Creative Minds Are Rarely Tidy canvas

 

Creative Minds Are Rarely Tidy  (truth.)

 



I finished up this canvas today.  The background is a Dyan Reavely-inspired background, using her new Dylusions paints from Ranger.  I stamped "Creative Minds Are Rarely Tidy" using the CTMH "Cocktail" alphabet and added some dots and white-pen embellishment.  The flowers are misc. ones from my stash, and the centers and black flourishes are all CTMH. The lighting was too bright in the bottom right-hand corner when I took the photo.  The black letters are actually all as dark as the upper left. 

Wendy Vecchi Class

Several weeks ago I was fortunate to attend an art class by artist Wendy Vecchi in Moline, Illinois.

First, we learned a bunch of ink and embossing techniques using tags:

Art is a messy business.

Here's a pic of me with Wendy. She is super nice and soooo talented!

Her husband was there helping, and he had packed some of her supplies in this "Bud Heavy" box. Lol.

After lunch we started on our framed canvas project using our newly acquired skills. 

Here's my finished project. I ventured off the project a little, but I can't help myself. I love the finished piece.

Glittery Canvas Ornaments

 

Christmas is a perfect time to use and overuse glitter!  The inspiration for this ornament came from Beth Quinn.  I saw an ornament she made on Pinterest that had the same sentiment and lots of glitter.  Our ornaments are quite different (hers is fancier for sure), but I believe in giving credit where it's due, so to see Beth's 2010 blog post with her ornament, click HERE.  Thank you for the inspiration, Beth!

 

I made my little glittery ornament, which is far prettier in person, using a tiny 2" x 2" canvas from Michael's.  First I covered it in gesso.

Then I added a snowflake to the corner and trimmed off the excess.

 

I covered the whole thing in gel medium.

 

Then, with my finger,

I dappled on modeling cream all over the canvas, leaving some areas raised, and creating basically a lumpy surface.  I used a shimmering champagne color that's more cream than the yellow it looks like in my photos.

 

Then, probably because my hands were so messy, I quit taking photos.  My next step was adding lots of big, course glitter.  I used Twinklets Diamond Dust.  I added a layer of Modge Podge (the classic clear glossy kind) on top.  Then I printed and cut out the words "She Loves Christmas" individually.  I adhered the words with Modge Podge, then added just a little bit of ultra fine iridescent silvery white glitter. I coated the whole thing again with Modge Podge.  In between most of these steps, I used my heat tool to speed up the drying process. 

 

Here's the finished look, up close:

The snowflake just barely shows through all the glitter and modeling paste.

 

On the back I added the date with my date stamp.  I spread a layer of Modge Podge, attached a piece of ribbon for the hanger, and added just a bit more glitter.  Lastly, I covered the back with one final coating of Modge Podge.

 

 

I'm probably going to make several versions of these ornaments, and maybe some beachy ones too.

Three-Panel Photo Canvas

I've been wanting to order a photo canvas for this photo I took in Orange Beach a few years ago for a long time.  A lot of places (Walgreen's, etc.) will make a photo canvas, but finding a three-panel set for a reasonable price was not so easy.  Finally, last week I found personalizationmall.com.  I ordered this three-panel canvas set for under $100.  I absolutely love it, and it arrived in under a week.  Each canvas is 12" wide by 24" tall.  It's going to look awesome on the wall of my "beachy" bedroom.  I'll definitely be ordering more canvasses of my photos from this site.