December 3, 2014 By Design Team Leave a Comment

Create and Inspire Mixed Media Art

Hello my dear crafty friends! This is my new project made for Ann Butler’s blog and this time I made a fancy, stamped into clay card using Ann’s stamps and inks and Makin’s clay and tools.

Supply list:

Cardstock: Black

Stamps: Stripes, Dots, Hearts 2”, Doily Picnic 2”, Leave all over 2”- Ann Butler

Inks and reinkers: Aquamarine, Limelight, Berry, Sunshine, Lilac, Tangelo- Clearsnap

Crackle clear paint-

Stickers: Paper House Productions

Dies: Cardmaker nesting dies- Cherry Lynn Designs

Clay: Makin’s White air dry clay

Tools: Makin’s round cutters

Glue: Becon Zip Dry

How to make this card:

1. Make a basic card with black cardstock.

Cut a frame from thin chipboard. Cover it with clear crackle paint and let it dry. Apply brown ink over the crackle frame.

2. Stamp a few different stamp patterns into white air dry clay and cut circles of stamped patterns with different cutter sizes. Let the clay dry. Ink the dry stamped clay circles with 6 colors of inks and let it dry. You can help it a bit with your heat gun, but the air dry results are the best.

3. Arrange the mix of dry clay circles over your black base and glue them with good permanent glue. Becon Zip Dry glue is a perfect one for this matter. Add a few drops from the same colors of inks re-inkers and let it dry.

4. Glue the frame over your “art piece” and adhere the frame and the sentiment stickers as shown.

Hope that you liked my project and that you got some ” out of the box ” inspiration.

October 6, 2014 By Vishu Reberholt Leave a Comment

Mixed Media Canvas Art with Ann Butler Designs

Hello to all my dear crafty friends! Vishu here today with a fun canvas project. I had a lot of fun creating this project and towards the end my hands looked just as colorful.

Products I used:

Ann Butler Designs Faux Quilt Stamps

Crafter’s Inks by Ann Butler Designs, Aquamarine, limelight, Berry

Earth Safe Finishes Iridescents by Ann Butler Designs – Aquamarine

EZ-De’s Flourish 2″ ABC’s by Ann Butler Designs

Tiffany Windsor’s Cool2Cast and black ink

First I prepared my mold using ‘Vishu Technique’ for cool2cast and the focal point of my canvas.

I prepared my canvas my sponge dabbing it with Crafter’s Inks by Ann Butler, Aquamarine, limelight, Berry and Earth Safe Finishes Iridescents by Ann Butler Designs in Aquamarine. Once my cast was ready I colored it using the iridescents limelight and berry colored inks. Finally I dabbed it with some black ink. After glueing it in place on the canvas I stamped the the Alphabhets with EZ-De’s Flourish 2″ ABC’s.

Thanks for stopping by……….

August 6, 2014 By Design Team Leave a Comment

EZ-De’s Stamps by Ann Butler Designs & COOL2CAST

Ann Butler Designs and Cool2Cast

I am still LOVING the COOL2CAST! (Available at Michael’s) I did a more simple project for the hop as I had not played with this fun product enough. Now I am not only addicted to Ann Buttler Stamps, but also COOL2CAST! Thanks so much Ann and Tiffany! So lets get started.

I bought a candy mold at a craft store. It is for an actual candy bar so it will break apart easy when I am done.

I started with the clear stamps. I used these as they are a bit thinner and I could lay them in the candy mold and not make it too deep.

This is the clear stamps placed in the bottom of the mold with the design side up.

Pour the COOL2CAST and let dry an hour. YES, ONLY ONE HOUR! They then pop out and finish drying completely.

This is how they come out of the mold. The stamps are still incased in the COOL2CAST.

All the stamps have been pulled out of the molds. The clear stamps work GREAT for this as they have some give to them and stretch without harming the image. Also you can now see all the rough edges so now it is time to clean up the dry tiles.

I used just a craft knife and a sanding Block.

Now I added the color. On this project I did use some brighter colors of refill inks!

I wanted to add some shine so added some Crystal Lacquer.

After the centers were dry I brushed more of the Crystal Lacquer onto the top and sides and let them dry completely.

Now I get to the pretty part! I used a burlap canvas, some ribbon, designer dries clear fabric glue, ribbon and my finished tiles.

I added the cool fabric/ribbon.

