I want to be an artist...

I just came aclross this awesome artist Alisa Burke. She has this video that makes me envious of her talent!


its all about the journey from Alisa Burke on Vimeo.

From Ugly to Uglier?

Forewarning, this is a looong post.....

As you can see, these started out as ugly little "canvases" from the dollar store. VERY ugly if you ask me...and if not, oh well!  ;o)  Just as a precaution, I sprayed them with Kilz before I started working on them. Just in case the fugly-arse picture would show through.

I painted them with acrylics; Cadium Red & Alizarian Crimson. I just kinda swiped the color everywhere & let them dry. Unfortunately, these "canvases" weren't very tight, so you see the sagging (which made for a big pain in my arse later on), but what did I expect for a buck, huh??

Next, I took some old wood stain I had lying around & painted it on. Then I took plastic wrap & layed it over the wet stain, making sure there were plenty of wrinkles. 

I let it sit for a minute so I could take a potty break, then came back & pulled off the plastic. Perfect!

I let those sit overnight to "cure"...really, I was just tired of standing out in the garage while I could be watching General Hospital cleaning the house! :::yawn:::

The next day, I went to Michael's to purchase some Texture Magic; basically spackle in a tube with color...did I use a coupon? OF COURSE! 50% off baby!! Ended up something like $3.00.

I already had this stencil that I sell through my Stampin' Up! business. I didn't think I would ever use it, but I have used the heck out of it & it still looks like new! If you'll notice, I started out with all 4 "canvases" together & placed the stencil in the center.

I had to let that dry overnight so I could start filling up the blank spaces. When that was done, I got sidetracked on another project & didn't return to this until a week later...I know I am the only one who does that, right?  ;o)

When I came back to it, it was looking a little too much like mustard swirled on there, so I took an old paintbrush & my stain, then drew over the swirls really sloppy like. I quickly wiped off the stain with an old t-shirt...at least I hope it was an old one and if not, hubster will never know, right? RIGHT??

Here's how they turned out...I want to mount them a little closer & frame them with a nice, chunky frame in the same stain. Maybe that will make them look a leetle better? lol

Here's where the big pain in the arse comes in...see how the "canvas" is concave...when I spread the texture on, it seeped under the stencil & got all mucky, so I tried to scrape off what I could, but that stuff starts drying pretty quickly. Maybe I can redo another one, but we all know it won't match if I do. lol

SO sorry about the crapola lighting, it was dark out & I wanted to get this posted.

I hope you didn't laugh at me too much.  ;o)

Thanks for visiting!

Marjori

I am linking to

Ikea mirror redo

I have had these Ikea mirrors around my house for...oh, at least 3 years, so I thought it was high time to actually DO something with them (ie: one of them).

All I did was take aluminum foil and dry emboss it in a Cuttlebug folder - I ran thru 3 squares at a time with wax paper in between sheets, worked like a charm!

I Modge Podged the squares onto the wood, then took some antiquing medium, rubbed it all over, then wiped off. It needed more ooomph, so I took one of my pigment ink pads for stamping & rubbed it over the raised areas & the edges. I love the way it turned out!!

Now to work on the other 8 I have left. :::sigh::

edited to add:

How freakin' cool is this! Thanks for the feature!

Thanks for looking!!

Marjori