My (Marivic) projects for June with a few of my favorite things

Hello this is Marivic sharing with you today a couple of projects I made using Donna Salazar's GCD Studios  Mixed Media Stax 2. I love this product so much I made 2 projects also following Denise and Norma's theme for this month's Favorite Things Challenge.

First I made this journal. I was going to keep this one but my daughter, Alyssa had asked me if she can have it so she can draw her favorite things...I was going to keep it for myself but she said she wants to keep practicing her art so she can be just like mama. Now, how can I say no to that...I told her I have to remove the embellishments, little girls can't have the "blings" yet. So she agreed that I can take the metal charms off and replace it with kid-friendly embellishments after the photos are taken.
Other than Donna's Mixed Media papers, everything else were from Zeus and Zoe Kit.

I took photos from my phone as I go to the progress of making the album pages. The rest is just embellishments.

After I am done, I covered the pages with lace and just went to town with the embellishments.

The flowers I also made using the smooth mixed media paper that is part of the stax.

The flowers are tedious to make, but it worth it. I hand-cut the shapes, painted with Luminarte Paint on both sides.

When it was dry I applied Faber Castell Glaze twice and glued to make this flower.

For my second project I made this canvas art using the printed paper, smooth paper, and the textured paper from the same Donna Salazar Mixed Media Paper Stack line.

I liked the antique color of the flowers...

These are all my favorite things...art, flowers, lace, mixed media, and pretty little things that make up a big beautiful things.

Thank you to Donna Salazar and to Couture Creations for sponsoring us this month.

Make sure you join our challenge, you still have a few days left.

Follow the link HERE...

You can win prizes from 

and

Little Gift with a decorated box

Hello everyone! It's Riikka here with my second project for June. We got some lovely papers from Donna Salazar and dies from Couture Creations and I created my project with those together my Zeus and Zoe kit. The creation has two parts - a little gift box made of two sheets of 6x6" papers and a necklace inside.

The gift box is made using an origami box instruction. I made the top part using the 6x6 sheet as such. To make the bottom part, I trimmed a centimetre of the other sheet. The origami instructions are really simple and you can make a box like this in no time!

To decorate the cover, I used items from my kit together with sponsored goodies. The butterfly is fuzzy cut from a piece of Donna Salazar paper as well as the "Beauty" tag. The little banner is a diecut. The heart underneath is cut with a Couture Creations' die. The lace, the flower and the rhinestones are from my Zeus and Zoe kit.

Inside the box you can find this necklace. The blue heart is cut from transparent shrink plastic with  Couture Creations' die. I don't recommend to use the die for shrink plastic as it can damage the die, but I just had to give it a go! After shrinking the piece with a heat tool, I colored the heart pale blue with alcohol inks.

The little rings as well as the chain are from my own stash, but other pieces in the necklace are from my Zeus and Zoe kit. The necklace includes some key charms, a few pearls from an old piece of jewellery and also a sparkling "diamond" chain.

Thank you for your visit! I also want to thank Marivic for this awesome opportunity to be a part of a great, super talented design team. Thank you all team mates, too, you rock! Wishing you all a great day and lovely summer!

My favourite things: Creative inspiration by guest designer Debbie Burns

Hi! My name is Debbie Burns and I am so excited to guest design this month for Zeus and Zoe.  Thanks Marivic for inviting me! I am currently on the design team for Berry71bleu, sister site of Zeus and Zoe. I live in Maryland with my 

two children ages 23 and 26 and one precious dog. I started scrapbooking 13 years ago after I received a completed scrapbook album "all about me" for my birthday. I took one beginners scrapbook class and the rest is history.  I don't really have a defined style, as all of my layouts are different, but I do love to layer and cluster, flowers and butterflies being my favorite. I would love for you to stop by my blog Love Life's Little Pleasures.

I love June's theme, My Favourite Things, hosted by Denise and Norma.  For those of you that know me, I have quite the love for flower gardening.  I love this time of the year.  My flower beds are full of perennials and I fill in the bare spots with annuals.  My favorite annuals are Geraniums, thus the focus of my layout.

Marivic sent me a few goodies to work with.  One being the Emporium Tag die from Couture Creations.  Here I have used it in a few spots.

