Finished!

I'm going to go back and edit the original post about my Hybrid Wall Art with the finished pictures - but I thought I'd share the dried monsters in a new post too!

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Hybrid Tutorial: Wall Art

I've really been wanting to put something adorable up on the walls in the "kid" bathroom. I was having a hard time deciding what to do, the colors of the bathroom are very bright (blues, greens, yellow) so I knew whatever I picked had to work with that. Finally, I decided: the theme would be monsters and I would Mod Podge monsters onto some painted canvas! 

After deciding how many pieces I wanted in the bathroom (2 larger, 3 smaller) we headed off to Michael's to pick up the supplies. I purchased a 3 pack of 11x14 canvas panel and a 3 pack of 5;x7 canvas panel. (You could also use the wrapped canvas for a thicker piece, but I didn't think a bathroom was the right place for that). We also picked up some acrylic paint in our colors (which we added orange to). 

At home, I went to my CU digi-scrap templates folder, where I knew I had some monsters hanging out and found the In My Closet templates by Americo:

I let Adam help choose which monsters he wanted to use. I had to guide a little because I knew some just would be to difficult to color as simply as I wanted and trim out by hand. We selected these guys (I also made the word ROAR using Alpha #1 by Americo, I just liked how the style really matched the monsters - but any font or alpha would work) 

After picking our creatures, I created a new document the size of my canvas and placed the template on the new document. I then broke the cardinal rule of digital design and enlarged 2 of the images. Normally I would never do such a thing, but for this project I knew I'd be cutting them out and could trim off the fuzzy edges. I also knew I'd be putting liquid on top of the printed files, so any slight pixelation would be covered. 

Next I colored them digitally by flood filling the layers and adding a slight inner style for some shading. Then it was time to print. I chose a resume paper for my printing, it is slightly thicker than standard printer paper and usually has a bit of texture to it which I knew would work well with the painting part later on. (You could also clip papers to the templates, print already created characters from kits - the possibilities are endless).

When it came to printing, 2 of my monsters were bigger than a standard sheet of paper, so I stratigially picked a spot to cut them and printed them on 2 sheets of paper and pieced them back together. You can see the line in one of the photos below, this line will be covered by brush strokes later. 

After trimming all the critters out, I figured out which one I wanted on what background color and painted the canvas's. Then we waited. Impatiently. Once dry, I put a thin coat of Mod Podge on and stuck the monsters down, then carefully put a coat of Mod Podge on top. Then waited again, impatiently for them to dry. During all of this, I didn't think to take photos, I was too excited to get the work done. But imagine me with a paint brush painting colorful backgrounds, then painting again with a thick white substance that looks like glue. 

They looked great when they dried!

Shooting pictures in our tiny not so well lit bathroom was a challenge.....

   

Price Breakdown: 

3 pack 5x7 Canvas Panels: $2.99 

3 pack 11x14 Canvas Panels: $2.40

4 bottles Acryllic Paint: 4 x $.89 = $3.56

Total: $8.95

Price per Piece: $1.79

I had on hand: Paint brushes, Mod Podge, Command Strips and the digital template pack

**(5.99 Full Price, Paid $3.59 with 40% off coupon and only used 2)

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CT Stuffs

I want to quick tell you about a fun kit that Flower Scraps has out today! For all of you who like to craft with yarn, check out Hook & Needle! It's full of adorable doodles and unique elements created by Deanna!

Here's the kit in all it's glory

and here's my layout featuring my kitty! (note: I recolored some of the elements):

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February Layouts

Well, I didn't do as well in February with my scrapping, but I did manage to get my minimum of 2 pages per week scrapped. In February I scrapped 10 pages for a total of 108 pictures (those year in review layouts sure make that number jump!)

Yearly Total: 26 layouts and 255 pictures

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Mothers & Daughters & Sons Oh My!

I have a beautiful new collection out for you this weekend (and like always, it's on sale - 25% off)! There are two parts to this set - Mother's & Daughters and Mothers & Sons - and I'm not the only designer who created some beautiful coordinating goodies for you with this same theme!

First, check out these beautiful kits, a matching alpha and some quick pages (and of course, it's all available as a bundle deal as well)

Aren't they lovely? And the best part is, the colors coordinate so wonderfully that you can combine the Daughters and Sons minis to create a larger kit and more unique layouts! Love it! You can see a bunch of the layouts my team did on Facebook, but here are a couple to get your wheels turning! 

Layout by Beth

Layout by Steph also uses Tiny Flair Alpha

Layout by ChristieDawn combines both Sons & Daughters

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