This project is a hoot!

Happy Sunday!  We're on the verge of yet another busy week.  I've been a little overwhelmed lately (story of my life) with Spring photo sessions and just life in general.  But I don't want to fall behind with my blog too much so I thought a great way to start the new week would be to tell you all about the adorable hoots you previewed in my last post.

So tonight I'll share how you can turn this:

Into this:

There are so many ways to alter these adorable wooden owls.  I have covered them with patterned paper, fabric, used bottle caps for the eyes, etc.  The possibilities are endless.  So lets talk a little about how I cut these little birds out in my wood shop.  Kidding!  I actually bought the wooden owls at Michael's.  They also sell other bird cut outs and YES, the legs are included.  ;)  

Alright, so lets jump right into how I brought my feathered friends to life.  For the pink and teal birds:  paint the bird using an acrylic paint of choice.  I used Distress Paints by Ranger for these and didn't even require a brush, I just painted the entire owl with the dauber.  Once the paint dries, grab a stencil and some embossing paste.  I thought the stencil shown above would give a cool "feather like" effect to the my owls.  Place the stencil over the bird and apply embossing paste with a spreading tool.  (Helpful Hint No. 1:  Keep your stencil from moving by using a tiny glue dot to keep it in place.  Remove glue dot AFTER the embossing paste has dried.)   

Gently peel the stencil off of the wood and your bird now has some really awesome texture as seen above.  Allow paste to dry before proceeding with next step.  Imagine all of the stencils you could use on these babies.  You can visit my my mixed media pin board on Pinterest to view other birds I've decorated.    

And now for the fun part --giving the bird a personality!  For these little gals I simply added googly eyes, beaks made out of orange polymer clay and hearts made out of white polymer clay.  I painted the hearts using distress paints by Ranger and then stamped initials on them using acrylic alphabets.  Warning, the clay is very slick and the stamps will slip and slide --press gently, firmly, and quickly.  Yeah, good luck with that!  Haha.  The final touch for these little gals was the ribbon barrette at the top.  I actually bought those at Hobby Lobby and they were already put together.  I simply hot glued them in place.   

 

(click images to view larger)

Now lets talk about these little guys.  For these particular hoots I used Martha Stewart paints and crackle.  I applied the base coat --orange on the little guy on the left and a light blue on the little guy on the right.  I'm sorry I can't recall the official names of the colors.  Once the base coat dried --oh, you can apply two coats of paint if you'd like --anyway, once the base coat is dry, apply the clear crackle.  Allow crackle to dry completely.  Apply top coat in the color of your choice.  I used the color Wedding Cake on both of these because I just love, love, love that color.  The paint will immediately start to crackle.  Allow paint to dry and crackle.  (Helpful Hint No. 2:  Practice your crackling on small pieces of chipboard by doing all of the steps above.  Applying the crackle with different strokes or even brush vs. foam brush can give you a variety of crackle effects.)  For these owls I used a stencil with the word love on it.  Just like I did above, I secured the stencil with a tiny glue dot and then spread black embossing paste over it.  Gently peel off stencil and allow paste to dry before removing glue dot.  Lastly, add googly eyes, polymer clay beaks and hearts.  

Ms. Ruin's Supply List Gal Owls:

Basic Crafting Tools

Wooden Owl

Acrylic Paints or Distress Paints by Ranger

Embossing Paste

Stencil

Googly Eyes

Polymer Clay (orange and white)

Barrettes or Ribbon

Alphabet Stamps

Ms. Ruin's Supply List Guy Owls:

Basic Crafting Tools

Wooden Owl

Martha Stewart Acrylic Paints

Martha Stewart Clear Crackle

Embossing Paste

Stencil

Googly Eyes

Polymer Clay (orange and white)

I promise, these little gals and guys are as fun to make as they are to look at.  Stay tuned --I've got an altered paint brush, and a design team challenge project to share with you in my upcoming posts.  Until next time, I'll leave you with a preview:

Peace, love, and a hootin' good time!

