Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Guest DT Feature- Jennifer Willis

Smeared and Smudged Forum

During the month of June, we hosted our very first Smeared Ink Guest Design Team Member, Jennifer Willis. She has been amazing, presenting a fabulous watercolor challenge on our forum, and sharing some pretty wicked stamped projects. Jennifer has been a member of the S&S forum since last September, and since that time has amazed us with her contest entries and beautiful art. Here's alittle bit more about Jennifer.

Glitter Words



"I live in North Dakota and am a SAHM with two beautiful little girls. I have been involved in paper art and crafts for many years off and on. I enjoy rubber stamping, creating collage art, scrap booking, ATCs and more. I design for Stampers Quest, Sweet Pea Stamps, Faerie Song and Auntie Amy's Stamps."




Glitter Words

















Glitter Words

Visit Jennifer on her BLOG to view all her fabulous projects!! Be sure to leave some love for her and a big thanks for being our Guest DT for June!

Friday, June 25, 2010

New Smeared Ink Release Blog Hop

Thanks for visiting today! The Smeared Ink Design Team has a WONDERFUL hop for you, featuring a new image from Smeared Ink! That's right, we have three fabulous new sets that are available in our shop today! Here's a lookie...

The Symbology of Angels

Teen Style Sayings

Teen Style Backgrounds



Aren't they great! I LOVE them all of course, but for the hop we all worked with one of my favorites from our new set The Symbology of Angels, his name is "Praise". He is such an awesome image to work with!! I know I'll be using him all the time. So without further adeu, here's my project!




*click pics for larger views


When I saw this card in my head, I pictured a bright burst of "light" in the center between his arms; which is where the idea for the circle came into play. I used some images from another Smeared Ink set, Shadow Thingies, to stamp and emboss the heart and whymsical swirls around the circle. I used feathers to make my rays of light coming from the circle, and attached a Karma charm.

The background of my card was made by sponging ink through a scrap piece of punchinella, then adding some accents with the gel pen. I also darkened the card behind my center light circle. "Praise" is colored with prismacolor pencils and gel pen. I added shadows around him, and popped his wings off of the card.

For me, even though this card is pretty simple, it really is a standout! The image just invokes a sense of beauty to me, and I adore it.

So now I'd like to invite you to hop on to the other DT members blogs to see how they interpreted the image "Praise" into their own project! Then come on by our shop to see all three new sets in detail.

Terra

Tori

Alison

Kelli

Jean

Sarah

Danielle

Black Dragon

Lady Brayton (oh no! Lady B is having problems with her internet, but I'll leave the link here just in case she can get her project up later. It is gorgeous and worth the wait! Check back later)

Meredith

Thanks for hopping with us! And be on the lookout toward the end of August for another hop dedicated to our Halloween Release! It's gonna be a doozey!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Artie Graduates!

Today I am sharing a card made with Artie, Smeared Ink's Graduation Li'l Grumpie. He is available as a digi image for a limited amount of time in our shop, and can be purchased when you spend $20 or more. Check out the June Specials link when you get to the shop. He is so fun to work with, and super cute in a grumpy sort of way!

I made this card for my cousin who graduated this month. It's pretty simple, using background papers and a "You Rock" saying. I really like the layout on this one because even though it's simple, it really catches your eye. Basically I just colored in Artie, mounted different layers, distressed edges, and added eyelets.



Isn't he adorable in his cap?

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Miss You Jack

I just have a quick minute, but want to share. Last night I got the opportunity to sit for about an hour by myself, so I decided to make a card that's been sitting in my mind for a while. It uses sitting Jack from our Smeared Ink "Jack" set, and a saying from our "Carnies" set.


*click for larger pics*




The cardstock is all Stampin' Up, and I started by stamping and embossing my background images, then filling the music notes with blue shimmery powder. I was super inspired by Aletha from our S&S forum, so I made Jack into three separate dimensions. I stamped him with stazon, then watercolored him for our Smeared & Smudged Guest DT Watercolor Challenge that was posted by Jennifer.

