Elements of Nature and Guest Designer

Hello y'all! Happy day to you and what a good one it is so far. I am happy and excited to share some news with everyone. I am a guest designer today over at Stamps and Stencils. Hehe! The very talented team has been challenged to design something inspired by the Elements of Nature! Hop on over to check out what they have created, you'll enjoy looking at everyone's creative talents. I decided to make something that features moss, bark, sticks, rocks, butterflies, paints, and a secret door. Here is my mini garden top hat.

If you would like to see more details and close ups head on over to Stamps and Stencils where I do a step out about the process. 

I used so many materials and tidbits from nature, even some coffee beans for the dirt. The hat is made from crafters foam (that's how all my hats start out). 

And here are some pictures of the sides of the hat. The door was made with polymer clay that was stamped into. The brow edging around the door is leather and the door itself was painted with about 3 colors of brown paint, a white wash and some Emerald Green Viva Decor. 

I wouldn't mind living in this hat! The "feather" looking piece in the picture above is made with polymer clay and an Iron Orchid mold #6. Then it was distressed with the same paints that were used on the door. 

Thank you to the entire team for letting me share in such a wonderful challenge theme! You all rock! Carpe Diem!

I would love to share this top hat with these lovely challenges:

Always use Rubber Challenge #2-Winter/Spring
I used Spring. Flowers blooming, gardens growing, butterflies out and about.

Creative Artiste Challenge #19-Anything Mixed Media Goes

Mixed Media Place #21-Paint the Sky, Make it Yours!
I totally enjoy making mini hats and this design is my new favorite. Anything mini makes me smile and laugh.

Mixed Media World #19-Assemblage/Altered Art

Celebrate You!

Hello lovelies! Today is a super special day because it is our 1st Anniversary over at Anything But Cute! We have an exciting challenge in store this month and want to CELEBRATE! I wanted to create something that I have never tried before and also use one of my favorite movies as inspiration so I came up with this design. Meet my version of Jack Skellington and his dog, Zero!

As we celebrate our First Anniversary at Anything But Cute, we want you to celebrate what you do best...mixed media! This is your chance to do it your way, in your favorite style...so pull out those inks and paints and show us what you're made of! You can make anything you want, in any theme you want and any style you want, just as long as it has some mixed media products on it and no cute images. HAVE FUN!

We have some special treats for you this month. Along with our design team projects, we have invited our Favorite Artists from last year to come and celebrate with us. You don't want to miss the incredible line up of inspiration they have provided for you!! We also have a wonderful line up of prizes from some amazing sponsors...lots of chances to win some goodies, so don't miss out!

I started this design by sculpting Jack. He has a wire armature inside him because I wanted his arms to move and they do, although I did accidentally break his arm off, and had to fashion it back together! Sorry Jack!

I then added his legs, his bat bow tie, his eyebrows, his hands, and got to painting with acrylic paints. 

Zero was easier to sculpt and his collar was painted with red acrylic paint and his nose is orange acrylic paint. Yes, I added shoes to Jack. Hehe! 

I then started on my background while everything was baking in the oven. I tried a tag background with different designs but wasn't feeling it so I decided to create a tombstone. I drew out my shape on regular paper and used it as a template to trace onto thick matboard. I wanted the tombstone to be one sturdy piece to hold all these wonderful elements (I even add a kickstand to the back of the tag so it would stand on its own). The edges of the tombstone are made from a mold (I only used a section of the mold). You can see in the picture below what the stones and bricks are made from: I hoarded some of these foam pieces but for the life of me, I can't remember what art supply they came with. It's left over packaging of some sort. Any ideas? I think it is from dies.

I cut the foam and made my bricks/stone and glued everything (including the molded boarder) with TomBow Multi. Then at this point everything was painted with black acrylic paint. The texture sand in the picture below didn't end up showing up because of where I placed Jack. Oh well. Hehe! 

I used so many different paints and daubers to get the stones/bricks the color I wanted, then I applied white acrylic paint in certain spots to highlight areas. The inside of the tombstone was inked up with a stencil just for some depth. 

Then I started adding all the pieces together one little detail at a time. Some Spanish moss.............

A new clock mold and the pillars are new molds as well. All three were painted grey then antiqued. A few pumpkins, and a black branch looking thing. 

Some pumpkins and art stones that were painted with acrylic paints, a few bats...........

And finally some closeups of Jack and Zero! I did paint Jack's name on the bottom step of the tombstone but you can't really see it. 

