Decembers Challenge

                               
Hello...it's Sandie here bringing you the last challenge for 2018.
Myself and the design team have thoroughly enjoyed seeing your projects and visiting your blogs to leave some love this year and we all hope you will join us throughout 2019.
December's challenge will run until the 1st February.
I think the designers need a rest to get over the festivities and recharge their batteries for next year.
You can enter as many times as you like from now until 10am on 31st January...but each entry must be a separate blog entry carrying a link back to us.

Now on to our Winner and Runner-Up, chosen by teamie Judy

Her Winner is No.16. Linda Simpson

Her Runner-Up is No 18. Priya Mishra

The Design Team choice is No 10. Priya Mishra

Gorgeous projects ladies..remember to take your badges from our side bar and link us to your blog.

As always, we have some fabulous projects from the designers this month, hopefully you will be inspired to join in with our challenge.....

                                                           Julie

                               This pour almost hit the floor...seriously...

                                       so I turned it in to a gift for myself...
                                        How? Why?...check out my blog

                                                      Sandie

                                             Let it Snow canvas....

                                     photo darkened to show the sparkle...

                                                            Lys

                                               Lys stunning canvas

                                                              Judy

                                       From this.....

                                      to this gorgeous christmas decor

                                                           Priya

                                                        Mask Decor

                                                         Sammy

                                                    Cage with a mirror

re purposed for Christmas

Please read our few rules ( under our header ) to check that your entry meets our criteria.

Please add your entry below..remember to link your project post ( not your whole blog ) with a link back to us.

November Tutorial

November's Challenge can be found HERE

Hello, Judy here with my mid-month tutorial.

This is my first tutorial for Rhedd's Creative Spirit and I decided to explore Citrasolv and National Geographic Magazines.

If you are not familiar with Citrasolv, it is a degreaser used for household cleaning.  I purchased my bottle on Amazon although some art supply stores also carry it.  Make sure you get the concentrate.  

Citrasolv works with the National Geographic magazine pages the best, as they contain a clay coating used for the crisp images the magazine us known for. This is what you need for working with Citrasolv and the magazines. 

Make sure you do your work in a well vented area. I have a craft table with a fan above it to use when the weather outside is not suitable. I prefer to added the citrasolv outside on my deck. I cover my work surface with a large plastic bag.  The process is very messy. I added a top to my bottle so that it was easy to pour.  Some artist put the product in a spray bottle.

I chose colourful pages to alter and added the solvent between the pages and leave the pages closed until there is a movement of colour.  I used a paint brush to move areas that I was not satisfied with, e.g. text. 

This is an example of a page I altered.

Before Citrasolv

Altered Page

Project using Citrasolv

To create my canvas I glued my Citrasolv altered page with Yes glue to my canvas.  I then used a gear stencil and black acrylic paint to later a pattern over the background.  

Once I had the background I added my digital image from SLS Lines that I coloured with Copics, wooden gears, brads, and a cutting doe of a Apothecary Bottles that I had covered with a piece of a Citrasolv altered paper.

Finished Project

This is a project I created a while ago that I used the altered Citrasolv papers as the mountains in my encaustic transfer collage.

I also created this card using two Citrasolv altered pages in the background.

I have scanned my Citrasolv altered pages to create my own digital paper, added more details to the paper and have used them as backgrounds for projects and to make washi tape. 

Some other uses for Citrasolv that I would like to try are transferring images to fabric, wood, paper, leather and other surfaces and while the pages are still wet placing a stencil over the page and wipe the colour off of the exposed stenciled area.

Hope you are feeling inspired and want to come and play with us.   Have a creative week.

  

November's Challenge

Hello everyone, and welcome to our new challenge here at Rhedd's Creative Spirit. 

Judy here, bringing you this month's challenge, the winners of last month's challenge, the Dt favourite and the inspiring artwork of our fabulous Design Team.

November is an interesting month, in this part of the world we have our colourful fall leaves dropping from the trees, the winter winds start blowing and maybe an early snowfall. 

I will be back mid month with a tutorial that I hope you will enjoy. 

Thank you everyone who entered our challenge last month. 

Sammy hosted the September's challenge and here are her chioces

Winner #4

Peper Beauty 

Adrijane Knez

Runner Up #13

Magic Attic

Maria

Design Team Favourite.

No.15 Cathy

Congratulations..remember to take your badges from our side bar and links us to your blog

Now it is time for our fabulous inspirations of our Design Team.