I used different inks to make the background colors on the card, and then just simply layered stuff, made my tag, and added ribbon and hardware. Finally at the end, I covered the tag, Jack's eyes, and lips with Crystal Effects to make them glossy. The card is a little more subtle and pretty than I usually make, but I hope you enjoy it!
*31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN 2010*
HIDDEN IMAGE FUN SCAVENGER HUNT
CLUE#3: YOU'LL FIND THE HIDDEN IMAGE IN A POST FROM THE MONTH KNOWN FOR ITS SHOWERS. THIS PUNKY EIGHTIES GAL WOULD LOVE TO ADD A WITCH HAT TO HER FASHION STATEMENT!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Zombie Queen- The Greeting Farm Hop

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Smeared and Smudged blog for today's The Greeting Farm sponsored hop. I'd like to thank you for visiting, and let you know how truly stoked I am to be sharing my project, and all the Smeared and Smudged DT projects, with you today.

This month on the Smeared and Smudged Forum, The Greeting Farm is one of our challenge sponsors; and they were so very generous to allow us to use some of their super cool images for today's hop. Plus, you have a chance to win one of these images today by leaving a comment at each stop along the hop, and at the TGF Blog when you're done hopping.

If you're looking for more chances to win TGF images, visit our forum and join in some of our challenges! Smeared and Smudged is a super friendly and cool place to be, and although some of our art tends to lean toward the alternative, vintage, or gothic side of things, we are truly a very diverse group and embrace all styles and levels of stampers.

At the bottom of my post you will find a list of all the hop participants. Be sure to visit each of them to see their wicked projects. If this is your first stop, you'll want to check out all of them. If you're here from another hop participant, just continue where you left off, and be sure to visit The Greeting Farm at the end!

If you know me, you know I LOVE altering things and today's project is no exception. Although, this IS one of the few times I've worked with a digi image. I have to say, I'm liking them more and more! I chose to work with the "Royal Pain" cake girl, which is a TGF image that I adore.

My project is a Zombie Queen earring holder that I made for my 10 year old daughter. Here are a couple different pics. The first is without jewelry, and the second has some earrings hanging so you can see how it should be used.

*click pics for larger views








I had to "darken" up my image to use her as a zombie, so I started by coloring with markers and prisma pencils, then adding shadows with black. I scraped my fingernails across her skin to make it look rotted, and also added some white highlights with a gel pen.

The frame is painted and I added glitter to the wet paint. Then I used some green punchinella to make the insert for the jewelry. My zombie letters and my "Have your cake, EAT IT too!" saying were printed from my computer, and the "Queen" is chipboard letters that I glittered as well. After pulling it all together to take a look, I decided to break up the black by adding a strip of white paper to the left side that had old paint on it. Then I attached everything and as a final touch, added the black bow in the corner.

I hope you enjoyed taking a look,I LOVE reading comments so please let me know what you think. And now, here's the list of the Smeared and Smudged DT blogs! Have fun hopping!

Kelli

Tori

Kathi

Sarah

Danielle

Black Dragon

Kim

Lady Brayton

Meredith

Jennifer

Please visit The Greeting Farm Blog and The Greeting Farm website to view these cool and creepy images!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Smeared and Smudged Member Blog Hop- June

Hi everyone! Welcome to another addition of our Smeared and Smudged Forum Member Blog Hop! If you're fairly new to following my blog and haven't seen one of these before, I'll explain how it works. Basically, all of the members over on the Smeared and Smudged Forum are invited to participate in a member hop. Any member who wants to can post a project on their blog, and it's just one of the ways that we support each other in our artistic journey. We all hop around like mad rabbits, check out all the cool projects, and leave comments! It's a blast seeing the varying techniques and unique perspectives, plus there are no rules! Members can make anything they want as long as they follow the S&S rule that it is stamped somewhere.

