Join me for a Sea Adventure

 Hello friends...

Today I am sharing my creations for the Conjurer of Dreams theme this month...Sea Adventures! You all know how much I love mermaids so that's where my sea adventures are.

I made several cards using lots of different items from my stash....

(the dimensional piece is made using the mould from Prima - A Mermaids Tale)

I am so excited to share this card...it is a telescope card using portholes that I printed in graduated sizes.  This is what it looks like closed....

and here it is open!! 

Another porthole card ....

This piece is a shell shaped magnet with a lovely mermaid and bits of this and that.

I also made an embroidery hoop into a shaker!

And a few digital cards....

Hope you've enjoyed my Sea Adventures!!

Gecko Galz - Sheherazade

Welcome friends!

This month's theme at Gecko Galz is Sheherazade...

What is Sheherazade...better yet, who is she - Sheherazade is a legendary Persian queen and the central storyteller in "One Thousand and One Nights" (also known as "Arabian Nights"). The story revolves around the Sultan Shahryar, who, after discovering his first wife's infidelity, decides to marry a new woman each night and have her executed the following morning. To break this cycle and save herself, Sheherazade volunteers to marry the Sultan. She then begins telling him captivating stories each night, leaving each one on a cliffhanger, so the Sultan delays her execution to hear the end of the story. This continues for 1,001 nights, and by the end, the Sultan has fallen in love with Sheherazade and spares her life. 

Well, now that you know a little bit about her let's take a look at what I have created...

I started off with a couple regal looking ATC's that have a middle eastern flair to them. The ATC's were both embossed with gold embossing power (one with fine and the other regular ep) and then decorated with lovely gemstones. Each of the ladies was added to the ATC with foam tape to pop her off and give the ATC a bit of added depth.

Gecko Galz Collage Sheets - One Thousand and One Nights ATC, Sheherazade 

My next creation is this lovely three panel screen. 

Gecko Galz Collage Sheets - Sheherazade, Taj Mahal Paper Pack (retired)

For my next project I made this triptych - I went with a pretty purple tapestry and added gemstones and pearl dots to add a touch of elegance. She is pop-dotted to give a bit more dimension to the scene.

Gecko Galz Collage Sheets - Sheherazade, Namaste Paper Pack

I had an idea to make a magic lantern and this is how it came out! It started life as a white metal glass paneled lantern. I knew I wanted a right gold, bejeweled lantern so I painted it with metallic paint and applied the lovely blue gems.  I printed my images on plain copy paper and turned the images into "vellum" with a bit of baby oil. Next each image was fitted to the inside of the glass panels. A strand of fairy lights and you have a magic lantern!!

Gecko Galz - Collage Sheets - Sheherazade

Finally I have come to my favorite project for this months theme....This canvas plaque is 8x8 black with gold painted trim. I was lucky enough to find these two bits of vintage trim that were leftover bits from ??? They both ended up being exactly the right size like it was meant to be. (It pays to be a crafty pack rat!!!) I finished it off with a bit of gold cord for the hanger and a few black and gold tassels for a bit of extra movement and shine. I absolutely love how this plaque turned out and I hope you do too!

Gecko Galz Collage Sheets - Sheherazade, One Thousand and One Nights ATC

Mermaid Christmas & Pool Party ATC's

 Hello Friends...

Final projects from the  July challenges at Gecko Galz..

First up is my pool party ATC's...

I used some fun acetate with blue glittery waves as the foundation! I wish you could see the beautiful sparkle they have.

AND...

you all know how much I love mermaids well this month's Christmas challenge image is a mermaid decorating her christmas tree!!  This is what I did with it....

I took it and made a 3D canvas hanging from it.  I printed it out 3x - one for the background, the 2nd for the tree and the third layer is the mermaid.  I added loads of real shells to the tree and beach and she is hanging a real star fish on the top.

