Finn inspired Fleur-de-lis

Bienvenue blog land!

If you have ever been to Louisiana then you will know, there are Fleur de-lis EVERYWHERE! It's even the symbol for the NFL football team...the saints!!!

It's used in clothing, decorating, art, you name it...they've got it!

So in an attempt to embrace my new culture, I decided that when my girlfriend Kim came to visit, we would do mixed media fleur de-lis canvases.

Oh my! Did I have a blast!!!  Plus I luv Kim:)

I felt that this needed to be something Finn inspired...since I luv her too. I started by free-hand drawing the fleur de-lis on the canvas, then mixed my own paint, painted the background, added another contrasting color (yellow), covered both colors with silks glaze in olive vine, and finally started gluing within the image itself. I used gloss gel medium to adhere all the bits and baubles to the canvas and then sprayed with varying mists including dylusions; black marble and dirty martini, and finally added the finishing touches with some silks glazes in emperor gold and honey amber.

You can see in the photo above that I have used so many different textures in order to achieve a super eclectic look. The butterfly is a simple resin piece with layers and layers of mediums, causing a multi dimensional shimmer and color effect. The flowers are just simple paper flowers (Petaloo flowers here) of varying color and design. With all the mediums that are used, the underlying color is irrelevant and the mists and paints allow for an overall congruency in the piece. 

Chipboard is perfect for these types of mixed media projects! They absorb the color and come in so many shapes and sizes. This is just an old piece that I had in my stash. You can find lots of chipboard and wooden pieces at eP including Wendy Vechhi and 7 Dots studios!

Other pieces to use are prima wood pieces like the fern on the lower left of the photo, some leftover nuts and bolts, various buttons, mini cloths pins, large plastic crystal pieces, bottle caps, and metal corkscrew chips that your hubby brings home from the shop for you;) Use your imagination, the sky is the limit.

Only when I was done with the hours and hours of gluing did I realize, I haven't even made a DENT in my stash.

*hangs her head in shame*

Kim wasn't able to finish hers in time so I'll be shipping it home to her and hopefully she will post it to her blog soon.

Hop on over to eP to purchase many of the items that I used on this project and play along with our fall themed challenge this month.

{{hugs}}

Andiepants

Wendy Vecchi embossing paste and a Swirly Challenge

Welcome to December!!

WHAT?!

I know right?!

At any rate...mojo took a vacation and now she's back. It's been a really tough month creatively, however I got the privilege...nay the honor...of chaperoning for my 2 oldest boys electronics weekend for boyscouts. 

How on earth does this relate to scrapping?

Well, one of the committee members happens to be a scrapper too (and a pretty great gal to hang with), so she and I were talking one year and decided that the chaperones would scrap while the boys played with their electronics (aka video games). 

Of course walking into a full on weekend after a month's hiatus and no mojo is a pretty daunting experience. Never-the-less I emerged with this:

My brother was just married in June and what a better Christmas present than a home made inspirational canvas for him and his new bride to hang in their home. 

This was also the project that I was able to use for the eP 12 days of Christmas. We were promoting Wendy Vecchi embossing paste...and just what do you think is ALL OVER this canvas?

Make sure you click on my shopping link on the right to head over and check out the special deal for the day!

I adore the combination of colors on this canvas and the way the colors seep into the embossing paste. The tree is actually a piece of Fab Scraps Chipboard from an odl Swirlydoos kit! Crazy huh?

I used Prima's Finn line of vintage papers for the background with TH tissue paper, some washi tape, and some drywall tape. All of my paper flowers are hand cut and made and the zipper flowers are from a roll purchased from Melissa Frances. 

The brown tones on the lower right side are the Donna Downey Unity stamp that I purchased through eP. It's gorgeous but I was a little disappointed that it ran. I do love the shadowy look witht he stark stamping of the black images. What a contrast.

For the lettering I spritzed with smooch so they would stand out from the background a tad. Again I used another piece of Finn paper for the letters which is where the font you can see peeking here and there came from. The quote is actually from a stamp set that I own but I don't remember whom they are quoting.

I finally decided to pop in over at Swirlydoos and see what was going on with my swirly sisters. 

When I saw that my girl Kim was hosting a challenge...I knew I had to join in. What better way to keep the mojo going?

For the November swirly girls challenge we had to use everything but the kitchen sink. No less than 4 different mediums and it had to be inspired from your fav artist. Of course my fav artist is Finn...always has been.

She posted a blog post about a new blanket she bought and fell in love with that inspired her pages. How ironic that I just bought a new fluffy Sherpa blanket that I am in love with too!

This would be my color inspiration for my LO along with Finn's style:

The brown Dylusions spray turned a tad bit rusty colored on this LO but I still love the rust feel of it. All the layers, and the metal, the chipboard, the paper, the pearls....plus that photo!!! Cutest kids EVER!!! (If I do say so myself)  I forced them out to Stepping Stones Falls for a photo shoot one night after school. It was getting dark fast but they all were very good sports. From the photos I have deduced that mommy needs more work with her camera.

I hope you enjoyed the re-emergence of my mojo. I still haven't shared all the lovely creations from my weekend with my eP cronie Erin in WV so there will be lots of blogging to come.

{{hugs}}

Andiepants