4.26.2011

Where My Peeps At?

Happy Tuesday! I know Easter has come and past, but it was still on my brain last night, so my creation for today is very "Easter Cutesie"....I 'hop' you don't mind! (HA! I 'crack' myself up....oh my, I did it again. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Today I have a project that I put together using recycled materials. This is the first time I've used a lot of these materials, so I hope you like it. My main ingredients are crushed egg shells left over from our dyed Easter eggs, an empty mini milk carton that used to be filled with Reese's Pieces, Gesso, lots of Mod Podge, some paper, some ribbons, some brads, a Li'l Grumpie, hot glue and some buttons - i know, that's a whole lot of stuff!

First I broke down my carton and covered it in a light layer of Gesso. I knew I was going to cover it in egg shells so i just applied enough to mask the bright orange color of the carton.


I crushed my egg shells so I had different sizes and shapes...



Then I mod podged my carton and rolled it in the egg shells. I applied a very thick layer of mod podge on top of the shells to give it a nice shine and to keep them from flaking off.


After drying, I applied some tea stain and china distress inks...



For my grumpie: He was stamped on a goldenrod card stock and colored with prisma color markers and a white gel pen. I used glossy accents on his eyes for that shiny look :) The last few touches were adding the ribbon, sentiment, brads, and flower buttons....

Here's the finished product! :)


Here's a shot of the carton with peeps in it  :)

4.14.2011

Smeared and Smudged April Member Blog Hop!

Welcome to our April Smeared and Smudged Member Blog Hop! There is so much talent on our forum that we love to show it off!! Be sure to check out everyone's offerings and feel free to visit our forum! It's a great place to be!!

Our theme for this hop was to use metal somewhere on our projects....metal is so awesome, and there is so much you can do with it. Unfortunately, I am not experienced enough or have the tools to do something really cool. So, my metal usage is limited. I hope to remedy that soon. :)

So, I have to give a little bit of background so you will understand my project fully. My husband and I rent a house from my in-laws. The house sits on about 7 acres, in the country, and they have all kinds of birds on the property - chickens, turkeys, pheasants, ducks, geese, guineas and peacocks. Recently, we've had some problems with coyotes and bobcats coming onto our property in the middle of the night for late night snacks. Well, they've killed all but one of our turkeys and have gotten one of our female peacocks. It's been a few weeks and we've tried capturing the late night snackers with no success, so far. So, with all the death that surrounded our little house in the country, I've tried to make the best out of it. Some of my co-workers think I'm morbid, but...it's a tribute.



I kept the layout fairly simple because I wanted the elements to stand out more than anything else. I used Smeared Ink's bird nymph, colored her with my prisma color markers and added some glitter to the feathers to shine like a peacock's feathers would. I used the sentiment "Goddess" from the Elementals set and applied a little bit of green to the edges where it was cut out. Then, i got my peacock foot and wrapped it in some orange metal wire. Then I added my peacock feather and some extra orange wire and glued all of my elements together. I hope you feel the power and respect that I hoped to portray in remembrance of our little female peacock. Thanks for looking!


4.12.2011

My First ATC!

Today, I'm sharing my very first ATC with you. For such a small project I managed to use four different Smeared Ink Stamps: the forward facing skull and fearful eyes from the new digi set 'Anatomy 101', the cross from digi set 'Glam Vamps', and the sentiment "forgotten" from the 'Quoth the Raven' rubber set.

I distressed some olive card stock with Tim Holtz Distressing Inks and my scissors to scrape the edges of the paper. I layered my skull so that the bottom jaw was below to give it some depth. The final touches were adding the glossy accents to the eyes and some jewels. Hope you like it!


4.05.2011

Smeared Ink Gallery Challenges Resurrected!!

If you didn't already know, Smeared Ink's Gallery Challenges have been RESURRECTED! We've moved the challenges over to our DT Blog, Smudgy Antics! This makes it easier for you all to play along! The first challenge was posted yesterday and you have until Friday to submit your entry!! Click here to go over to the Smudgy Antics blog and see all the details!!