Quick Craft Ideas

Happy Saturday to all my crafty friends out there! I though I'd pop on with a couple of craft quickies. If your schedule is anything like mine, you probably have to squeeze your crafty moments in whenever you can. I am typically a slow crafter, so most of my cards are done over several sessions between colouring, choosing embellishments, deciding on a layout, cutting and assembling...it's quite the process!

As much as I love making detailed cards and projects, sometimes it nice to pull out a minimal number of products and tools and finish off a project in a relatively short time period. I have a few such projects to share with you today that use some Viva Decor products available at SCACD. They are super easy and quick to create...although they will require a bit of drying time.

First up is a little "treasure box". This is just a cheap wooden box I picked up at my local dollar store. Using a stencil I've had kicking around for a while, I applied some Viva Decor Crystal Gel with a palate knife to the box. Susana has a fantastic assortment of Stencils in stock at SCACD. The Crystal Gel is a fun product that dries clear and holds it's dimension so it's perfect for adding texture to all sorts of surfaces. After allowing the gel to dry completely, I applied some brown acrylic craft paint to the box. I wasn't terribly neat with the application as I wanted it to have a kind of "antiqued" look. I also used a rag to help rub the paint into the wood and to buff it off of the gel. I also added a few rhinestones for just a bit of bling. :) The pearls were made with a Viva Decor Pearl Pen.

While I had the Crystal Gel and stencils out, I looked around for something else I could play with. I had a few kraft envelopes sitting on my desk, so I pulled them over. Again, I used a stencil and applied the gel with a palate knife.

After the gel was dry, I sponged brown ink on the first envelope to highlight the pattern and added some brown pearls with a Viva Decor Pearl Pen.

For the next envelope, I coloured the dried gel with my Copics, sponged around the edges with brown ink, added little groupings of pearls with the Viva Decor Pearl Pen and topped it off with a little rhinestone at the bottom. I really love my Viva Decor Pearl Pens. They really are a fantastic money saver as you can get so many pearls from just one pen. I use my brown one a lot, and I've hardly made a dent in it! I also love that you can customize the size of your pearls. As you can see in the envelope below, I was able to make pearls of assorted sizes.

Again, these are some old stencils I had kicking around...they were quite flimsy self adhesive ones that tore after I was done with them, lol. If I had been patient, I would have waited until my GOOD stencils arrived from SCACD. However, I am not patient and I wanted to play with my Crystal Gel! lol  I have since purchased some stencils and am looking forward to putting them to use in future projects. I really hadn't thought much about using stencils in my projects until recently. They are so versatile and can be used with so many different mediums like paint, ink, sprays, gels, markers, modelling paste...the possibilities really are only as limited as your imagination. :)  You can find Susana's stencils here HERE.

So those were my Saturday craft quickies.  They were fun and easy to create...and they allowed me to get messy with some great art products, which I love to do. :)

Don't forget to check out the newest Susana Loves Stamps release...these stamps are beautiful! Susana has also been busy adding many great new products to the store. Remember, Susana also carries a ton of products for all you mixed media fans! From canvases, to stencils, to tags, to paints, to sprays...she's got you covered! She recently brought in some fabulous Dylusions products which look incredible! The Luminarte products are also a beautiful line that work well with both traditional paper crafts and canvas art. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take a good look around SCACD...nothing better than shopping in your jammies with a hot coffee in hand. ;)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Melanie