The Odd Whimsy

Happy New Year Everyone!! It is currently a lovely 25 degrees outside in Southwest Missouri. With a nice layer of snow on the ground, it’s the perfect time to be inside doing some crafting.  Between work and the holidays I haven’t had much time for anything more than sketching, so I was very excited yesterday to sit down at my art desk and do some scrapbooking.  My adorable niece, who has been featured in several of my layouts, turned a year old at the beginning of December. I went to see her for New Year’s and she had a unicorn themed first birthday party while I was there.  I knew immediately that I wanted to scrap my favorite photo from the party using Graphic 45 Faerie Dust. This is easily my new favorite collection. I love the colors and all the tiny details in the papers.  I started laying out for my page. For my Layout I also used some Milled lavender distress ink, Tim Holtz rub ons, Ivory Tags from Graphic 45, flowers from Prima, and some dried leaves I had f...

Hello everyone!!!! Today I’m sharing a steampunk inspired mixed media canvas. I started out with a 6x6 canvas that I covered in tissue paper and then painted with black gesso.  I then added several layers of Art Alchemy Wax. Added my found things and covered them in black gesso.  After the gesso dried I starting painting the items with different paints from the metallique line.  After I painted my found things I actually changed the color of the background from purple and pink to kind of a copper and gold. Once everything was dry I added some butterflies cut from Graphic 45’s Steampunk Debutante line.  For a final Touch I splattered black paint and added glitter to the butterflies.  Thanks for stopping by! -AR

Happy Saturday!!! October was an incredibly busy month for me, which resulted in very little time to craft. I was about to go a bit stir crazy!!! Today I am sharing a custom order canvas, using the Precious Memories paper from Graphic 45. This paper is some of my favorite, and I have used before for one of my personal canvases.  I absolutely adore the way this one turned out!! Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to check out my Instagram, Amrtlj, to see behind the scenes photos and more of my art.  -AR

Hello all!! Today I am featuring a mixed media box that I have been working on for a few days now.  I had this beautiful little Grpahic 45 book box sitting on my shelf for awhile. I finally decided to take it down and do something with it. I love mixed media and decided to use this box as my jumping point.  I started out with covering the sides of the box with Finnabair Art Basics modeling paste thru a Tim holtz Stencil. While that was drying I started throwing on all sorts of found things from my collection. What’s so great about mixed media is you can really use anything! After that was dry, I covered the whole box in black gesso from Art Basics. I followed that with dry brushing some Finnabair Metallique paint in Silver Spoon. I purposely left some black showing thru in places. This gave it an aged look.  After all that was dry I went to town with more of the Metallique paints, and some of the amazing waxes from Finnabair. Here is the finished r...