I also worked with some Magical powder, Ghostly Gargoyle White by Lindy's Stamp Gang.  I mixed the power with some water and lightly brushed it on the little pink roses.

I did some masking on my background, using the Circular Lattice mask by Prima and added some ink, and misting.

Here is a closeup of my cluster:

I hope I have inspired you!  Thanks Marivic for having me! 

Create Happiness - Art Journal Page

Norma here with you today to share my second project of the month featuring the beautiful products from our sponsors Donna Salazar and Couture Creations.  

I was inspired to art journal by the Donna Salazar dictionary pages so I chose to highlight: artistic, journal and happy.

I like to use my excess inks and paints in my art journal so that nothing goes to waste.  So I flipped through my art journal and found this page filled with the over sprays of a previous project.  Next I dug through my Zeus and Zoe kit and found an unfinished page that never made it onto another project along with jump rings and it hit me!  Create an art journal page within an art journal page, does that make sense, lol?  I punched holes on my art journal page and the mini album page I found then connected them with the jump rings, easy peasy right?!

Then I began by adhering torn and inked strips of Donna Salazar papers from the Natural Beauty collection.

Once I figured out the basic design, I focused on adding the layers of inks and paints to grunge it up a bit and give it my "Norma twist" ;D.  I used a doily stencil with an acrylic dauber to create texture.  I really like the way the acrylic paint puffed up.  This allowed the inks to really get in those groves to help define the shape.

With all the stencil work done, I started layering more of Donna Salazar's Natural Beauty papers and even ran some through my sewing machine.   I used a beautiful flowing vine stitch, distressed and inked all of the edges.  Next I added the dictionary strips that I wanted to use.  I highlighted the edges with fluid acrylic using my finger then outlined the entire strip with a black pen.  I created a small banner using the Donna Salazar Natural Beauty die cut pieces.  To give them a little more presence in my design, I glued them on some of the paper and cut around them leaving about a 1/4" border.  Then I added the Natural Beauty Chipboard Alphas with a little pen work to make them pop.

For the insert, I focused on journaling about why I love to art journal.  I wrote:
"These pages are so much more to me than a place to learn through my creative play.  
They see me through the darkest days.  With each layer, the troubles of the day fade away and I'm transported to my happy place."
This is so true for me, my art journal gives me wings to soar above whatever challenges I might be facing.  I truly believe in the the healing power of art.  Being creative has a wonderful way of lifting the soul and one of the beautiful things about art journaling is that it can be done with no expectations or pressure.  You don't have to worry about incorporating a photo or story.  All you have to do is play, let the page become whatever it wants to be.  If you don't like the way it's turning out, just keep going.  Add another layer of paper, ink or paint; whatever you want until you feel that smile on your face and twinkle in your eye.  You know the feeling you get when you're so happy with what you've just created.

For the cover, I used a page from a mini album that I received in my Zeus and Zoe kit.  It already had paint and stencil work on it from before.  I was gonna use it on a layout but ended up leaving it off.  So all I needed to do was add some of Donna's Natural Beauty paper, a little more stenciling and chipboard alphas.

To finish off my pages, I added some doodle work, strips of torn fabric and cording from my Zeus and Zoe kit.  I also added the key and hanging sign Couture Creations dies.  I love the grungy feel of these art journal pages and the bonus mini page tucked in.  If you've never art journaled before, I encourage you to give a try.  Just remember to have fun and JUST PLAY!!  It's also a wonderful way to use up all those scraps, odd letters and embellishments you have laying around.  Well I hope I've inspired you to give art journaling a try!!

Oh and don't forget to enter this month's challenge: My Favorite Things!!!  There are wonderful prizes up for grabs including this autographed kit from Donna Salazar, so get to craftin peeps!!

The Main Prize

Donna Salazar is a wife, mom, grandma, artist, designer, teacher and kid at heart. Her playful nature tends to come across in her products and classes because she believes that art should be fun. Donna is known for blending contrasting elements to create what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Donna's style is especially appealing to mixed media artists, however her love of flowers and all things sparkly seems to appeal to crafters of all types and styles. 

