"Hugs" tag for "purple " challenge at #onelittletag

Hello again , my friends
Here is another tag I made for the "purple" theme this week at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge.  I used the negative space created whenn I punched out the "heart-shaped moon" for a tag I did last week.  I'm glad I didn't throw the scrap  away!  I backed the heart area with some purple glitter paper.  The background was made from some of the "spray play" papers I created previously.  I used a small punch to cut the little hearts out of gold foil card and a Recollections die for the word "hugs", I cut it again from black card that I used as a drop-shadow..  I mounted to a gold mat and a black mat to finish it off.  I am having fun with purple!
I hope you enjoyed my tag and that it will inspire you to make use of some of the scraps that you might normally throw away.
Have an awesome day, overtone!
Kim  xo

New "Dream" tag for "purple" t challenge at #onelittletag

Hello friends,
This weeks theme at The One Little Tag Craft Challenge  was purple inspired by the new pantone colour of the year.  We are doing any purple for the challenge, though.  I had a bit of a crazy week, so I didn't actually finish any tags until Friday night, but I did work on them, in bits and pieces, throughout the week.  Purple is okay.  It is not my favourite, nor my least favourite colour.  I didn't find it overly inspiring, or so I thought!  I thought I would look around for some patterned paper (of which I have reams and reams, lol) but not much in the way of purple.  It's just not a "go-to" colour for me.  Then I thought I would look through my "spray play" backgrounds that I created previously.  I was completely surprised to see how much I actually used purple. That was the jumping off point, suddenly I was totally inspired.  I created several tags this week, and may still make a few more!

I created this tag using a background I made using a variety of spray inks and stencils, this one on shimmer card from Recollections.  I thought the background looked kind of "dreamy" so I used a Recollections die to cut out the word.  One combination I really like is purple and gold, so since I am using purple, there is going to be a lot of gold in the cards and tags that I make!  It's hard to tell in the photo, but there is a lot of shimmer and veins of gold running through this background.  I liked how this tag turned out.

I hope you enjoyed today's tag, and thanks so much for stopping by.  If you did, I have made several tags for the purple themed week, so please come back and check them out!
Have a great day everyone!
Kim xo

Stamperia Demo and Haul - I thought it was only available in Europe, but it's available in Toronto!!!

Hello my friends!  

This is a post about another product that I am so excited about!  I had seen a few videos using  Stamperia products on YouTube.  I knew it was a European company (from Italy) and I figured I would never get my hands on any of it.  Some of you that have been following my blog may know that I belong to a few different art groups and associations.  The club I am most closely involved with is Ajax Creative Arts.  It is my job within the club to organize demos and workshops.  One of the other members of the group, Lydja, approached me  a while back and told me that she worked with  someone who would be interested in doing a workshop or demo at our club.  I spoke to Nahla on the phone and as she was describing the product, I discovered it was Stamperia!  I was so excited!  As far as I know, she is the only distributor, at this time, in North America!

So on Wednesday afternoon, Nahla and her lovely daughter came to our club to introduce us to the Stamperia line of products.  The catolouge is quite thick, this company 

offers a multitude of products.  They have paints, sprays, pastes, gorgeous collage and decoupage papers, stamps, stencils, transfers, transfer gels, a wonderful crackle paste, patinas, and the list goes on and on.

These products can be used for mixed media, art journallung, crafting, decorative painting, home Decor, fabric painting etc. etc.  etc!

Nahla brought a few samples of some finished projects and did a great demo for us using a variety of different products.  We only had a couple of hours, so we steered the demo in the direction that we thought would appeal most to our artist members.  but there are so many more things for the creative soul to try.  I have added a couple of links below to videos I saw before I had even spoken to Nahla.  There is a mixed media canvas and an art journalling page, some of the things I was interested in.  But I encourage you to visit the Stamperia website, there is a link above, and search Stamperia on YouTube for many great videos, if you are interested.

Please enjoy some photos from our demo.  I had asked Nahla if she could bring in some product that we could purchase.  What you see in the pictures are just a tiny sampling of what's available.  We had a lot of fun looking through the beautiful papers, stamps, stencils, paints, pastes etc.  I was surprised were reasonable ans comparable  with similar products more widely available here..  I guess I just assumed that because they were imported and shipped from Italy, there would be a higher price point.  Sometimes it's nice to be wrong! 

