Make your gift personal - by DT Zanka

Hello!
I'm popping in today with a quick and simple inspiration - it's all about giving and making it personal!
If you just spend few minutes on decorating the present bag, you can turn the most ordinary brown present bag into something personal and really special.
I have a set here, a small card and a matching bag, where I decorated the front.

It really doesn't require a lot of supplies, quite a contrary-you can use bits and pieces from your 'nice to have, perhaps I can use it again ' bin.
I decorated my object with some awesome background vintage paper, which was to thin to hold a LO, but works perfect as a layer. I have added some die cuts in contrasting emerald green, plus the flowers, pieces of lace, cotton strips, chipboard and pearls.
All of above comes from Zeus and Zoe etsy store.

Hope you had a good time here today!
Cheers!
DT Zanka

Altered Enamel Mug by Patricia Basson

Hello to everybody!

Today I want to showcase an altered Enamel Mug that I created for the Zeus and Zoe blog using products from Marivic Clifton's Etsy Shop... 

I punched a piece of patterned paper to fit around the outside and inside of the mug.. Using the Purple pleated ribbon from my DT stash and a length of the left over from the crotchet Doily from my previous project, I gave the mug a little skirt.

I used some more of my Vintage Buttons and Butterfly elements as added interest. 

From the package of papers and envelopes from Industrial Chic by Susan Lenart Kazmer, I used some envelopes, crumpled them and rubbed clear embossing ink on the creases. I used Stampendous Aged Ivory Embossing Enamel on it. I placed a few of the papers in the envelope and crammed it with my tiny crammer...

Also added a Stick Pin with a Butterfly ornament behind my Pansy Flower from my own stash.

I misted my paper with Mountain Lavender Gold  Starburst from Lindy's  and splattered Sea Mint Green and Tea Pot Purple on the paper. With texture paste I masked some Butterflies and embossed them with Mauve embossing powder from Lindy's Stampgang...Also added some purple half pearls on the punched flowers.

Some more of Marivic's vintage Buttons, and also a peek of the small crochet Doily placed behind my flower.

Please take some time to visit the Zeus and Zoe Etsy Shop for many Vintage products, or ask Marivic to assemble a tailor made kit for you!

A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam,
And for a brief moment,
its glory and beauty belong to our world...
But then it flies again,
and though we wish it could have stayed...
We feel lucky to have seen it.

Shabby Chic Altered Dresser

 Good Morning crafting friends...Patricia Basson with you again...

This month we have a most gorgeous Inspiration Board at Zeus and Zoe filled with beautiful soft and elegant images! In keeping with the Shabby Chic colours of pink and cream, I took a toy dresser and transformed it into a elegant dresser ready to brighten up a Victorian Dolls House...

The frame is made from a Chipboard frame and some mirrored foil.

I sacrificed one of my large Dollies from my DT stash, cut it up and used various pieces on the dresser and still have much left for future projects. 