Ms. Ruin

Happy June!

Hello bloggers!  I know that my posts are few and far between lately.  To say that my life has been a little bit of a whirlwind is an understatement.  I've been jet setting and just trying to keep a handle on everything that life throws my way.  Nothing too overwhelming, just crazy busy.  But honestly, I wouldn't know what to do with myself if my life didn't require a safety belt even when not driving.  

Although I have been doing a significant amount of shooting (for someone who doesn't advertise), I decided that it's time to refocus my time on my art.  At least for the summer.  I miss it.  It's just that simple.  It's tough when you have two things that you are very passionate about --for me it's my art and my photography.  I haven't mastered juggling both successfully.  One of them always ends up overwhelming me and not in a good way.  Do you juggle too?  How do you do it?

Anyway, in an effort to kick start my creativity in mixed media I decided to host a tag swap for the month of June at Artsy Fartsy.  Yeah, I said June.  I can't believe we're almost half way through the year of 2013.  But anyway --back to me kick starting my creativity.  Uhhhhhhh...::crickets::  So it didn't jump start quite as quickly as I thought it would but nevertheless I got some tags done.  Woot, woot!  And that's a lot to be happy about.  So let me show you what I made this morning...

Remember you can click on the images to view them larger.

I just love this little guy --he is so cryptic and mystical and well, there's just a whole lot going on with this little fella.  But I can't help but feel sadness when I see him.  The technical stuff:  Mustard Seed Distress Ink all over tag then I cut out a mask of the little guy and positioned it where I was going to stamp him.  Then I covered the entire tag with Peeled Paint Distress Ink.  I stamped the vines from the Dylusions line and then I removed the mask and stamped my little Creep.  Yep, this one inspired by Radiohead's "Creep".  I also shaded the edge of the tag using Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I made three pretty identical tags for my swap --they all basically look like this one.  I first covered the entire tag with Peacock Feather Distress Ink and then shaded the edges of the tag with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  I wish I could remember who makes the stamp I used for this tag but I don't have that in front of me so I will update it when I have an opportunity.  The hardware is from the Ideaology line and the "journey in time" stamps are from Maya Road's art journaling stamp set.

I love, love, love, love, LOVE the gold stars!  The stars are courtesy of a new stencil by Heidi Swapp.  I positioned the stencil on the tag and then covered the stencil with gold embossing paste by the fabulous Wendy Vecchi.  I actually took one of Wendy's classes last weekend!  But more about that later.  Anyway, I think these stars are the bees knees.  ::big smile::  The final step in these tags was misting perfect pearls innnnnnnn...oh crap, I don't remember the color.  I want to say Sunflower Sparkle but I think that may be incorrect.  Again, will get back to everyone on this.  But I do want to say that the mist and stars added a whole lot of magic to these tags!

This one is oh so pretty --I used my favorite distress ink color, Mustard Seed.  I shaded the edges using Vintage Photo Distress Ink and all other steps mimic the ones already mentioned above.  Pretty neat, eh?

As I mentioned a second ago, I had an opportunity to take a class with the fabulous Wendy Vecchi.  It was a technique class and I'll admit that I knew 75% of what she taught that day but the class was still interesting and I walked away with a bunch of tips and some new techniques.

Alright, I will do my best to not be a stranger.  I will post photos soon from some of my recent shoots and adventures.  Until then...peace, love, and never truly losing your creative spirit.  :)

Art...my saving grace!

I am beyond thrilled at the way in which this canvas came together.  So many layers, textures, mediums, fun, fun, fun!  Used in this project were acrylic stamps, cling mount stamps, old dictionary pages, stencils, white and black gesso, ink sprays, adirondack paints, chipboard...lots of goodness.  I won't go into full details because my brain is on overload and my eyelids are about to defeat me.  Let's just say that all of the little secrets are in the details...just look closely!