Introducing the new Spring Release!
Purrtastic releases so far!

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Grandmaster Altered Pencil Holder!

Howzit Everyone!
 It's my turn today to share some DT inspiration over on our Smudgy Antics challenge blog.


I've had this very versatile Tombow 'store display' marker holder in my studio for many years.  I'm calling it a pencil holder for want of a better word but I use it daily for various purposes like to stand projects in while they dry or carry some coloured pencils or markers to my desk.  I've been wanting to do 'something' to pretty it up and I finally did it, haha!    It's also the perfect compliment to my 2015 daily planner I altered earlier this year! 
this is what it looked like with sides all open
I used all of the stunning chess piece Smeared Ink digis called Grandmaster and the chess board background I previously designed to create the panels for each side in Photoshop CS6 before printing them out.  Each panel was trimmed and run through my Xyron to add permanent adhesive and then layered onto black cardstock and trimmed again.  I applied Fired Brick and Black Soot Distress Inks with a foam ink applicator tool and adhered each panel to the plastic holder with permanent adhesive tape.  I added the harlequin diamond washi tape to all the corner edges and the top edges and the measuring tape to the bottom edges to neaten and complete the overall look.  I'm very pleased with how my "new" handy gadget turned out!


 There's approximately 8 days left to play in Smudgy Antics current 'always anything goes' challenge so I hope I've inspired you to come and join us!

http://dominoartblog.blogspot.com/p/15-days-of-terror.html

Something wicked is coming to DominoART starting May 1st!  Join me for 15 Days of Terror over on my DominoART blog where we celebrate Half-O-Ween in May!  I feature altered game art created by my TERROR-ific Players every 2nd day all May long and I'd love to feature YOUR scary altered game art so sign up now!

http://dominoartblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/bday-celebrations-dominoarts-next-top.html

 PLUS, we're celebrating DominoART's 13th Birthday with an altered game art doll contest that I've been hosting since 2002, the search for DominoART's Next Top Mascot, the Dominique Doll contest.

 Click on the event banners for details on all the fun events going on!

Happy Stamping!
 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN
I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * Altered Eclectic Challenges *About Art Accents

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Smeared and Smudged "Decorate An Egg" Members Blog Hop!

Howzit Everyone!
Welcome to the April SMEARED AND SMUDGED members blog hop!

The Smeared and Smudged Facebook group welcomes all kinds of art work, especially the themes that other groups and challenges frown upon but don't be afraid, we are a friendly bunch of artists and crafters who just embrace the alternative and dark and twisty side of stamping and crafting.

For this members blog hop Smeared and Smudged challenged us to DECORATE AN EGG and yes, it had to be a REAL egg.  We were encouraged to use our imagination, step out of our comfort zones and dare to be different, get inky and painty and get supremely messy and most of all, have fun! 
 The only S&S rule, as usual, is that it had to be stamped somewhere (digi stamps are fine).  It's a smaller hop this month but I'm sure you're still going to be blown away by the quirky creativity!

Below is the full blog roll, please visit everyone on the list and leave some love!
April Member Blog Hop
Leigh - U R Here!
Nan
Leslie Rahye
Susan R.
Jane
Kristy
Ike

Now, as I mentioned above, we at Smeared and Smudged embrace the alternative so I'm warning you that this might be a touchy subject for some and I'm sorry if my project offends or upsets anyone!  My altered egg is a sculptural statement piece about the appalling conditions and the cruelty that poor chickens endure in way too many egg farms.  I don't buy eggs often but only get free range eggs when I do and I encourage everyone to do the same or go vegetarian!

"Ode to A Chicken"

I'm afraid that my project didn't quite work out the way I intended it to.  It's been a while since I decorated an egg and I couldn't quite get my stamping of the skeleton bird image as clear as I wanted it and therefore didn't achieve the overall look I was going for.  But I think it still depicts how fragile the chicken is (and all animals) and the fractured image mirrors the fragility of the egg and how easily life can be harmed by mankind.