I also used a bit of glitter glue to add sparkle to the tree, Dresden trim around the edges and a bit of pretty fancy to the bottom. You can see how I hung it in the photo below.

Star Maidens & Christmas in July!

 Hello my ink stained friends! Today I am fortunate to share my makes for this month's theme at Gecko Galz.... Star Maidens!!

I had such fun with this theme - so many ideas came to mind, I had a hard time narrowing it down.

So to kick things off I created this fun round wall art piece. I painted the background using a variety of metallic paints then flicked on a bit of white paint to help create my night sky. The main image is from the Star Maiden collage sheet set which I printed and fussy cut to fit my very large 13" sky. 

My next project is this lovely Star Maiden door hanger. A bit of embossing to make her pop.

My next Star Maiden is this canvas piece. She is just so lovely I really wanted to make a colorful background to frame her. Added a few air dry clay embellishments to enforce the "star" aspect.

Up-cycled Gift Boxes...Originally these boxes were filled with sheets of washi stickers...well, you know how it goes - the boxes were just too nice to throw away so I decided to turn them into some pretty Starry Maiden gift boxes. 

Finally I have a pair of cards I made using various bits and bobs from my stash.  The top card is very me...blue, sparkles, shimmer but I was really stretching myself with the bottom card.  I very rarely work with oranges and yellows (well aside from Halloween) so this was out of my galactic comfort zone....hope you like it.

I hope you have enjoyed my projects for July but don't go yet...

This month Gecko Galz is celebrating Christmas in July!!

We are giving away an full collage sheet on every Design Team post this month instead of the usual single collage image. I am so excited for you to head over to the Gecko Galz blog and snag today's Christmas present...

The Girl Next Door!

I simply adore this collage sheet because you know how much I love retro, sassy ladies.  Here are a few projects I made with this sheet...

Be sure to pop on over to the blog to collect this and every free Christmas in July collage sheet this month!! Happy Crafting my friends...stay inky!!

June Challenge Gecko Galz

 Hello friends...I hope you have had a lovely week so far.

Today I wanted to share what I have created for this month's image challenges over at Gecko Galz blog. As I have mentioned in the past each month Gecko Galz hosts several challenges on their blog where they give you a collage image and you create something with it.

Yesterday I shared my Fantasy creation and here are the remainder...

Card Challenge - Isn't she lovely...

Christmas Challenge - this is such a jolly Santa - I wanted to do something special for him. The card background die was in the sticker deal I got a few weeks ago. It was time consuming to color it but oh so worth it.

ATC Challenge - Oh My...you know how I love cows - and highlanders no less!! I had such fun making these. Lots of layers - papers, inks, embossing, metallic flakes, so much fun!!

Steampunk Challenge - OMG I loved this image. A Steampunk Owl plaque...  He didn't have a tail in the original image BUT I had printed off 2 - one for the body and a second so I could give him dimension by cutting and adding his face over the first image with foam tape. I had the rest of the body left over from the second print so I die-cut feathers to create a tail!!  I used the cool looking stick to cover the seam.

Gothic Challenge....ALWAYS a favorite of mine!! I trimmed away the background for this image and used tons of fun stickers to create an entire story around him.  This is a journal page in my Goth/Halloween junk journal.

Finally Gecko Galz also hosts a tag challenge on their business page on Facebook. This is June's image.... He's amazing looking don't you think?  Found the perfect quote for him.

Hope you all have an amazing weekend...

take care and stay inky :)

Stained Glass Fantasy - Mixed Media Canvas

 Each month Gecko Galz hosts several image challenges on their blog.

Well, I've been playing with the Fantasy challenge image and oh my...have I had some fun! This is what I created....

Oh my gosh, told you I had fun... this is layers and layers of various mediums.

So to start off with she had such a lovely stained glass look to her which reminded me I had a Stained Glass 3D Liquid Lead from DecoArt. 

I went over her wings, dress and halo with the faux leading and let it dry.