Julie

Older and Even Older come together

Sandra

Soul Houses
More on my blog

Priya

Lys

Canvas inspired by Kintsugi 

Judy

Encaustic Collage

Sammy

Altered Christmas Tree Ornaments

Hema
Altered Notebook.

Have we inspired you?

One of my favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou "You cannot use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have." Come join the fun. 

Please read our challenge rules to be sure and share your mixed media projects with us! It's always and Anything Goes theme. 

Just link below. 

October tutorial

October's Challenge is HERE

**************************************

Hello everyone, Sammy again with our mid-month tutorial for October. Believe it or not, when I first thought about what I was going to make this month, I had all kinds of ideas involving dark colours, skeletons and all things spooky for Hallowe'en...

And then this happened:

It may be possible to get further removed from my original idea, but I'm not sure how!

Now many of us mixed media addicts have a bit of a stencil-collecting habit, and I am no exception. But when it comes to making things, I always seem to gravitate towards my favourite half-dozen or so, and the rest sit in the box, neglected.

So for this project I thought I'd use lots and lots of different ones, and make it a real stencil showcase!

First of all, I covered a piece of 8"x8" MDF with book paper and gave it a coat of Gesso.

Next, I added a coat of pearlised pink paint. Don't worry about little air bubbles and such, as 99% of this is covered up eventually, and is just to add a little interest in the background.

I then cut some mixed media card stock (literally the only thing I buy from Hobbycraft. It is fantastic stuff, and will take anything thrown at it, including copious amounts of water. It is also quite smooth, unlike watercolour paper, which I like) into rectangles and stencilled a different design onto each of them.

Most of the stencils I used for this are from AALL and Create, with one or two others to make up the numbers. Once they'd all dried, I arranged them on the board, so I could see which designs I wanted where, and which way up I wanted to put them.

Next I coloured the individual pieces using different colour spray inks. When that dried, I attached them to the board and sprayed with a coat of pearlised glimmer mist.

For the focal point I made a clay unicorn, using a Katy Sue Designs mould, and painted it in corresponding colours. I used a clear pearlised paint to add sheen to the face and neck.

I then attached the unicorn to a coaster I had painted with the same pink pearlised paint that I used on the background.

Finally, I added my focal point to the board and finished it with flower arrangements, gems and pearls, and  a sentiment spelled out with Tim Holtz Typography letters.

And there you have it. A simple, yet effective way to show off all those gorgeous stencils, which resulted in a shimmery, girly wall decoration about as far from Hallowe'en as it's possible to get!

I hope you're feeling inspired enough to come and play with us this month!

Have a fantabulous day!

Sammy-x

October Challenge

Hello everyone, and welcome to another new challenge here at Rhedd's Creative Spirit.

Sammy here bringing you this month's challenge, inspiration from our fabulous DT, and of course the winners from our September challenge.

As it's October, we're anticipating lots of ghoulish entries this month, but you're by no means required to make anything with a Hallowe'en theme! Just take a peek at the DT inspiration below, and you'll see that some of us are about as far removed from that theme this month as it's possible to get. 

In other words, anything goes! As long as it's altered art or mixed media of course. And please, no papercrafted items!

Now, on to our winners from last month. As it was Lys's turn to host last month's challenge, it was also up to her to choose the winner and runner-up, and after much deliberation, these were her choices:

Winner:

#12 Deonna B

Lys loved this because of its beautiful detailed contents. Follow the link to Deonna's blog to see for yourself.

Runner-up:

#18 Paper Beauty AK

And Lys choose this one for its beautiful textures and the surprises hidden inside. again, a peek at the blog is highly recommended. 

And of course the DT got their heads together and picked a favourite too:

DT Favourite:

#17 Pooja Sharma

Such gorgeous work from all the winners. Don't forget to grab your badges from the sidebar.

Now it's time to move on to the fabulous inspiration from our team. Our lovely Sandie is taking a well-deserved break this month, but I hope you'll find yourself inspired by the gorgeous projects from the rest of the team.

Judy:

This is what I started with

This was my finished project

Julie:

I have a stack of used tins as I change some stamp storage.

You can see what I did with this tin on my blog.

Lys:

Mixing recycled containers, a little paper and tasty French products to make a gift.

Priya:

altered sweet tin box

Hema:

Sammy:

Mixed media MDF plaque

(come back on the 15th for a tutorial)

That's it from us, now it's over to you. We hope you'll come and play with us this month (don't forget to check the "rules" tab at the top of the page if you're unfamiliar with ours), and share all your gorgeous altered art and mixed media creations with us.

Have a fantabulous day!