"Passionate" altered canvas

My Mom gave me a TON of unfinished wood pieces and miniatures last year when I started as a leader for Girl Scouts. They have sat in my closet and I keep scratching my head with what to do with them... Today for whatever reason, I became obsessed with them and decided I MUST do SOMETHING with them... SOMETHING!!!!

So, I started looking around. Another thing I knew is that I did NOT want to buy ANYTHING for this project. I mean, goodness... I have a craft room that is stocked with everything under the sun and more. I should have no problem finding everything I needed. My eye spied a canvas I altered a while back. I did the front of it and did the ribbon thing and tried to use it for a cards board... ehhh... I'm over that now and the colors don't match...

Ok... I have a canvas and a bunch of wooden things... hmmmmmm.... I conferred with a couple friends... I whined because the thought of painting a bunch of little items didn't appeal... but come on... if you are going to do something that you want to actually keep and not give to someone that doesn't know any better (I mean, umm... as a thoughtful gift... yeah... I would never pass on 2nd's to people that don't know any better... right... ha!)

My first thought was... create an I Spy board... that could be fun... paint everything and throw it in there... ehhh... not as "classy" as I wanted... so... I kept thinking... and started painting... so this project evolved as the night went on... I painted 58 hearts and used... ummm... 2... but I used all the stars, birdhouses, light bulbs (see them.. they are sculpted trees), some spools and round balls, a few soda bottles and whatever those things are that I used for planters...

Also, in the process... I sort of... well... busted the canvas... Genius, right? I thought I could cover it with stars and hearts (the whole background was going to be covered in the original plan), but as I laid out the stars... it was obvious that would not work... hmmmm... a plan developed... I have been pinning quotes lately and I knew there was one that I loved... found it... fonted (is that a word... spell check says "no!") it up with various fonts and colors and matted it... next problem... the "rip" and mod podge wouldn't allow it to stay put... so I used brads to hold it down...

Now... I painted the canvas with shades of green and blue to build a blurry sort of landscape... painted the interior edge of the boards with dark brown and mod podged some paper on the outside... I love Mod Podge... All the pretties were hot glued onto the canvas... which made for fast work...

NOW... since I used the reverse side of a canvas so I would have a cute little ledge to sit all my pretties on, this posed a problem... how to hang... around the house I scurry and find the wire and hangers that I got a few years ago for a few picture frames that had those stupid can tabs for hangers... check the back of picture frames... don't go through the horrors I went through with those stupid frames.. anyway... back to the canvas... I twisted the holders into the sides, wire through... bent the hooks down flat (hammers are a girls best friend... they work great for killing spiders, too), tightened the wire and WAH LAH...

Just 5 hours later I have a canvas diorama collage thingy that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE... what do you think?

CKC Swap here I come...

and I'm taking a small piece of a lot of people with me!!! WOO HOO!!!

I signed up for the card swap at CKC -KC. You are to make 25 cards to swap with the others in the group. 25 is a LOT of cards... Took me a little while to figure out the design and colors and what I wanted to do.... but I was glad I had a bunch of stick pins sitting around from the past swaps at the coolest hangout on the 'net. :)

So... 25 cards later and 25 stick pins later... they are all done and in envies and all that... goodness... it was a good 3 hours of work tonight... maybe 4... but I like 'em.

It's late and I couldn't wait to share... I promise they are Regal Rose and Melon Mambo with Early Espresso ink and ribbon... 

What did you do today? or yesterday, actually...

I spent yesterday morning in the craft room. I completed 4 challenges at CardSwaps and had a great time doing it. I even tried out a technique that I hadn't made time for. 

This card is for Jane's "So Nice of You" Challenge.. The challenge was to create a card that held a recipe. The truck full of apples just felt perfect and the recipe inside is "Thumbprint Cookies".

Golda challenged us to make a card that makes you want to touch it. I pieced a background together out of paper strips, then embossed it with a patterned folder of butterflies (Yes, I love butterflies). Next, I punched out butterflies, embossed then, and adhered in double layers using foam dots to pop the top layer.

Then, Ms. Elaine wanted to see a card with barnyard animals. This proved to be a little difficult because I don't have barnyard animal stamps... but I had a cartoon-y sheep and a pennant stamp that I hadn't used, yet. So I did a little masking... stamped a sheep and cut it out, then did a sheep stack and pennants in the background. I actually chalked the background, but you can't really see it in the picture.

Ms. Ana... goodness... she challenged us to make rolled ribbon flowers... This is a technique that I had seen, yet hadn't made the time to try. So... I punched my circles, covered them in tackiness and started rolling. It wasn't easy, to be honest. I did figure it out on my 3rd flower. I decided to just get out the needle and thread and sew them down so nothing unravelled and popped up and made a huge mess... The centers are corduroy covered brads. The leaves are from the bird punch. The sentiment is from a round robin swap, using a ticket corner punch.

It's a Monster Mouth... errrr... Mash...

There is an amazing, awesome, FUN one day crop going on at CardSwaps today! DON'T MISS OUT!!!

My challenge for the crop is to make a card or bag or tag or home decor or anything really with a MONSTER. It doesn't need to be a scary monster, though... cute, cuddly, thoughtful... monsters have feelings, too, you know!

So, here is my card. It's basically a bunch of punches and a little free form teeth. You open his mouth to open the card, too... hee hee.. Hope you like him.