Loving Pan Pastels!

I recently picked up a few sets of Pan Pastels to work with. I literally knew nothing about them until I kept seeing them used by a couple of designers whose blogs I follow. I am always up for trying a new product, so I made the investment in several sets, and have had some nice results with them.

An artist I am not, so it is fun to play with different techniques with these super soft colors. And the best thing about them - if you mess up, you can erase them!!!

Here is a sweet card I made using Pan Pastels for the background, as well as the hay bales and the straw stuffing.

This is another die by Elizabeth Craft Designs and the stamp is from Hero Arts.

I am entering this in the following online challenges.

Frilly and Funkie: Let There Be Light!

Jennifer McGuire's Share Handmade Kindness Challenge

Crazy for Challenges C4C311

Guest Designing at Frilly and Funkie

After my last blog post, which featured a card I made for my mom's birthday, I had a wonderful surprise come my way. My project was chosen as the favorite by the wonderful team over at Frilly and Funkie, and earned me a chance to be Guest Designer!!

I am so excited to have the chance to do a project for these wonderful people, and the theme for the challenge is "Something Wicked." I do hope you'll join the party for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to the Frilly and Funky online boutique and/or earn a guest DT spot.

I am particularly eager to have this theme, because with the downsizing that I did in my recent move, one theme of the supplies I held onto was Halloween. I enjoy doing Halloween cards, canvases, 3d boxes, popups, etc. I love the colors of this holiday - orange, black, green and purple; the critters - bats, owls, cats, and props - coffins, candelabras, and skeletons. So this challenge is right up my alley.

I had just done a card, so I wanted something different. What to do, what to do... Rifling through my dies, I came across Elizabeth Craft Designs Rose 1 (#997), designed by Susan Tierney-Cockburn. So I decided to do... wait for it... black roses!! Very spooky!! So I set out make a bouquet of creepy black roses any "ghoul" would love to get.

I die cut the petals and leaves from black card stock and using the leaf and ball stylus tools, worked the fibers of the paper to be able to form the flowers. As you can see, I cut a lot of petals and leaves. After shaping each individual petal, I formed the flowers - enough for a lovely bouquet. I painted some flower stems black, and adhered the leaves to the stems. I used Tarnished Silver Distress Paint to highlight the petals of the roses, and gray PanPastel to shadow the leaves.

Once I had my bouquet done, I needed something to hold the flowers. I settled on making a vintage-y looking vase using Krylon's Looking Glass spray paint. This stuff is tricky, as you have to spray the opposite side of the glass to get the mirror-like finish. My chosen vase had a very narrow neck, but I made it work by spraying the paint down the neck and swirling it around the inside. Several coats are needed to achieve the finish, but it dries quickly.

A Graphic 45 label from their Steampunk Spells collection (which coincidentally had "Thorn of a Rose" on it), completed the vase. I needed a few more things for my spooky scene: I found this tutorial for a coffin, shading it with more gray PanPastel, and added a Dollar Tree owl and a skeleton head from my stash, along with some Tim Holtz diecuts.

 I hope you enjoy my version of "Something Wicked," and that you join in the fun on this challenge.

Back in the craft room

Here we are in early October and thoughts turn to fall. Having moved from NY to SC, that didn't change, as we are in the midst of Hurricane Joaquin and the cold wind  and rain remind me of NY. But not to worry, we will be back in the mid-70's next week.

Having unpacked many boxes in the last 3 months, there were only a few possessions more dear than my craft supplies! I had to scale back a bit, as my new craft space is half the size of my old. But I hung on to my dear favorites, along with some new, easy on the storage space, ones.

So let's get to a project that I worked on this week with some of those new supplies. Specifically, my Elizabeth Craft dies. These are a comprehensive collection of wafer thin dies, with coordinating stamps, glitter, stickers, adhesives, etc. Today I am showcasing a die in the Susan's Garden collection by Elizabeth Craft - it's #1019, Geranium.

I made a birthday card for my mom, who loves geraniums. I used some Stampin' Up! chalkboard paper for the background. I took Wendy Vecchi's brick stencil and rubbed some light green chalk though the stencil. I didn't want the chalk to rub off, so I sprayed it lightly with some Mod Podge Matte spray to seal it.

I used one of Wendy's Mat Minis Flower Pots for the pot, embossed with some Orange Blossom and Frosted Crystal custom mixed powder.

The Geranium die, like all Elizabeth Craft dies, cuts like butter in my Vagabond. The die includes two sizes of leaves, two sizes of petals, calyx, buds and base pieces. I used some SU Old Olive paper for the leaves and stems, and some Tim Holtz craft core paper for the flower. The sentiment was from SU's Petite Pairs stamp set.

I lost my progression pictures, so all I have is the finished project and a shot of the die. Enjoy!

I am entering this in the following challenges:

Frilly and Funky: Chalk It Up!