of collages that I plan to make and hang in my guest bathroom.  I’ll probably make some changes to the embellishments of all the collages once they are all hanging in the room.

I hope you learned something from my tutorial.  I know that I will be using the technique often.

You can use gel medium to transfer onto just about any surface.  Next up, I’m trying it on fabric to make a wall hanging or pillow. 

Now is the Time

I’ve been working on a few more Brave Girl projects lately and have one to share with you tonight!!! (In case anyone is counting, this is going to count as my Sunday post!)

This is something that I must constantly remind myself.

Now is the Time!!!

I’m entering this into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge and the Compendium of Curiosities challenge with Linda. I used, October Afternoon paper, a MS butterfly punch, GCD Studio chipboard butterfly, KaiserCraft pearls (colored Copics) some vintage seam binding (flower) and lots of acrylic paint and Mod Podge!

I can famously put off things that are a little too hard to do, or might be scary, even though I know that it is something that I must do. I made this canvas to remind me that it is time! Don’t put it off another minute!!! Maybe it will help with this hanging on my wall to see everyday.

I have been working on it. Today, not only did I make this piece, but I emptied the dresser in my bedroom and then had my sister help me carry the dresser out on the deck. I bought the dresser several years ago with the intention of refinishing it. Like many things around my home, I buy them with an intention and since I didn’t have the strength and health to do them, they remained undone. I’m really trying to turn that around.

So, I’m refinishing my bedroom dresser and moving it into the living room temporarily. I will then move one of the dressers in my studio onto the deck, do some painting in my studio and then moving the newly refinished dresser into the studio. Phew!!!! I want to get all this done THIS WEEK. After that, I will still have one dresser on the deck, right. I’ll refinish that one and move it into the bedroom. The second dresser is much bigger than the first one so I want to switch places. I need more space in the bedroom to get organized.

So that’s my week in a nutshell!!! It’s very ambitious for me but I know that I can get it done. And during rest breaks, I need to gather and assemble 27 alphabet pages using the letter “V.” I’m in an alphabet book swap. It has been fun to plan my page using things that begin with the letter V. The pages should be in a vintage kinda’ theme. I found a digi stamp (thanks TLC) of a violet flower fairy that is perfect for the front of the card. There are a ton of details involved but I think I have it all figured out. I’m going to make one copy of each side and then take it to a copy center for the 27 copies of each side. Then I’m going to glue the pages together with a glue stick and add the details. I hope everybody likes it. I have made everything in the color violet (with a little green). What I haven’t figured out how to do is add the color vermillion. I know that a bright orange is the complementary color to violet and I really want to add it.

Okay, enough about my upcoming week. I hope you’ve got a good one planned as well!!!

Now, be sure to leave a comment since all comments left until September 23 will count towards an entry into my candy. And please, send your friends over, the more individual entered in the giveaway, the more items I will be giving away. How does that sound! Yay!!!

Blessings,

Christine

Sew Beautiful and a mini tutorial for faux stitching

The challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show is to make a project in Wendy Vecchi’s style.  Wendy makes beautiful art, however, I don’t usually make things in that style.  So I went to her blog to get inspiration and this is what I decided to use for inspiration.  This is my inspiration piece. I hope that my canvas works for a Wendy Vecchi style project.  After looking at the inspiration piece again, I don’t think I got very close.  However, I like it anyway!!!  I didn’t want to make something that I wouldn’t have a use for later.  Anyway, I had on hand some of the the same Maya Road chipboard pieces that Wendy used on her piece.  So I started there with my creative process!  The whole thing came to me yesterday morning when I was trying to get back to sleep.  I had to get up and get a start.  When you paint and Podge, you have a lot of wasted drying time!

I painted a 5x7 canvas pink and Mod Podged crinkled up pattern pieces to the canvas.  I also did the same to a piece of GCD chipboard.  The tag is also GCD chipboard.  Then I watercolored the Tim Holtz stamp in the same colors I was using on the canvas, tore the edges and then distressed them using Old Paper Distress Ink.  I used a faux stitch technique (I’ll talk about that later.) around the outside of the canvas, glued on the watercolored image, and the scalloped chipboard.

I painted the sewing chipboard in various colors to match and topped them with a couple of coats of Sparkle Mod Podge.   The wooden spool is from my sewing box but it had hot pink thread on it.  I took all that thread off and strung on a little bit of thread to match the project.  I added lacy stuff from my sewing box to it as well.  The blue lace is seam binding and I think the other laces are for lingere. 

That’s about it.  Are you having a good weekend.  Linda, Lynn and I are having a stamping party again tomorrow.  It’s at Lynn’s house and she is having us make altered crowns.  I’m gathering up some things to make mine into a music theme.  I can’t wait to get together again.  We always have such creative fun!!!

Oh, I almost forgot about the mini tutorial.  I saw this on the Moxie Fab World blog a while back and hadn’t tried it until now.  It’s the best way ever to make faux stitching.  All you need is some acrylic paint and one of these sewing thingys.  They are used to mark darts on patterns.  This is normal acrylic paint like you would get in a bottle at the craft store.  It’s just in a different kind of tube.  Squirt out a dot of the desired paint.  I used the hot pink so it would show up.  Run the dart thingy through the paint to coat all the way around.  Test it on a scrap to make sure it is going to give the right coverage.  Then, run it on your project.  That simple!!!  Take a look at my canvas again.  It looks like I had some magic sewing machine to put stitching through the wood frame of the canvas.

Have a great Sunday!  I’ll be in the garden.  It’s going to be a nice cool day and the weeds of kinda’ gotten away from me!!!

Blessings,

Christine