If you have no idea what the Smeared and Smudged Forum is, I'd like to invite you to check it out. Although we tend to lean toward the wilder, darker side of stamping, absolutely everyone with any style or experience is welcome!! We embrace all types of stamped art. The forum is full of very cool and friendly people, and tons of inspiration. You are welcome to join and jump right in to conversations, challenges, and groups; or lurk in the background and take from it what you will. We have all kinds of members, from the very active to the almost unseen, and we appreciate each and every one of them and what they have to offer.

So, enough with my shpeal and onto the art! For my project today I decided, of course, that I had to alter something. And that something ended up being an empty Jack Daniels bottle. (No, not mine...)

I used my Smeared Ink "Faes" stamp set to build what I am calling a Fairy Wish Bottle. Pretty much it's a bottle that you open up and whisper all your wishes into, then seal it up tight so they don't get lost! The fairies keep them safe and work their hardest to grant them.

It was a long process to alter, and you can see from the pics that there is a whole lotta stuff going on! Lots of bling, and lots of girly fru-fru...I don't know why, but I felt very pink and whymsical when I did it. The main feature is the double images- one on the front of the bottle, and one peeking from the inside back of the bottle that you can see through the glass (which is why he's a little blurry).

I won't go into lots of details on supplies cause it would take forever, if you have a question feel free to comment and I'll answer, but I will point out some of the cool features under each pic. Feel free to click on pics to make them bigger.


Okay, so here's the front of the bottle. You can see LOTS of stuff, including my little Fae right in the front. The white stuff that is frosting the bottle is Gesso. There are clear rocks (which you'll see better later) and crystals framing the front. You can also see the background Fae and some butterflies that are dangling on the inside of the bottle. There is also a word embossed on clear plastic on the top right that says "Whimsy", which is from our Faes set.



Here's a closeup of the front Fae- isn't he CUTE!!!!!! I colored with watercolor crayons, and his wings are glittered. There are also crystals in the middle of the flowers.



Here you can see my background Fae peeking through the glass, and one of the hanging butterflies. The background picture is made from a collage of magazine flowers, and this Fae is also watercolored and glittered.



Not a great pic, but here you can see some of the dangly butterflies and dragonflies; there are five of them in the bottle.



This is a close-up of the top of the bottle. I used several types of ribbon and strings to tie around the bottle neck, and added a really pretty metal embellishment that I added a tiny crystal to. The metal chainy-looking thing with beads was a bracelet in a past life, and I added the lock charm. The actual lid is covered with silver glittery paper ribbon, which was also used around the bottom of the bottle.



Here's a shot of the first side, where a key dangles from clear string. You use this to "open" the lock, of course! The sides and back are covered with those clear rocks that I talked about earlier.



Close-up of the key. You can see my clear plastic tag that goes along with it that features the word "Believe" from our Faes set.


The back of the bottle is covered with paper (the background image you see through the front) that I painted with pink metallic nail polish. Then I covered with those clear rocks, and in-between if you look really closely you can see crystals. You also catch a glimpse of that silver ribbon that's wrapped around the whole bottle, and you can see the dangling chains from the cap.


Here's a shot of the second side of the bottle, which is also covered in rocks and crystals.



I hope you enjoyed taking a look at my project. I'd love to hear what you think of it. I know it's alot to take in, but I was feeling the fairy love! I adore it, and so do my kids, so this one is definitely a keeper... although I'm not quite sure where it will go yet.

So, now's the time to go and see all the other fabulous projects that the members of Smeared and Smudged have to show you. Use the list below to hop around, leave some love on their blogs, and come on over to join us on the forum if you haven't already! Happy Hopping!



Kelli

Steph

Lady Brayton

Lisa

Jean

Kathi

Alison

Sarah

Meredith

Black Dragon

Kim

Monica

Tink