Donna is a licensed designer and has product lines with 5 different companies: Clearsnap, GCD Studios, Spellbinders, Want2Scrap and Zutter. Donna offers free video tutorials, e-classes and a LIVE webshow, called Tuesday Tutorials, where she gives away lots of prizes from her partner companies and/or original artwork created during the show!

Random Prize:

Couture Creations

http://couturecreations.com.au

An Australian owned and loved brand, Couture Creations is the culmination of 20 years experience in the scrapbooking industry. From its final inception in 2010, Couture Creations has been devoted to producing expertly designed, high quality products overseen by veteran designers and crafters for a result that is both simple and elegant.

Couture Creations is part of Artdeco Creations growing collection of quality craft brands available worldwide. Distributed through a network of the best industry representatives in scrapbooking and craft internationally, Artdeco Creations has the ability to test and meet global expectations for quality and precision beyond local trends and markets.

Also included in the Random Winner Prize Pack is this 6x6 paper pack from Donna Salazar:

Thanks for joining me today and have a BEAUTIFUL, INSPIRED day!!!

My Favourite Things Canvas

Denise and Norma, from the Zeus and Zoe DT are hosting this months challenge.  The theme is based on the song 'My Favourite Things', by Julie Andrews.  I must admit, I was singing that song over and over in my head after Norma and Denise came up with the theme!!!  You can find all details below this post, and the wonderful prizes that are on offer.

I created a 6" X 6" canvas, using papers of various types and die-cut shapes by Donna Salazar Designs, and incorporated some gorgeous elements from my Zeus and Zoe DT kit - including: Lace, Charms, Necklace Pieces, Pearls, Buttons, Flowers and more.  You can find all the kit goodies for Zeus and Zoe 'HERE'.

I also included journaling on the reverse side listing all of my favourite things, which include, but not limited too....

Rainbows - hence the colour in my canvas

Creativity - scissors, papers

Pearls - Old Necklace

Buttons - oh so many, my collection is huge

Trinkets - Eeep, I'd hate to say how many of these favourite things I have.

Butterflies - a huge favourite

Keys - I have a fascination for them, I have no idea why

Lace - I have been collecting since I was very young

Gold - I should be really rich LOL

Cats -  My best friends for life....

There are many items I did not add :-)

 I had to give the cats some new 'bling' eyes....so cute!

The canvas has some of the gorgeous Donna Salaza Designs textured and plain papers, all ripped and mod- podged into place. 

The colouring was completed using Gesso, Starburst Sprays, and a touch of Gold Shimmer Stick, then lightly sprayed with a sealer to protect.

I gathered some of 'My Favourite Things', and got to work in adhering to the canvas.

My inspiration for this project is from Arlene, From Butterfly Kisses.

 I will be back later in the month with another creation to share, 

till then, hope to see you join in the challenge...
Sandie

Zeus and Zoe Challenge

Hosted by Denise and Norma

Denise's Mood Board of Inspiration

Norma's Mood Board of Inspiration

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things!

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things!

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eye lashes
Silver white winters that melt into spring
These are a few of my favorite things!

When the dog bites, when the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember
my favorite things
and then I don't feel so bad!

Main Prize:

Donna Salazar is a wife, mom, grandma, artist, designer, teacher and kid at heart. Her playful nature tends to come across in her products and classes because she believes that art should be fun. Donna is known for blending contrasting elements to create what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Donna's style is especially appealing to mixed media artists, however her love of flowers and all things sparkly seems to appeal to crafters of all types and styles. 
Donna is a licensed designer and has product lines with 5 different companies: Clearsnap, GCD Studios, Spellbinders, Want2Scrap and Zutter. Donna offers free video tutorials, e-classes and a LIVE webshow, called Tuesday Tutorials, where she gives away lots of prizes from her partner companies and/or original artwork created during the show!
Random Prize

Random Prize An Australian owned and loved brand, Couture Creations is the culmination of 20 years experience in the scrapbooking industry. From its final inception in 2010, Couture Creations has been devoted to producing expertly designed, high quality products overseen by veteran designers and crafters for a result that is both simple and elegant.

Couture Creations is part of Artdeco Creations growing collection of quality craft brands available worldwide. Distributed through a network of the best industry representatives in scrapbooking and craft internationally, Artdeco Creations has the ability to test and meet global expectations for quality and precision beyond local trends and markets.