The Vintage Locket, Button and Fish ornament are also from my DT Stash. All is available from the Zeus and Zoe Etsy shop.I also used one of the stick pins, thinking it looks like a vintage perfume bottle nestled between the flowers!

~~~

This is what the wooden dresser looked like before.

I painted a base coat of pink acrylic paint and when dried painted a crackle medium over it. After dying overnight it was painted with the cream paint. The crackle medium resulted it the cracks of the cream paint revealing the pink under coat!

Thank you for taking the time to visit my post...I hope I have inspired you to try your hand at the Inspiration Board as well...

Altered Eiffel Tower

Hi everyone, or should I say Bonjour :-).  Jen here, hope everyone is having a good month so far. Thanks for joining me today for my mid month project. I have loved our theme this month so far, using pretty pastel colours. I decided to do something a bit different for this project and altered an Eiffel Tower that I picked up from a local shop. 

When I bought the Eiffel Tower is was a black metal, I knew I wanted to shabby it up a bit so this theme was perfect.

I gave to Tower a couple of coats of Gesso to prime it. This stage took me a few days. I then used some pastel pink acrylic paint to give it the effect that I wanted. I used a round cake tray as the base, glued on some Kaisercaft paper. I used doily and brick stencils to add some texture to the base. These were both from Crafters Workshop.

I added one of Marivic's stunning tags to the second level of the tower, it fit my Parisian theme perfectly. The pink doily and the metal flower from my DT kit were perfect additions. The flower was originally red, I gave it a coat of Gesso and some pink paint.

The metal locket embellishment was also in my DT kit and available in the Etsy store.

The trees and vintage Parisian ladies were downloaded from the internet and glued on to the base. I used cocktail sticks to give them some extra stability. The beautiful lilac trim is also available in the Etsy store.

Another close up of Marivic's tag. I love these handmade tags. The photo underneath shows the 3D dimension added to it.

.

Thanks for joining me this month and taking the time to look at my Eiffel Tower and Parisian street scene.

Until next month.

Jen xxx

~Altered Candlestick~

Good Morning friends...

Patricia again with my second project for August. Our theme this month is Altered Vintage, and what could be more vintage than these enamel candlesticks from days gone by? I would love to say this one is a real antique...but it was just bought at a general store...Let's see if I can encourage you to buy one and alter it somewhat as well?

I prepared the candlestick by painting it with Gesso to prime it. I then painted several coats of Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze onto it. I used the colours Sangria and Nori. From my DT stash I used the brown lace, stick pins, some buttons and flowers.

All the buttons were Gesso'd, misted with green, blue and a reddish spray and because they were looking quite dull, I decided to add some dimensional accent which then resulted in some pretty marbling effects!

  

This is an embellishment from Ruby Violet, given the same treatment as the buttons.

The stick pins and Butterflies are from my DT pack. They were embossed with  two toned embossing powders from Lindy's Stampgang, Hyacinth Blue Green and Gilded Burgundy Brass...The white Wire Flower and Peacock feather are from Webster's Pages Floral Bouquet. All of the stock is available from the Zeus And Zoe Etsy shop...

Thank you for having a visit with me today...Keep save till we chat again next month...

Patricia Basson

Altered vintage box with a touch of mixed media

Hello, It's Aida here with my new project and first step-by-step video tutorial for Zeus and Zoe.

Our theme at Zeus and Zoe this month is Altered Vintage so I decided to create an altered vintage box with mixed media touch. I used beautiful vintage buttons, laces, flowers and other embellishment from Marivic's beautiful kits you can find on Etsy. I added some 13 arts media to make this transformation complete.

It was old and a little tatty jewellery box and now it has totally new look:)

The front of the box:

The top of the box:

and here on Zeus and Zoe Youtube channel you can watch step-by-step tutorial:

I hope you like this tutorial and my project and maybe you can create something similar with Marivic's beautiful kits - it is worth a try:) 

xoxo

Ayeeda

Jennifer's Altered Box

Hi everyone, Jen here again sharing another project and my first tutorial with you.

Our theme at Zeus and Zoe this month is Altered Vintage so I decided to create an altered vintage writing desk. I got some beautiful images in my DT pack, along with some gorgeous lace and doilies, the hardest decision I had was what to choose.

My writing desk was one of the Off The Page range from Kaisercraft and started out looking like this:

The first thing I did was paint all the edges and add the vintage music sheets provided in my DT pack. I cut up one of the paper doilies in my pack and glued them to the corners of my image. I then used a stencil and some modeling paste to add some texture:

After everything had dried, I used mists, inks and some Luminarte Twinkling H20's to get the desired colour blend. I stitched up the bottom of the doilies to create a flower shape, added some of the vintage buttons from my pack and that was it.

I finished off by inking round the edges of the box with Tim Holtz Tea Dye ink pad and added the Tim Holtz feet to the base. The knob came from Kaisercraft and I added a beautiful, vintage pendant from my pack to make it look pretty.

  

Now on to my tutorial. I wanted to add one of Marivic's butterflies to the writing desk but the colours just didn't fit in with my design. Here is what I did to change them:

First I applied a coat of Gesso to cover the pattern. 

I wanted to add some interest to the wings, so again I cut some of the paper doilies as seen above. 

I blended in some Tim Holtz ink in bundled sage and tea dye, then used some Smooch to paint the middle and give it an outline.

The only thing left was to glue it all together and add some pearls from my pack. This was the end result:

Thanks for joining me today. 

Jen x