We will be planning a workshop soon! (which I will also share)

Please excuse all the mess in the background.  Our art club also shares space with a theatre group who uses the space as a prop drop-off ground (please also excuse my annoyance, lol)

We took a little break to allow for some drying time and had some fun looking through the products that Nahla brought.

These are the goodies  that I purchased (to start with!)

This crackle paste is different finish than any of the others I have tried, so I am looking forward to trying it.  It might be fun to combine it with different  crackle mediums throughout a canvas for some different textures

Here is a mixed media canvas video by Nicoletta Zanella using Stamperia products.
Here is an art journal page using Stamperia products by Vicky Papaioannou who's work I just love!

Well, Nahla casually mentioned that she was heading to a trade show in Arizona this weekend.  I'm so jealous, she is off to CHA!!!  That is one show I would love to go to. I hope she has a wonderful time, I'm sure it will be a lot of fun!

Thank you so much for stopping by!  i hope you have enjoyed hearing about our demo and will check out Stamperia.  Have an awesome and creative day!  xo

Playing with sprays and stencils #onelittletag

Hello my friends!  Thanks for joining me.  Just the other day, I was talking about the One Little Tag Craft Challenge  (here)that I have been participating in this year.  I have fallen very behind and I was explaining that for the time being, I am going to ignore the (optional) prompts and just create whatever tags I feel inspired to create.  Well, Jenny Barnett Rohrs, creator of the One Little Tag Craft Challenge on Facebook, who has actually been tied up herself with a big move,  issues another challenge.  Sprays and stencils!  I am sorry, but I cannot ignore this delicious challenge.
  So, as usual, I like to do a lot at once, while I have everything out.

Do you think maybe I like stencils? (and trust me, this is just a sampling!)

Do you think that maybe I like sprays? (also just a sampling)

I have lots of photos here for you to have a look at if you like.  I just grabbed whatever spray and stencil I felt compelled to grab, so I am not identifying each one, but you can get the idea of what I am up to.  I started with spraying a "base"  I just t used regular Recollections white cardstock.

It was quite warm today and I just put them out on the porch for a while.  So after these dried, which didn't take long, it was time for the stencils...  

I sprayed through the stencil, which I just sat loosely on the sheet.  I didn't tape them down, I wasn't going for a really pressie look.  On several of them, I flipped the stencil over and used the excess spray to give me the reverse image

(I just love how this one turned out)

I also had some tags already cut and some scrap card and watercolour paper that I had cut down.  I used these to "clean" the stencils.  These photos do not do thee justice.  They turned out soooo cool!  

Some of the previous inks also transferred which gives them a certain depth and texture with some  beautiful shimmery areas.  I like some of the ghost prints as much or better than the original images

Some of the pages that I created today will be cut down into tags, I will keep some as mixed media backgrounds, some will be cards and perhaps, some will become some of the first ever ATCs that I may try. 

I have not actually produced a tag today.  However, I did have a very productive day participating in the challenge!

Thanks so much for joining me and having a look at my blog, You are so appreciated!

Be Awesome - A Whimsical mixed-media Girl

Hello my friends!
I thought you might like to see what I did with my whimsical girl.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, I thought I might cut her out and use her on a mixed-media piece.

I started off with some Canson watercolour paper.

I started off with some pink craft paint that I applied with a baby wipe.  To be honest, this was originally starting out as something else that ended up being the background for my whimsical girl.  That's why I was using craft paint.

Then I collaged on a few pieces of a pretty napkin.  Then I used a light coat of gesso to push it back a bit

Next I added some gold embossing paste through a couple of stencils.  That Tim Holtz stencil is my absolute favourite!

Then I added some sprays.

I cut out my girl, edged her with gold ink  and adhered her to my page.  I added some more embossing paste on top of her to tie everything together.  I also added some more spray.  Suddenly she had little purple freckles!  I thought I had covered her, but I didn't want to end up with a harsh line, and it turns out I didn't protect her well enough.  Now, I have a confession too make.  Because I wasn't initially sure what I was going to do, I made a copy of her.  So the truth is, the copy ended up with the freckles.  Which, having freckles myself (although not purple), I don't mind. Then I printed out my words, edged them with gold ink, then black archival ink, and added them to my page.

Then I got out  one of my PITT pens and some stamps and ink for some finishing touches.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit!  Have  an artful day and 

BE AWESOME!