A close up of some of the textures.

One of the words up close!

This is the completed project! It is ready to hang on a wall or place on a small easel. I really like the textures and color. A fun and easy project thanks to Ann & Tiffany!

Happy Creating!

Kristi

July 26, 2014 By Ann Butler 46 Comments

Cool2Cast Ann Butler Designs Blog Hop Canvas

I am excited to be doing this blog hop with my Creative Girlfriend Tiffany Windsor and her fabulous product Cool2Cast. If you have not yet seen or tried Cool2Cast check out Tiffany’s YouTube Channel, it is filled with projects showcasing this Cool product along with how-to videos for getting perfect results.

I created this Mixed Media Canvas using the Cool2Cast and my Faux Quilting Stamps from Unity Stamp Company.

Here’s How:

I chose to use a heart silicone mold I found in the dollar section of a discount store to create my tiles. The one inch Faux Quilting Stamps fit into the top part of the hearts perfectly.

I mixed 2/3 cup of the Cool2Cast with 1/3 cup of water into a ziplock bag for about a minute. Then I cut a corner from the end of the bag and poured the Cool2Cast over the stamps into the mold.

I tapped the mold gently to remove a couple air bubbles and left the mold exactly where it was for one hour.

Then I turned the mold over and popped the pieces out.

The 4 hearts at the bottom of this picture were done without a stamp and came out perfectly shaped and smooth. The hearts that you see cracked are also perfect as they have the stamps in them, there is just a thin little layer of Cool2Cast that seeped under the stamp; to prevent this you can add a glue dot on the stamp before placing it into the mold. All I did was peel that thin layer away because…..

I knew I was going to be removing part of the heart to get the square shape of the stamps and that thin layer did not affect the cast of the stamp image. I was able to easily trim the excess heart away with a scissor right after I took them out of the mold to get the shape I wanted. I set those aside to harden overnight.

I used an 8″ x 10″ Canvas from Canvas Corp.

I added tissue paper with some Earth Safe Finishes Gel Medium and let it dry. Then I painted over it with Ann Butler Designs Iridescents in Limelight and let it dry.

I used PicMonkey.com to create the saying I wanted and then I printed it out onto Grafix Arts Vellum.

I pressed the top and sides of the Cool2Cast Quilt Squares I made into Ann Butler Designs Crafter’s Ink from Clearsnap in Berry then I heat set them with a heat gun.

After the squares were heat set I added a coat of Ann Butler Designs Iridescents in Berry to give them just a bit of shimmer. In the example photo above there are 3 Cool2Cast hearts, the first one is painted with one layer of Iridescents in Berry, to cover it nicely without a base coat it would take 2 or 3 applications. The second heart has the Crafter’s Ink in Berry, which is a matte finish. This would be perfect the way it is but I wanted just a bit of shine which is why I added the Iridescents over the the top, which is the third heart…..with the Crafter’s Ink as the base coat I only needed a light application of the Iridescents to give the heart the look I was going for.

Tiffany offers pre-cast pieces of Cool2Cast on the Cool2Cast web site and pictured above is one of those pieces, a beautiful heart which I painted with Iridescents in Limelight for the center and in Berry around the edges. At this point I was not sure which hearts I would use so I wanted to have them all ready when I assembled the canvas.

Once I was happy with the arrangement on the canvas I used a piecing tool to poke a hole in the canvas and vellum and placed brad in each corner to hold it in place. I decided to add just a touch of Crafter’s Ink in Night (black) onto the tops of each of the Cool2Cast Quilt Squares and the heart to give them some depth. Then I added some around the edges of the canvas also. I glued all of the Cool2Cast pieces in place.

Then I had the perfect silk ribbon to add to the bottom of the canvas.

I hung the canvas onto the wall with VELCRO® Brand Removable Picture Hangers.

I simply love how this turned out!

Since this is a Blog Hop Tiffany has put together an awesome prize package

of Cool2Cast items….to enter simply leave a comment here. For more chances to win and to see other great projects using Cool2Cast and Ann Butler Designs products check out the rest of the blog hop below and leave a comment for each of them.

Deadline for entering the giveaway is August 8th, 2014 at 11:59 pm.

