It's a Blogiversary Celebration ~ Day 3 of Technique Tutorials

Hello, again! It's our third day of technique tutorials and today I'm going to show you how to make a Galaxy Background. I'm sure you've seen these beautiful backgrounds!! I love them! Let's get started!

First, I pulled out four distress inks for this technique - Black Soot, Dusty Concord, Seedless Preserves, and Picked Raspberry. I also grabbed two blending tools and a piece of white card stock from Papertrey Ink. You are also going to want to work on a surface that you can wipe clean or one that you can replace like my grid paper pictured.

I started with the lightest color, the Picked Raspberry. I got my blending tool nice and inky, but to avoid an obvious circle when I start blending I dab the sponge off once. Now with a circular motion I lightly blended some ink in the center of the card stock. 

Now onto the next color, Seedless Preserves... I got the blending tool nice and inky, and then with the same circular motion I blended this color around the first color. At this point in the blending it's okay that the color is lighter because we'll be adding more and we don't want it too dark.

Now we'll be basically repeating the last step again with the Dusty Concord ink. This time we'll blend ink all the way around to the outer edge.

Now, onto the Black Soot ink... with the same circular motion, I just blended the black ink around the outer edges. 

Now I did the same things again... I blended a bit of the pink in the middle and then added some of the lighter purple blending it a bit more with the pink. I went back over with the darker purple blending it into the lighter purple and into the outer black edges. I also did a little bit more blending with the black on the edges but it really didn't need much.

For some reason, this is my favorite part... haha!.. the water splatter!! I sprayed just a little bit of water in my hand and then clapped my hands over the paper. I let it set for just a few seconds and then laid the paper towel on the card stock to soak up any excess. Since I'm not using watercolor paper, I've found that it's important to use the paper towel to soak up that excess water. Otherwise, the card stock could warp and that would just be terrible after all that work blending the inks. 

Now, I grabbed my palette... it's well loved, but clean. Haha! I added just one little drop of white acrylic paint. That's it, just one tiny drop!

I then sprayed that little tiny drop of paint with a little bit of water. Not too much, just enough to make it easy to splatter.

For this technique I just use a cheap paint brush. One that my kids would use for their watercoloring. Nothing fancy at all... I used the brush to mix the paint with the water.

I love to splatter so I have a box just for this purpose. I keep a paper towel in the bottom of my splatter box to catch the extra wet stuff. It may be time to change out this paper towel. :) I placed my card stock in the box and grabbed the palette.

Now, the fun part... splatter!! I dipped my paint brush in the mixture and flicked it. You'll see that some of the splatter is bigger and some is teeny tiny... that all depends on how wet your paint brush is and/or how hard you flick the paint brush. You may want to practice this step on some scrap pieces before trying it on your background.

After doing the paint splatter, I set it aside and let it dry. I think in this picture you can see that after the paint dried, the white splatter is a bit brighter.

Now for the card I created using the Galaxy Background... I love it!! I die cut the background using the Blueprints 31 dies from My Favorite Things. I adhered that to a True Black card base and set it aside. I have just been itching to ink up this new owl stamp from Unity called Everyday Wonderful Owls. Isn't it the cutest!! I colored it in using Copic markers {0, N0, N1, N3, N4, E95, E99, V05, V06, V09, Y06, Y11, Y13, Y15, Y35} and then I fussy cut it out. I then stamped the sentiment from Unity's February 2017 Kit of the Month called Unexpected Places in VersaMark ink and heat embossed it in white. I die cut that piece using the Blueprints 14 die that just happens to be a part of my giveaway mentioned on my Happy Blogiversary post. I adhered the sentiment and the owls to the card and then decided to add a few drops of Violet Galaxy Nuvo Crystal Drops. 

And there you have the final technique tutorial for my Blogiversary Celebration!! Thank you so much for joining me for these tutorials. I've had a lot of fun doing them for you and I do intend on doing more in the future!

Please leave a comment letting me know what you thought and if you haven't already, click on the Follow button on the right hand side so you won't miss my next post... it just may be another technique tutorial!! 

 Did you comment on my Happy Blogiversary post for your chance to win a prize?!  Check out the details ---> here! Today is the last day to enter!!

If you missed the first technique tutorial, you can find that ---> here.

And the second technique tutorial can be found ---> here.

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal

Savvy 7 ~ May Blog Hop ~ April Showers Bring May Flowers!

