Altered scissors

I had to make some altered scissors for another swap that I was in. I looked around a little on the internet and found that people recommended trying alcohol inks on scissors so I thought I would try out the technique. The first pair of scissors were kind of small and old and they didn't turn out right. On the second pair I used a newer larger pair. First I sponged on some red and blue alcohol ink and waited for it to dry.

Keeping with the red/blue patriotic theme I hot glued on some blue buttons and blue ribbon around the handles. I then adhered some red ribbon and star stickers to finish it off. On the red ribbon I attached a charm that says "play". They turned out really cute.

Tags continued

I liked making the grunge tags for the swap that I have continued to make tags and now I am obsessed with them. I bought different sizes of tags and began creating different styles. The first set I did I started out by stamping a background with distressed ink or permanent ink. After that I glued on (with glue gun) buttons, decorations, paper flowers, or scrabble tiles. After that I tied each one off with a colored ribbon that coordinated with the flowers on the tags. They can be used for a card, a gift or a gift tag. They could also be hung up as a decoration.

On the second set I found some cute pictures of "fairy children" to use. I again stamped a background of butterflies, music, or flowers first. Then I added buttons, ribbon, the fairy children images, letters, and paper flowers. Sometimes I added a charm to them and on all of them I tied ribbon on to the top. These would make cute decorations, tags or cards.

Grunge tags

A few weeks ago I was in a swap on Art for the Creative mind. The swap was to make 2 summer bloom "grunge tags" to exchange.  I didn't really know what was meant by "grunge" tags so I did some researching. I loved all the ideas I saw. I decided to make my tags "grungy" by soaking them in tea and crumpling them up a little so they looked old or "grungy". I only soaked them about 5 minutes then took them out of the cold tea to dry out a little. After that I did some stamping with permanent ink  and decorating with paper flowers. I sent them in for the swap and also received some great grunge tags from my fellow swapper. I did take pictures before I sent them out so I could remember how I made them.

 

Altered Art 2

 The next project I worked on was butterfly shaped chipboard pieces. When I purchased the pieces they were sold as a little "book", but I decided to take the book apart and use each butterfly separately. I took old text from books and used Modge Podge to glue onto the butterfly shapes. After they dried I used some new pastel colored acrylic paints I bought at Joann's to paint on both sides of the butterfly. I was going to make 4 or 5 butterflies into one big banner to hang up but it was too difficult to punch holes in the butterflies to tie ribbon on without ripping a hole. I decided then to make each butterfly it's own little piece. They can be used as wall hangings, cards or gift tags. To decorate them I used paper flowers, stickers, paper squares,  colored images, letter tiles etc. Then with the hot glue gun I glued ribbon onto the back of each one so that they can be hung up if wanted.

Altered art

It is now time to catch up on posting pictures and ideas. I have worked a lot during July and August so far to try out new craft ideas. I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and bought some plain tags, chipboard, and birdhouses. The first thing I worked on was to decorate the birdhouses-I first thought that I would hang them outside on our plain fence (an idea I saw in a gardening magazine) but now I don't want them to go out and get wet and dirty. They will now be key holder or just decorations. I found some cute colors of paint and brought home a box of buttons for school and got busy. Painting, and then gluing on ribbon and buttons.

Domino Jewelry

I discovered that my great alcohol inks could be used on white dominoes to create Xmas ornaments, magnets and cool necklaces. I buy boxes of 55 dominoes at Wal-mart for about $9, and then I can make tons of stuff. I usually use epoxy to glue silver bails on the back of the finished dominoes to make jewelry. The double sided magnets are good to stick right on a finished domino to make cute refrigerator magnets and colorful ribbon on a domino is great for making Xmas ornaments. HGTV has a good video on how to make domino ornaments here

Alcohol Ink

I adore working with Alcohol inks! I first discovered them about 5 years ago when I stopped into a local craft store and they had a card making demo class that used them. It took a lot of trail and error at first to discover how to use them, but now I use them on everything! Greeting cards, ATCs, vases, domino jewelry etc. The latest one I discovered was how to use them on vases. I buy cheap vases and glass jars and bottles at thrift stores. I clean them up and them do the alcohol splatter technique (More on that later) on the outside and then spray on something to help preserve the design. (Otherwise it would come off if you wash out the vase in the dishwasher later on). They look really  neat when you add real or paper/silk flowers that match the vase color.I got the idea for the alcohol ink technique from Tim Holtz's website. You can see the video on how to do this technique here.