Ann Butler (you are here)

Kristi Parker Van Doren

June 27, 2014 By Design Team 1 Comment

Journal Cover with Faux Quilting Ann Butler’s Stamps

Hello my dear crafty friends and welcome to my new monthly post made for Ann Butler’s blog.This time I am going to show you a bit of technique I used to make this altered book cover for my new art/memory journal. The chipboard parts are Tando Creative kit- easy to use and to made your own altered book.And this is a technique I used here: combo of stamping, heat embossing and painting , all in one.

Step 1: Stamp a pattern (all patterns used here are from Ann Butler’s Faux Quilting Unity sets and you can see the names and the store links later) over metallic cardstock. (It works over real metal sheets too, but I was short of those).

Step 2: Heat emboss your stamped patterns with Clear embossing powder

Step 3: Paint the embossed cardstock with a mix of gold, copper and black acrylic paints. As you can see I use the cheap, craft store paints and not those fancy acid free paints for this cover. Wipe the paint until you have a thin layer of it left over the stamped image and you like the color. If not- add more of the paint you want to be seen .

Step 4 and the last: Those 4 squares here were made just as a sample (will be used later for the cover corner embellishment cluster), so go on and make dozens of those squares with 2” stamps and let them dry.Cover the chipboard with a nice vintage looked paper; not much is seen after all.Now cut those pieces to uneven rectangles and squares and made your cover as shown here. Add gold foil tape in between the pieces and be sure to glue it to your cardstock pieces as this ” self- adhesive” tapes are really ” non- adhesive” ones. Paint the chipboard wavy pieces with copper paint, add a bit of copper embossing powder and a splash of black paint and embossing. Add the title.

And now I am going to show you my embellishment cluster. I made a punched circle form the 4 pieces square made as a tutorial as my subtitle base. Then I die cut the title with Die-Versions die form copper cardstock and heat embossed it with gold glitter embossing powder. I die cut the heart medallion from the same copper cardstock and inked it a bit with black ink around. All 3 circles were arranged to one central title piece and glued over the die cut flowers branch that was heat embossed with copper glitter embossing powder and copper pearls.

I hope you like my small tutorial and my finished project and would try to make something similar with those gorgeous Ann Butler’s Faux Quilting stamps.

PRODUCT LIST:

Ann Butler’s products:

Unity Faux Quilting stamps 2” Leaves all over

2” Doily Picnic

Other products:

Clearsnap black pigmented ink

WOW! Embossing Powders clear, copper, glitter gold, glitter copper powders

Tando Creative chipboard book kit

Die Versions dies

FWAB pearls

AC chipboard letters

Marion Smith paper

AC cardstock

See you again next month !

May 28, 2014 By Design Team Leave a Comment

Mixed Media Art with Ann Butler’s products.

Hello my dear crafty friends !

Irit is here and this is my monthly project made with Ann Butler’s gorgeous products.

This is a chipboard board that became a kind of an art Mixed Media project and I actually tried to show how we can use Ann Buter’s inks and stamps over the different surfaces.

So it’s not a real tutorial (almost impossible to make a Mixed Media project full tutorial , but with video); so I just show you the final result and give some tips.

The white artistic chipboard was covered with tissue paper first. Some tissue was with a pattern and some was just white one. I stamped all over the white tissue with permanent black ink and you can see all Ann’s stamps patterns over the board, mostly around the central space. Then I added some stencil’s writing about art with texture paste and then all the stamped and masked surface was inked with a mix of Ann Butler’s Crafters Clearsnap inks.

I added two masked circles with texture paste and white embossing powder and then inked over the embossed mask with some of Ann’s inks again.

So far we used Ann’s inks over glued tissue, over texture paste and over embossing powder and we can see how great it works over all of those surfaces.

Now for the next surfaces. I inked the wooden panel and as you can see the words are still visible.

The chipboard bird cage was inked over the bare chipboard ans I like this ” like vintage” result. The chipboard Honeycomb was inked with another Ann’s ink and so were the feather’s edges. Two burlap flowers were inked too and look at this perfect colored result!

Then I stamped over diamond chipboard pieces and inked over stamped images: great look again.

The only non Ann’s ink here are those stains over the old brush I added to this art piece.

Supply list

Ann Butler’s products

Clearsnap Crafters inks: Lilac, Sunshine, Aquamarine,Limelight, Berry

Ann Butler’s stamps:

Unity 2” Doily Picnic

2” Leaves all over

1” Diamonds and Plaids

Other products:

Chipboards, wood pieces: Creative Embellishments

Mask: TCW

Embossing powders: WOW! Embossing Powders

Burlap fowers: LYB

Tissue papers

May 2, 2014 By Vishu Reberholt 5 Comments

Mixed Media fun with Ann Butler Designs

Hello Everybody! its Vishu here, popping in to share my first ever mixed media art. I work with a great team as they inspired me to try something outside my comfort and I am so excited to share this project with you, so with no further delay…..

So what do you all think? I will be honest I was very nervous when I started my project

To make this wall hanging here are the main products needed, I also used stickles at the end to make it sparkly

So first I rolled the Makin’s Clay into a sheet, which was very easy to do and covered my piece of plywood.

The Makin’s clay shrinks slightly as it dries so I overlapped the edges and pinched them with my fingers, this way the shrinkage will not effect your project. Then I did some stamping with Ann Butler Designs Faux Quilt Stamps by Unity Stamp Company.

I absolutely had a blast coloring and just thinking about it makes me want to do another project right now :). I used baby wipes to color and add layers to my piece and I thought it was brilliant because I could wipe of the color if it did not look right. To color I used Crafter’s Inks by Ann Butler, Iridescents by Ann Butler and Distress inks.

To finish the project I added a broken hair clip I had saved a while ago and attached a wonderful quote

Now that I have discovered this world of mixed media there is no looking back, it was a lot of fun……….hope I have inspired you to try something new. Until next time…..

April 17, 2014 By Design Team 1 Comment

Mixed Media ART Panels

Happy Friday! Paula here to show a fun little Mixed Media Art. I now share my creative space with my teenage daughter. We are in the process of adding some new pieces. Here’s one that I just finished.

Start with a few supplies.

I had a 3-pack of 4×4 Burlap Panels that I purchased at a local craft store. I wanted a little texture, so I used Liquitex Modeling Paste and mixed a bit with Aquamarine Iridescents from Earth Safe Finishes.

After achieving the color you like, take a spatula and spread the paste on opposite corners of one of the panels and set aside to dry. The time will depend on the thickness of the paste. As you can see from the photo, mine was not too thick, so by the time I finished some other stamping, it was dry.

Please note the following steps can be pretty much done is any particular order. When doing a project like this, I will start a specific task, then come back at a later point and add additional steps. So, if you do choose to create, please read through before (just so you don’t get to a step and realize my image looks a bit different) 🙂

Using EZ-De’s Flourish Alphabet Stamps, stamp all 3 panels with A, R, T. You may have to work around wet paste.

Next, use 2″ Stripes.Dots.Hearts Faux Quilting Stamps by Ann Butler for Unity Stamp Company to randomly stamp on panels. I used only the Dots, but any of the patterns would have been an excellent choice! After stamping the dots, I used a dot stencil, a brush and the modeling paste on random areas of the tiles.

At this point, I put everything aside and let dry overnight. When returning, I used my Earth Safe Finishes Aquamarine Iridescent Paint around the edges of the panels. Using the same dot stencil as above, I stenciled the actual Aquamarine paint over the lighter paste/paint mixture, just to give a bit more dimension. I love the shimmer of this paint. The photo below shows it a little, but it really is gorgeous in person!

I used 3D Crystal Lacquer on top of each of the letters, as well as random other places on the panels.

Hang onto the wall with VELCRO® Brand Removable Picture Hangers.

That’s it – my happy Burlap ART panels! Thanks for stopping by and taking a look!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

April 14, 2014 By Ann Butler 31 Comments

Create ART Everyday – Stenciled, Stamped and Inked Canvas

Today I am pleased and honored to be part of my Creative Girlfriend Rebekah Meier’s 1st Blog Hop for her Brand New Stencil Line with The Crafter’s Workshop.

These stencils are wonderful and I am happy to say that they work beautifully with my line of Crafter’s Ink from Clearsnap. I created this Art Canvas for my studio by stenciling, stamping and inking it up!

Here’s how I created it:

I started by painting 2 canvases from Canvas Corp, (one 8″ x 10″ the other 5″ x 7″) with Berry Iridescents from Earth Safe Finishes.