It's time for another Savvy 7 & Friends Blog Hop! The theme for this month is April Showers Bring May Flowers! Another theme with so many possibilities! I can't wait to see what the other hoppers created!

I had so many ideas for this hop, but decided to focus on a mixed media piece that I made for my friend's birthday. I really hope that she likes it.

I wanted to share some of the steps that I went through creating this canvas. First, I applied a thin layer of clear gesso to the blank canvas and set it aside to dry. I then stamped a script background all over a piece of tissue paper (not pictured) using Archival jet black ink. Once the gesso was dried, I applied some matte mod podge to the canvas and adhered the script tissue paper all around the canvas (even over the edges). Once the canvas was dried, I used a baby wipe to apply some Bimini Blue acrylic paint to the canvas. Along the two edges I applied some Bright Yellow acrylic paint also using the baby wipe. The yellow added to the blue gave a bit of a greenish tinge that I really liked. Once the paint was dry, I grabbed a stencil and added some texture paste around the three corners and also on the edges of the canvas.

Using the Bright Yellow acrylic paint again, I painted the texture paste using a tiny paint brush. I then stamped the daisy onto the canvas using Archival jet black ink. I wasn't looking for a perfectly stamped image... I just needed a guide for adding shading around the image. I applied a tiny bit of Pewter Grey acrylic paint around the stamped image and then smudged it using another baby wipe. I set the canvas aside and stamped the daisy on a piece of white cardstock. I wanted the daisy to be white so all it needed was a few touches of yellows, orange, and a bit of brown. I also painted the stems and leaves using a couple different green paints. I applied some matte mod podge to the canvas and adhered the daisies in two pieces - kind of like a puzzle. I then stamped the sentiment on a piece of tissue paper using Archival jet black ink and adhered that to the canvas using matte mod podge. I wanted the sentiment to pop a bit so I added some grey paint for shading but then it looked a bit too dark so I ended up adding some white paint and I think that helped it to pop a bit more. 

I used the Uni-ball Signo white gel pen to fill in the word 'Everything'. My last finishing touches were some gloss white nuvo crystal drops around the daisies. The stamped image had black dots and I wanted to make them pop so adding the drops not only made them pop, but it also gave them some dimension on the canvas.

Here's a side view showing the color and texture that was applied around the edges as well. 

Here's a close up view of the daisies with the glossy drops. 

If you've made it this far in my post, THANK YOU!! I know there's a lot of pictures and info here. I had such a great time making this canvas for a very dear friend of mine. I truly hope she liked it. 

Here are the products I used for this card:

Stamps: Everything Joyful & Beautiful, Spring Inspired (Unity)

Materials: LWR Crafts Stretched Canvas 6x6, Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint set, Matte Mod Podge (Amazon), Ranger Texture Paste (SSS)

Card Stock: white (PTI)

Inks: Ranger Archival Jet Black (SSS)

Tools: Palette Knife set (SSS)

Miscellaneous: Uni-Ball Signo White gel pen (Amazon), Gloss White Nuvo Crystal Drops (SSS), white tissue paper

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal

Be sure to check out the rest of the fabulous creations on the hop!

Make It Monday #283 ~ Every Day

I'm back again with another Make It Monday challenge from Papertrey Ink. This weeks challenge is a watercolor wash background. I'm a huge fan of watercoloring so I just had to play along with this challenge. It was also a great excuse to play with some new goodies I got from Papertrey Ink.

I stamped the image from the Quoted: Start Again stamp using VersaMark ink and then heat embossed white embossing powder. I was very excited to have another chance to play with my new Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors. They've been sadly neglected sitting on my shelf. I used a few colors to do my watercolor wash background. I cut down my piece of watercolor paper and then distressed the edges. I love the texture that gives to the card. I adhered the watercolored panel to a white card base and then I splattered some watered down white acrylic paint onto the whole card. I popped on a few sequins and called it done. Not sure that I like the image off center... but I did call it done! So it's done... :)

Here are the products I used for this card:

Card Stock: White (PTI), Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor (SSS)

Watercolors: Kuretake Gansai Tambi - Set of 24 (Amazon) 

Tools: Heat Tool (SU!)

Adhesive: Tombow Mono Multipurpose liquid glue (SSS)

Miscellaneous: Vintage Chic sequins (SSS), Apple Barrel Matte White Acrylic (Amazon) 

 Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear what you thought of my creation.

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal