Neverending Love - Layout and video tutorial by Ayeeda

Hello, It's Aida here with my second projects for September and a video tutorial for you.

I have decided to create on my favorite space 12x12 this time. I used gorgeous papers and embellishment from Marivic's beautiful kits you can find on Etsy and some 13 arts mediums. Our theme at Zeus and Zoe this month is Frills and Romance - this layout is not about pink and flowers, but it still is very romantic and emotional .

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

and close-ups of this project:

CLICK

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial - thank You for watching:)

xoxo

Ayeeda

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.

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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 vintage hand mirror by Jen Waugh

Hi everyone and welcome to my first post of September. Our DT theme for this month was a beautiful selection of pastel colours. I'm very much a shabby chic/vintage girl so the colour palette was perfect for me.

I decided to alter a vintage mirror.

I started off by giving the silver mirror a coat of Gesso to prime it. I then gave it 2 coats of pink pastel acrylic paint. The distressed effect you see on the handle is Rub 'n' Buff. 

I downloaded the pretty vintage lady from the internet and then used some Prima Tea Thyme cut off's to frame her on the mirror.

I decided to try and experiment a bit with hand dyeing lace and the selection I got in my pack was perfect. I cut round the edges of one of my doilies and created a trim. I then used the skin of n avocado and boiled it for 15 minutes. Place the lace into the mixture, boil again for 25 minutes and my cream lace is now a beautiful shade of dusty pink. The colour will vary depending on the fabric that you use. I love the effect and will definitely be trying it again. I finished off with some Prima beaded trim and some pretty pink ribbon from my pack.

Hope that you like my vintage altered mirror, see you later in the month.

Jen x

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

June Challenge - My Favourite Things

Hello Everyone! 

Denise and Norma here to bring you the June Challenge!!  This month's challenge is inspired by the lyrics of Julie Andrews song " My Favorite Things"

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen 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!

We all have those favorite little things that we just can't help gravitating to and maybe even collecting.  So this month we want to see projects highlighting YOUR very favorite things and to kick things off, we've put together a couple of boards to share the things that we love!

For me (Denise) personally, my favourite things that come to mind are: my shoes, my morning cup of coffee, my flowers in the garden, comfort winter food eg. soup or a beautifully decadent cupcake. So here is my board for some inspiration.

Now anybody that really knows me, really knows that I have quite a shoe collection! ;-) I love a beautiful pair of shoes and my Dad asks me regularly if I am wearing a new pair! So my layout had to simply be about this little love of mine. The sentiment I chose specifically because it is absolutely spot on! ;-)

So here is my page for this challenge.

I used the wonderful papers by Donna Salazar, the die-cuts, as well as the chipboard alpha's. I did some gesso stencilling on the background and also added texture to Scrap FX chipboards with Kwik crackle.

Aren't these shoes just to die for?!

Norma also here to share some of my little obsessions with you, lol.  I absolutely  love everything on my board with my top pick being the beach.  The beach photo on my board is my family's favorite summer getaway here in beautiful Texas.  I added pics of bracelets, lanterns, storage crates and pink orchids because I collect all of these things.  I love, love, love orchids and have them all over my home but they have to be pink (you know how I love color, lol).  I'm also obsessed with storage containers and lanterns.  They're all over my home too.  Oh and bracelets, don't even get me started!  The funny thing is that I tend to always buy them in beautiful shades of turquoise, browns and silver just like in the photo.  One of my other loves is architecture and design, I enjoy taking photos of old buildings with loads of character like gorgeous detailed doors and worn wrought iron and you know my board would not be complete without my paint brushes.  They transport me to my happy place!

Since my all time favorite thing is the beach, I thought I'd do an ocean inspired project.  I also wanted to do my favorite kind of project (mixed media) and use my favorite blue/green colors.  So this is what I came up with:

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved painting and been completely mesmerized by the sea.  I looked forward to Saturday mornings so I could watch two of my favorite shows on public television: The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.  So my goal was bring those two worlds together in this piece.

I began by applying molding paste, patterned papers from my Zeus and Zoe kit and swirls with a 3-D writer.  Once that was dry, I added layers of paint in my favorite shades of blue and began building my cluster of  treasure that I'm sure my mermaid has been collecting for some time ;D.  Most of the found objects I used are from my Zeus and Zoe kit but a few are from my stash of goodness.  Next I applied a layer of gesso over all the little bits.  Once the gesso was dry, I spritzed various colors of Dylusions sprinkled with blue/green PearlEx for shimmer.

I love including a positive message in my artwork so I chose to use, "You can never cross the ocean unless you have the COURAGE to lose sight of the shore".  I truly love the way this project turned out and I hope I've inspired you today.

Now it's your turn!! We would love to see your interpretation of this month's challenge "My Favorite Things"! Whether it's a project using your "favorite" materials or it's about your "favorite" things; if you love it and it's your "favorite" share it!!

This month we are fortunate to have the talented Donna Salazar sharing her wonderful products with us as well as Couture Creations. Each has sent a beautiful assortment of items for our challenge winners.

The Main Prize is sponsored by: Donna Salazar, http://donnasalazar.typepad.com/, and she even autographed it!  How cool is that!!

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:

You have until the 30th June.

Mini Album - "This is Me" for the April Challenge

Hello Everyone

I hope that you had  a super weekend and that Monday is treating you kindly! Denise here today with a mini album that I created for the April Challenge  - Life as it is Now - and I am really excited to show you what I created.

The challenge this month is to create and journal a project about "life as it is now," the subject being "you as an individual."  This challenge is open to interpretation and you can add as much detail as you wish, and share whatever you wish to share about yourself. Hidden journaling for personal information is fine. There is one additional requirement for the challenge, and that is to incorporate the use of buttons into your creation.

This mini album is about Me, as I am now, in 2013, and is called "This is Me".  So one day, I will hopefully look back at this  little album and remember exactly what my life was like in this year.

It was actually quite easy to get my thoughts together for this project, as I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to journal and the points I wanted to highlight.

So firstly I wanted to have a photo of me, as I am now. Can you imagine me in 20 years time, looking back at this moment?

I also wanted to document what my life is all about and what is important to me.

Then I went on to document the things that I really enjoy and love! These are certainly the "stuff" of life!

I certainly had to have a picture of myself and my son in the album, as he is certainly the sunshine in my days! He has added so much joy and love to my life and is certainly one of the best things I have ever done! ;-)

Here is another picture of me and is adjacent to a big 42!! So that kinda tells you exactly where I am at! LOL!

So that is my "This is Me" album and I used some wonderful goodies from the Zeus and Zoe kit.

I loved the metal trinkets and rounds, the stick pins, the beautiful buttons and the wonderful laces and trims, the Prima Say it in Pearls, and so these were what I used throughout this album. 

I was also fortunate to have some Glamour Dust from DecoArt and this was really fabulous to colour the papers and metal round with.  The Zeus and Zoe Etsy store can be found 'HERE'.. and you can obviously purchase these wonderful goodies there.

It would be so super if you could join us for this challenge and we really hope to see your entry soon!

Just a reminder as so the wonderful prizes you could win:

Our main sponsor for May is kind enough to send some extra trim for a random winner this month..

The random winner will get trims from May Arts.