O Christmas Tree!

How I love your snow covered branches!

I needed a nice large size painting for the Christmas and Winter season, so I made one using Golden Fiber Paste and various acrylic paints. I used seed beads for the texture of the tree, and made a white snow out of cello flakes, glitter glue, and Tri-Art Liquid Mirror paint. The star is from the bead department at Joann's, and I used Precious Metals by Viva Decor. 

Believe

I bought some of these chipboard wall decor words from Hobby Lobby to give out as Christmas gifts. I am enamored with the colors of this blue and green style and can't seem to move on to another color scheme. The blending is challenging, and I feel like I am inventing the wheel every time I attempt to recreate this look.

The quote is from a Footprints rubber stamp that I stamped on acetate with Staz-On ink. I cut the quote up and littered it throughout the piece. This is by far my favorite of all my word pieces. There are others, but this one was the one I wish I could look at every single day. 

The balance of beads and jewels is my favorite challenge. The cherry on top!

Paints were found at Joann.com. I used blue, green, and gold metallic paints. Gel medium sealed and adhered the dimensional goodies. 

Follow your art

I feel like words will ruin the tranquility of this enchanting little 8x8 canvas. I spend a couple months every year, putting paint and texture on a variety of canvases, so I can later create something with it. I really loved the plain painted canvas. Layers and layers that I will one day post a walk through series of my process. Each canvas takes a week, sometimes two weeks to create. If you take into account that I cut then hand paint all the die cuts, then we are looking at a much longer process from start to finish. 

Sizzix - 3-D flower 

Spellbinders - Floral Flourishes 

Spellbinders - Peacock Feathers

Spellbinders - Jewel Keys, Truth

Precious Metal Color - Blackberry, Blue Azure, Gold

Fiber Paste scraped on smoothly, but allowing the texture of the canvas to show from beneath. I use cheap gold paint to highlight the areas I want to show, then the final touch is Liquid Leaf Gold for that rich metallic look.

Cheery Lynn Designs - Hot Air Balloons

Cheery Lynn Designs - Butterfly

Fly Away

The only thing I love more than a deep textured, mixed media canvas, is the die cuts I put on it. This is an 8x10 inch canvas, one of my first attempts at mastering the reflective nature and motion I desire. I gave in to the theme of the year, which was game pieces as words, but I like the way it looks. My favorite part of this piece is the Milky Way like stream down the center. I made this piece when Cheery Lynn Designs released their mini gears and cog set, which I cut out with metallic paper.

Sizzix - Tim Holtz Sewing Room 

Clock Parts and gears or here

Lumiere - Halo Blue Gold

Liquid Leaf Gold

Precious Metal Colour - Blue Azure

Really... you can add anything you have on hand. Just make it fluid, and love it when it's done.

Peacock Peace

Continuing with my Peacock journey, I created this little piece last year and gave it away as a gift. It is really very simple, but ornate. I don't really like the smaller pieces that are so popular these day, because I want my story to take over the entire wall. But they make wonderful little gifts!

This fun little canvas is 5x7, and I used the Spellbinders Jewel Fantasies and Jewel Keys die set, along with the Cricut Art Nouveau. I found a large earring at Joann's and used it for the feather. The label is cut with the Tim Holtz Tag & Bookplates die. I used metallic paints to color th eaccents, and jewels to fill the feather tail. I do love my die cuts!

Alluring

I went on a crazy peacock phase a couple years ago, then went on a cutting spree with my Cricut. Originally this was not going to be a hombre type painting, I switched gears half way through and decided the peacock in the tree needed a blue sky! This painting hangs in my hallway so I can see it when I come up the stairs. It sits under a solar light tube, so it reflects the sun off the glass in the sky. It truly is Alluring. The gold mica flakes simulate falling leaves.

 I love the reflective nature of the Shimmer paper by DCWV, and the mica flakes from Micheal's. The base paints are Lumiere fabric paint, also metallic, but then I use pretty much nothing else! The peacock tail is filled in with stickles by Ranger.

  The wings are a beautiful set from Cheery Lynn Designs. It is a left and right, large and small set, and I LoOOove them!! You can see the details yourself!

The Alluring is from a Tim Holtz Bigz Block Talk alphabet set, I cut multiple layers of chipboard and layered them for dimension. The paint is Viva Precious Metal Colour, a wonderfully expensive metallic paint that is rather difficult to find, but Joann.com sells most of the colors. 

I am ever so pleased with the clever use of re-purposed treasures for my pieces. The branch is the Tim Holtz Bird Branch die, that I cut out the packaging of the die, with the die. Then painted the underside with Viva Stamp Paint, which offers texture, and the top is glossy. Or you can flip it for the texture up, I go both ways. You can see where I built the tree out of the single branch die.

One of my favorite techniques is using Golden Gel Medium from Amazon or Michael's and mixing a batter of translucent beads and blue and green cello glitter. This mixture also contains blue and green beach glass that I smashed to bits. The silver tube beads are a bit like rain drops, but only if you are thinking that when you drop them in the batter!

 The gel medium acts as a glue, so it is a really valuable tool for working on canvas. The base is textured with Liquitex Natural Sand mixed with paint, then watered down metallic paint for the blended effect.

I linked the stores that I buy most of my materials from. 

Thank you for stopping by!!