Jack's head moves, as well as his arms. 

I know this was a long post and thanks for reading until the end. Don't forget to check out what my lovely teamies have designed! Hugz and Carpe Diem! ~Niki

I would like to share this design with: 

The Dark Attic #1-Anything Goes

Dream in Darkness #13-Anything Goes with a Spin to use paper dolls

My "doll" isn't paper exactly but he's a sort of doll. 

Left of Center #128-Goblyn Workshop

I went LOC with a Halloween design. 

Altered Eclectics-Anything Goes

Rhedd's Creative Spirit-Anything Goes

We Love 2 Create #9-Anything Mixed Media Goes

31 Day of Halloween at Anything But Cute

October is here and that means another challenge at Anything But Cute. Our super inspirational, and Halloween loving hostess is Sara Emily! For this challenge she would like you to make a mixed media card or project for Halloween. It can be spooky or not, but you MUST include the number "31" somewhere in your project. Let your creativity take over and enjoy! 

Let me take you through "31 Halloween Hauntings!" Mwahahahaha! Enter if you dare!

I started with a Tim Holtz assemblage clock and applied so many different sprays, inks, DecoArt crackle glaze, DecoArt texture paste, and acrylic paints as well. Let's see the process! 

I applied 3 coats of gesso and dabbed some texture paste and texture sand here and there. Then waited forever for it to dry! 

This is after the first coat of LSG sprays and DecoArt Turquoise Waters Satin acrylic paint and DecoArt Patina Green Antiquing Cream (I used the Cream after all the layers were on the clock as well as before)

While the clock was drying (when you heat metal it gets hot so I opted to wait for some stages to dry, my fingers thanked me), I started on my moon background using Distress inks and TH crackle paint for the tree. The moon is yellow and orange and the black smudges are dark clouds. The smallest gravestone includes the number 31. 

The graves are all handmade out of polymer clay, I used various objects to create the graves and then I "aged" the graves using a wash of DecoArt acrylic paint in Zinc and gesso, as well as LSG spray. 

The skeletons were purchased at a local dollar store (4 on a string) and I sprayed those with Heidi Sawpp's Black Velvet spray, I dry brushed both skeletons with DecoArt black acrylic paint. I made the females clothes with leftover fabric tidbits from other projects. Both skeletons accessories are made from polymer clay. 

The small pumpkins are made from polymer clay and painted with black DecoArt acrylic paint and the brushed over with Silks-Spiced Pumpkin. You can see one of the pumpkins beside the lady skeletons head and one in the graveyard.

I added some Halloween stickers and moss that I handpicked near a friends cabin, and some Spanish moss was used for the floor of the gaveyard. The bats are inked with alcohol inks and attached to rusty wire that I twisted around the end of a paintbrush. I adhered those to the clock with a glue gun. 

Here is a close up of the inside of the clock. These 3D designs are sometimes hard to photograph!

I do hope you have enjoyed reading this post and it gets you to thinking about the number 31 and also Halloween, which is right around the corner! I have my hat almost done for October 31st! I wear a hat for the trick or treaters that come to my house, never too old to join in the fun! 

Thank you all for reading this, I know it was a long one! Hope you all have a terrific October and remember: this month candy has no calories, right? Snickers and Milk Duds here I come! What is your favorite candy? Carpe Diem! ~Niki

I would really love to share this altered clock design with the following challenges:

Creatalicous Challenges #79-Halloween

Country View Challenges #32-Add some Texture

Lunagirl Moonbeams October Challenge-Gothic

Altered Eclectics-Anything Goes Altered Art

The Corrosive Challenge Blog #234 Halloween Bingo 

I used the center of Bat, Free Space, Moon

Left of Center Creative Challenge #98-Monster with Ike's Art or LOC

I chose to go LOC with the Halloween theme and Horror theme

DecoArt Mixed Media Haunts Challenge-Showcase their mixed media product line

Making Magic at Anything But Cute #4

The fourth challenge is here at Anything But Cute! Can you believe we started this only four months ago? Wowzers! This month the skilled artisan, Georgie, from Little Blue Craft Box is our hostess! She has chosen the theme MAKING MAGIC and this is what she had to say, "Most of us are drawn to the magic of fairy tales and fantasy. The colours are often hypnotic and your mind is free to explore outside the limits of reality. For this challenge, I would like you to create a magical mixed media project strongly inspired by the moodboard. Be inspired by the theme, the colours, the textures or all three. Lets bring a little magic back!"