I started off by punching holes in the top and the bottom of the egg and blowing out the contents into a bowl which hubby later used for an omelet.  The entire egg was painted with 3 coats of white gesso and I roll stamped the Smeared Ink Skellie bird image from the Letterbox Backgrounds January 2015 rubber set (middle left image) onto the egg with Jet Black StazOn ink.  I then coloured it with various Prismacolor pencils, sealed it with Krylon Artists Workable Fixative and covered the punched top hole with a bead adhered with Inkssentials Matte Accents.  The egg was then adhered to a real chicken wish bone with E6000 adhesive.


Thanks for hopping with us today!  You're next stop is Nan, I'm sure she has a less depressing project to share with you!
Enjoy!

Happy Stamping!
 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN
I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * Altered Eclectic Challenges *About Art Accents

Monday, April 13, 2015

Wonderlandian Bookmarks

Happy Monday the 13th to you all!
It's my turn to share some DT inspiration over at our Smudgy Antics design team blog which is also where we host our monthly Anything Goes challenges!


 I'm sharing 3 Wonderlandian bookmarks in celebration of National Library week which began on Sunday!  Of course I had to represent one of my favourite books, Alice in Wonderland, and use some of my favourite Smeared Ink digis from the Wonderland set!


I performed some Photoshop magic and combined pages scanned from my Alice in Wonderland books with the images and printed them out onto Neenah Solar White cardstock.  I erased areas on all 3 digi images to allow the book pages to show through while keeping some areas white so that I could colour them with Copic markers.  I also added touches of gold to each one with a metallic gold gel pen.


I then cut them all out and matted them onto olive green cardstock and used my Perfect Layers tools by Perfect Paper Crafting to cut the borders.  If you haven't seen these tools then you NEED to coz they're amazing and they completely eliminate you ever needing a paper trimmer and wasting cardstock, you get perfect sized mats every time!  Click on my PPC Ambassadors link and get 10% off your entire Perfect Paper Crafting order with my code LBrunton!


I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch holes into each one and add flower shaped eyelets and finished them off with fun jewel toned flag fiber.  Thanks for stopping by to check out my bookmarks but I now challenge you to put down those devices and read a book ;0)  Enjoy!

Happy Reading!
 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN
I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * Altered Eclectic Challenges *About Art Accents

Monday, April 6, 2015

"Spring Lily" Easter card

Happy Easter Everyone!
Today I'm sharing the Easter card I made for my Mom which is also my DT inspiration for our new Lost Coast Designs challenge, #11 Spring, which started today over at our Lost Coaster's Review blog!


I used Lost Coast Designs "Lily" Art Nouveau stamp which is one of my fave art movements.  I stamped her with black Memento ink onto Neenah cardstock and colored her with Copics in shades of green with metallic gold detail on all her jewelry pieces.  I added a touch of sparkly dimension with a Vive Pearl pen in Transparent Magic White to her headwear as well as a tiny green self-adhesive pearl.  The edges were distressed and coloured in black with metallic gold highlights.  


I matted the image onto patterned paper and then on a dark olive green panel embossed with a floral embossing folder by Cuttlebug.  All the mats were cut with my Perfect Paper Crafting Perfect Layers tools, which are available as full length rulers and also in mini versions.  Click on my PPC Ambassadors link and get 10% off your entire Perfect Paper Crafting order with my code LBrunton!
All were adhered to a folded blank white card with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive.


To complete my Mom's card I added more self-adhesive green pearls, attached the ribbon with tiny gold brads and adhered the bow with a glue dot.  I added the yellow paper rose which both compliments the design and adds an extra splash of colour and the leaves I made myself.  The Recollections cardboard butterfly was the finishing touch which I coloured with a green Copic to give the brown cardboard a greenish tinge.

Come and join our monthly Lost Coast Designs challenges where you can use either Lost Coast Designs or Carmen's Veranda stamps (which is our sister stamp line) for the chance to win a $10 gift certificate to spend at either company!
Happy Stamping!
 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN
I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * Altered Eclectic Challenges *About Art Accents