I used Crafter’s Ink in Aquamarine, Lilac and Bark with Rebekah’s Rosetta and Stain Glass Stencils, layering with Earth Safe Finishes Gesso and more of the Berry Iridescents covering up a bit of the stenciling in the process. I also heat set the Crafter’s Ink once I was happy with placement, the cool thing about this ink is that if you ink something up and do not like how it turned out just take a baby wipe and remove it before heat setting….now that is cool!

I stamped out “Create ART” and “Every Day” with EZ-De’s 2″ Flourish Alphabet Stamps onto tissue paper to fit the canvases with Bark ink and heat set.

I applied the stamped tissue paper to the canvases using Earth Safe Finishes Decoupage bringing the tissue paper down over the edges of the canvases, let dry.

I stenciled in several move places onto the canvases to give more depth. Then I put the two canvases together and stenciled over the two two of them where they would meet when hanging for a continuous pattern, heat set.

I had these great metal photo corners I wanted to use although they were different colors….

So the solution was simple, I used Crafter’s Ink in Berry to color the photo corners, then I heat set, applied some Berry Iridescents on the top to highlight and added some Crafter’s Ink in Bark to the edges and heatset again. Then I glued them onto the corners of the canvases with Beacon’s Adhesives Quick Grip.

I also stenciled the sides of the canvases and inked up the edges.

I drilled holes into the bottom of the “Create ART” canvas and added eye screws then I drilled two holes in the top of the “Every Day” canvas added open ended eye screws so that they will attach easily to each other.

I hung them onto the wall using VELCRO® Brand Removable Picture Hangers…

Layering the stencils and using several colors of ink gave this project depth and I loved how it turned out

March 7, 2014 By Design Team 3 Comments

Mixed Media Home Decor with EZ-De’s

The Finished Product

Today I am sharing a fun and easy project to help SPRING happen, at least in my home! I used a variety of products and feature the fabulous ink and stamps from Ann Butler Designs! I am IN LOVE with these products and enjoy creating with them. I used three different sets. I used two of Ann’s designs from the EZ-De’s Stamp line & the other is from Unity Stamps.

Other products Used:

SmoothFoam/Craft Attitude: Scrapbook Attitude/Kaiser Crafts/Connie Crystal/John Bead Dazzle-its/Golden Paint/Prima Flowers/Beacon Adhesives/Dreamweaver Stencils/Worldwin Paper/Xyron Sticker Maker

1. To create your own master piece you start by painting the substrate, ie, foam board. Pain the hexagon shapes from Kaiser crafts at the same time.

2. While this was drying the photo was printed Craft Attitude Film. Being in the SPRING mode, the Dreamweaver Tulip card was chosen to make larger. Before printing the image was flipped so when attached to the substrate it would be facing preferred direction.

3. The letters for S P R I N G were stamped in Orange and cut out. They were then run through the sticker maker.

4. Braid the Love Knots from John Bead. Helpful Hint: coat the ends with an adhesive so when they are cut to length they stay braided. (Beacon Zip Dry was used on this project.

5. Add a punch of color to the flowers with some of Ann’s Ink. Make a water color of sorts with a small amount of water adding ink color from the pad with a brush. Apply directly to the flowers and let dry.

6. Using a spray adhesive apply the Craft Attitude Film to the substrate. Press firmly then peel the back from the film.

7. Stamp the now dry hexagons with the matching shape stamp. This was done using three colors. The clear stamps and clear handle make it EZ to align. Each piece was then edged with the same color of ink to make the image POP!

8. It is difficult to see but there are stamped squares from Doily Picnic down the left side in yellow ink.

9. Go around the entire piece with the green ink and just lightly go over the foam edge.

10. Attach the Hexagon Pieces to the left of the tulip photo.

11. Attach the Crystal Sheet from Connie Crystal towards the bottom of the piece. The pointed part was created by cutting sections/pieces of the Crystal Sheet and filling in. (see above)

12. Frame out the rest of the photo with the Lovely Knots braid. One corner was tied to add more interest and to make the braid go around the corner. The Braid was also just touched with the green ink to add the color.

13. Add the small flowers to the left of the hexagons.

14. Add the single line of Crystal Sheet over the yellow stamped images on the left.

15. Attach the letters to the right side and add Crystal Sheet pieces to fill in the P/R.

16. Add the final flower on the bottom right after tapping it on the orange ink pad.

17. Place the piece in your home or give as a gift!

The Finished Product

Happy Spring! Kristi Kristi Parker Designs