To me, Knowledge is magic. It opens the doors to so many wonderful adventures and the most magical adventures I have had the pleasure of taking, are usually through a book. That is how I came up with my design for this month. 

This is my first altered book. My background is made from polymer clay that I stamped into, first time with this technique as well. I inked up the clay with Silks, LSG sprays, Inka Gold, DecoArt Metallic paint, and so much more.

The large TH butterfly die was purchased at Alleystamp.com. The lady that runs this store (Janine) is so very sweet and has such amazing prices on her items, plus she loves animals! Wowzers. I just love how versatile this die and embossing folder are (you will see plenty more of this butterfly die!) I sprayed the butterfly and used Inkagold then used UTEE over the entire piece. I added the pen nib for the body after rubbing Inkagold over it.

The dew drops that you can sort of see are made by using glossy accents and randomly dripping a drop here and there. The chippie word was embossed and then embossed again. The chippie clock was painted with gold modeling paste, then I added some sand texture paste and used LSG sprays to age it and patina it. I left the roman numerals raw.

I wanted to do something different to represent the inside of the book so I used Twisted Citron DI and applied it over some tissue paper that was already stamped (this tissue paper was what my stamp was wrapped in from my win over at 12 Tags of 2015) I then used the end of a paintbrush to make rolls from the tissue paper. I applied some glue and glued the rolled up piece to the top and side of the book=pages!!

I do hope you enjoyed this post and join in the magical fun! My teamies have designed some wonderful mixed media pieces so don't forget to stop by their neck of the woods. Thank you for stopping by! Hugz and Carpe Diem! ~Niki

I would be thrilled to share this design with the following challenges:

That Craft Place-Mixed Media Anything Goes

The Artistic Stamper-August-Anything Goes

ABC Challenge-"O" is for Open-Anything Goes

Simply Create Too #91-Anything Goes

Sisters of Craft-August Anything Goes

Fairy Door Altered Altoids Tin

Hello! First thing first-I am so happy to see that I have 3 followers! It means a lot to me as I am still so new to the mixed media art scene. Big thanks to my 3 peeps! Project time: This was totally a fun and frustrating project. I will tell you what NOT to do first. I learned the hard way. Here is my Fairy Door Altered Altoid Tin and ATCs.

First Don't: don't put any paper lining inside the top lid of the tin. It won't shut. 

Second Don't: don't put paper around the bottom of the tin that covers the little lips that allows the tin to close-it won't shut properly. I used lace to cover the edge of the paper that I messed up. Sshhhh!

Those are the big problems I ran into. Okay, onto the break down

First I cut all my paper to glue to the tin. I edged the papers with a purplish/pink chalk ink and then glued the papers using Mod Podge (love the stuff)! While that was drying I cut my ATCs to fit in the tin. 

Next I grabbed some polymer clay and set to work creating my fairy door, rocks (I didn't use these) and flower stems. I hand designed everything you see. I baked all items, let it cool down and painted everything with acrylic paints and Silks. This was my first time using clay. Fun stuff!

After that was all dry I glued my door to the front of the tin lid with Tombow glue and added some moss, the flower stems with glittery flowers and the grass moss at the bottom of the door. 

Now we turn to the inside part of the lid. I added a fairy, a mushroom (painted with Gesso and metallic purple acrylic paint), flowers and a small vial that had Wish Dust in it. So cute!

I then decided to start the ATCs that go in the tin. You can put anything or do anything for this part. I used everything from my stash. I used a pink ribbon as the "hinge" to fold the ATCs up in the tin and as the "handle" to pull it out. Don't use too many embellies or the lid won't shut-but if you do, grab a paperclip and clip the ATCs together so they don't spew out. 

Put all your parts together and Viola! Fairy Door Altered Altoid Tin with ATCs.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving your lovely comments. It brightens my day! Carpe Diem! ~Niki

This project will be shared with the following:

Altered Eclectics-Anything Goes HERE

Craft Hoarders Anonymous-School/Office supplies. HERE I used the paperclip to keep all the ATCs from spilling out-may have gone overboard on embellies. Oops!

Try It on Tuesday-Recycle It. HERE I recycled the Altoid Tin my hubby was going to throw away. 

Left of Center-anything goes in the mythical category. HERE

The Mirror Crack'd-Anything Mixed Media Goes Challenge #1. HERE

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge-Color challenge. HERE I used the pinks and garden feel from the photo.