No boys allowed! Hazel & Ruby stencil masks save the day again....

Sorry I've been missing in action lately.  Tennis season has started so I'm back teaching until the snow covers up the courts for another year!  But anyone who knows me knows I can't stay away from my art supplies!  I'm not going anywhere!

So my little one has been asking to make an artsy sign for her door with some of my Hazel & Ruby stencil masks.  She knew exactly what she wanted it to say:  'No boys allowed, except dads, brothers, cousins and any nice boys'.  We had to condense it a bit for the sake of space...lol...

Here's how it turned out:

We used some PPA (matte) to adhere the pretty paper

(also from Hazel & Ruby - Pretty Floral Tissue Paper roll) 

to a 12x12 canvas.  (let dry completely - we did a whole bunch the night before)

Next, we simply added our letters to the canvas.

She then painted over the entire canvas using acrylic paint.

Since acrylic paint dries pretty fast we didn't have to wait too long to peel off the letters.

(a heat gun also helps ;)  

We wanted to add a bit of distress to it so we added some strokes of Tim Holtz distress paint in Picket Fence.  We also took the bottom of paint bottle and dabbed it into some orange paint to make some random circles on the canvas.  Then I took my beloved india ink pens from Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft and added a bit of shading around the letters to help them stand out.

Such a fun project to do together with fabulous results!!!  The stencil masks from Hazel & Ruby make it super quick and easy even for kids!  Love it!!!

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great week!

You've got a friend in me canvas...

What does one do with a truck load of creative energy after returning home from CHA?  Make a canvas!  I made this piece shortly after I got home.  The amazing inspiration walking around there was so overwhelming (in a good way) I was bursting at the seams with ideas.  I had so much creativity buzzing around inside my head I just had to let it out and this was the result.  

I took a blank canvas and a piece of patterned designer paper and adhered it to the entire surface using gel medium.  After it was good and dry, I took some alphabet 'thickers' and placed them on the canvas as a 'mask', making the saying "you've got a friend in me"...(gotta love Toy Story) - oh I removed some of the 'sticky back' by pressing the stickers on my pants so they wouldn't tear the paper off when I removed them.    I added some whipped spackle around the edges to give it some texture and 'grunge'.  Then I went to work with some heavy body acrylic paint in Pink mixed with a bit of white paint and water and covered the entire canvas being careful not to saturate around the alphabet stickers too much.  Once that was completely dry I carefully removed the alphabet stickers revealing the pretty flowered background.  Then to finish it off I added some shading and dimension to the letters using gelatos and pitt pens!  

Here's a close up of how to use the pens and gelatos to add more dimension to your work!  They blend so nicely over dried paint!  

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little project, I know it found a good home!  Thanks Jo  ;)

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you have a great weekend!

Supplies used:  Canvas, Designer paper, gel medium, gesso, acrylic paints, alphabet stickers, whipped spackle or modelling paste, gelatos, pitt pens.

Fingerprint flowers and Butterfly thumbs...a new canvas!

I'm back with another fun little art project that you can do with your kids (or on your own as well).  Its been a little trend in our house lately that the days my daughter is home with me we do some kind of 'art' project.  I call it Homeschooling Art Class 101...lol!  There's so many fun things you can do with a little bit of paint, a blank canvas and a few tiny fingers and thumbs!  Here's what we came up with!

I've created a little step-by-step video tutorial to show you just how easy and FUN this is to do!  Both my daughter and I are very proud of it and think its pretty cool that the flowers and butterflies are made from our finger and thumb prints!  We have lots of homemade paintings with hand and foot prints from the kids but we've yet to do something like this!

 Here's the video! I hope you like it! 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!  Have a great week!