I then painted inside each little cell with Twinkling H2O paints. If you've never seen them before they are a lovely mica paint cake that you just add water and paint. It's wonderful stuff. Adds such a lovely shimmer.

The next step might sound crazy but it really amplified the colors and texture. I used "Vintage" Creative Medium  - it's a lovely sepia toned medium that dries translucent yielding a lovely vintage hue. I used it on the dress by painting it on adding thicker and thinner layers to give it depth and "movement".

I used a clear glossy dimensional medium for the wings and halo to give them a glass like look. 

I wish you could see it in person as the texture created by these various mediums is amazing.

Finally I added some glitter glue to her collar, added some diamonds around her halo and I used mulberry flowers for her ruffled collar!! I folded the flowers in half and glued them on - it worked perfectly - it was exactly the look I wanted!

I added this image to a black canvas with a bit of gold leafing around the edges.

I tell you I love it when you start off just messing around and the project turns out even better than you had hoped for. It makes it that much more fun.

Have a great day friends!!

Sea Goddess

Hello Friends!

I hope you're having a wonderful day...today it's my turn to share my creations for the new theme at Gecko Galz....Sea Goddess!  Now you know how much I love mermaids so I had such fun with it...

Gecko Galz - Goddess of the Sea

My first creation is a little bit of home decor that I made using some shells as the base and loads of little bits and pieces. The fish, turtle, seahorse, bottle and some of the tiny shells were made using paper clay and the new Prima mould. There are micro beads, shells, a piece of junk jewelry and more.  

Gecko Galz - Goddess of the Sea, Nautical Mile

I love this oval piece - it has 4 layers so it creates a tunnel effect. The back layer is the ship/ocean, layer 3 is the lighthouse, layer 2 is the mermaid and the top layer is comprised of sand, glitter, shells and flowers.

Gecko Galz - Nautical Mile

Mom's house is decorated with sea themed canvases and she needed something to fit in a  particular space. I found an old cutting board that I gave new life.  LOVE this ship from the new Nautical Mile collage sheet.

Gecko Galz - Goddess of the Sea

I had a few water globes in my stash that I thought would go perfectly with this theme so I went with it.  this is the first... The goddess on one side and little boy playing by the sea on the other. 

Gecko Galz - Take Me To The Shore

Gecko Galz - Nautical Mile

The next water globe is a taller one...

Gecko Galz - Goddess of the Sea

 My final creation is a shell book...M is for Mermaid...

I used items from - Mermaid Dreams Junk Journal, Mermaid Garden Stamps, Mermaids Bay, She Sells Seashells

Wish Upon A Star

 Hello Friends

Today is the day I get to share my inspiration makes for this months theme over at Gecko Galz.

That theme is Wish Upon A Star!

Gecko Galz - Wish Upon a Star, Starlight ATC Sheet

I started off with this card I made using glitter paper to really make these lovely images pop. 

Gecko Galz - Wish Upon a Star, Moon Magic, Starburst ATC Sheet

My next project was this layout in my art journal. I layered on vintage papers and the constellation papers from the Starburst ATC.  I stenciled on snow paste through a star stencil and sprinkled on glitter then spritzed the entire page with a couple shades of blue spray inks. I Then added the image, sentiment, other bits and pieces and finally the sentiment.

Gecko Galz - Wish Upon a Star, In The Stars ATC Collection

My next creation is a Waterfall card...when you pull on the ribbon it flips up the next image on the flap as you can see in the photos...

Gecko Galz - Wish Upon a Star, Sun Moon & Stars, Starburst ATC Collection

And finally I have a home decor piece in this plaque I made. I just LOVE this image - she is so very lovely. She has been matted with glitter paper and was mounted on a plaque that I covered with paper from the Starburst ATC collection.  The little paper stars are from the Sun Moon & Stars collage sheet which I inter-mixed with some metal screen stars.

Hope you are inspired and enjoyed taking a peek at my Wish Upon a Star creaitons.