How To Make An Altered Birdhouse

Posted by ChrissyTina (Christina):


The latest trend in altered items has caught me by surprise!  Birdhouses!  I remember when I first saw these, I honestly wasn't that interested in them.  And then I gave them a second look.  All of the sudden I just had to do one!  And then one turned into two and two into three until I had four of them done- one for each of my kids.


Now when it comes to altering objects, I tend to use a lot of paints, stains, and other such items because I have THE HARDEST time covering things in paper.  The paper always ends up too big or to small or crooked.  Absolute madness!  


It's enough to drive anyone wonky!  And then the idea occurred to me.  STAIN!  I love wood grain and how with stains you can see the beautiful patterns in the wood.  Why not just use that as an embellishment in itself?  So I did.


This first house is my "Steampunk'd" house.  I used Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze in "Cowboy" and "Chianti".  The main body of the house is done using "Cowboy".  The trims and between the slats of the roof is stained with "Chianti".

 

I chose these two stains knowing that I had planned on using Graphic 45's "Steampunk Debutante".  The deep rich Chianti and the rustic Cowboy complimented these papers perfectly without being too harsh. 


I wanted to soften the typical steampunk look so I chose embellishments that were feminine and full of detail.  I used gears as more of a background theme.

 

The easiest way to tackle one of these types of projects is to work in layers.  Knowing what you want your end result to be is also very helpful.  My first layer was the stain.  While that was drying, I picked out the images from the papers that I wanted to use and fussy cut them.  I usually always pop dot things from the surface because it breathes a kind of life and interest into the piece.

 

So my second layer were the border strips I punched for the trim of the roof, the ball chains, and any images that were not being pop dotted up.  On the third layer were my final touches- things that were pop dotted. 
If you look closely at some of the images and the trim on the front of the house, you will see crackling.  I used Ranger's Crackle Accents to age these pieces and give them a more industrial yet vintage look.

 

In keeping with the soften steampunked theme, I added a Tim Holtz game spinner to the butterfly.  As a final touch, I lightly sprayed the whole house with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in "Iridescent Gold".  Nothing beats a subtle sparkle!

Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to be a bit detail oriented.  So naturally, I did the back of the house too.  Because it is the back, I kept it pretty simple and not very indepth.  I cut out an image that just captivated me and stuck on there...with pop dots of course!

If you keep in mind to take things one layer at a time and apply this approach, then any altered item will be easy to do.  In each of the following pieces, I worked in layers and the end result is always kept in focus.


On my second birdhouse, I used Graphic 45's "Once Upon A Springtime" and embellishments from Tim Holtz and Bo Bunny.  The paint is just white gesso and Adirondack's "Lettuce Green" paint dabber.

Click for more views

 
 
The next birdhouse is made using Graphic 45's "Magic of Oz".  This one used A LOT more fussy cutting and more layers.  I wanted to convey the scene where Dorothy and friends are crossing the poppy field to the Emerald City.  Each side of the house shows a particular scene.  I used Making Memories acrylic paint in "Pine" and Glitter Paint in "Seafoam".  Embellishments are Tim Holtz. 

Click for detailed view

  

The final birdhouse uses Graphic 45's "Le Cirque" collection.  I wanted this house to feel and look like the Big Top!

 

 
 
I hope you enjoyed looking at these birdhouses and feel inspired to do some of your own.  Just remember-  think in terms of layers and keep your end result in focus.  You won't believe me when I tell you that it took me about 2 to 2.5 hours to do each house.  That's it!  Have fun!  Get messy!  And stay creative!
 
Thanks to ACOT for letting play with these products!

Paper Crafting With Zoology By Bo Bunny

Posted by bluejeans7 (Angela):

I know that some of us have a hard time scrapping "themed" lines and a zoo line can be very hard to work with.  I think that Bo Bunny does a beautiful job with the Zoology line.  I love all the different animal print pattern papers, plus the other zoo patterns that go so well with them.  

All of the embellishments are great!  You have cardstock stickers, die-cuts, borders, journaling pieces, chipboard pieces, brads, stamps, trinkets, and even some bling!  It's a great line to scrap with and I plan on ordering me more!  LOL!

 

How Much Is That Gorilla In The Window?:   

I have found it that when you scrap a large photo it's sometimes hard to find a balance between using not enough or too many embellishments.  I decided to keep things simple by using only three different pattern papers, a large die-cut (behind my photo), a border strip and a border chipboard cut-out.  

I think the couple of oversized embellishments are just the right balance with my 6x9 photo.  And this was a photo that I really wanted to highlight and not overshadow.

 

Beary Special Friends:  

Sometimes it's fun to go back to the "old school" days of scrapbooking when stickers were the hot embellishment.  I really like all the different kinds of cardstock stickers that are in this line.  There are animals, borders, sayings and even three different sets of letter stickers.  Stickers may not be the "must have" embellishment for a lot of people but I still love to use them.

 

Can We Take Him Home?:  

On my last layout I had so much fun mixing and layering these cool pattern papers.  And for my embellishments I went wild with the fun chipboard pieces.  I used one for my journaling and even layered some of the circle chipboard pieces on the circle design of the pattern paper.

 

Bookmarks:  

Most of you have seen photos of my new scrapbook room and know that I love leopard, zebra, tiger and giraffe prints.  I also love to read so I just had to make myself some bookmarks with this line.  I totally love all four of these bookmarks!

 

 

Altered Pen Holder:  

To finish off my reveal I very simply (because I like my altered items that way.  LOL!) altered this plain brown pen holder.  Here's both the front and back sides.  I think I will be ordering more of the Zoology line so I can alter more items for my scrapbook room.

 

 

 

Products Used:

               
   

Paper Crafting With Dots And Stripes From Echo Park Paper

Posted by SarahA (Sarah):

When I first saw Echo Park's announcement about the Dots and Stripes lines, I wasn't that excited. It seemed like a boring neutral line that I might pick up a piece or two of. When my reveal time came around for June, though, I gave it another look and I'm so glad I did! 

These lines coordinate perfectly with all of their previous lines, they work well with each other and they're great all on their own! These two lines really are the ultimate in scrapping any type of event!

High Flying Fun
 

The first layout I did used papers from the Candy Shoppe collection. I found a clip art kite online, resized it in 3 different sizes, then traced them onto 3 of the papers. I used twine for the kite strings and cut ties from the brown paper. The alphas included were the perfect size and font for this layout, and the element stickers had a ton of journaling shapes and labels to choose from for adding a little extra "something". The background paper is from the Life is Good line- see how it perfectly coordinates with the Candy Shoppe papers?

Tigers vs. Yankees
 

The second layout I did mixed the Navy from the Metropolitan line and the Mango from the Candy Shoppe line. I layered them on white cardstock for a base for my photos. The banner flag stickers in the corner were just perfect for this layout! 

I added some stars cut from the paper and an October Afternoon sticker in the middle for a little extra embellishment, and this page was done. Simple enough using only two sheets of patterned paper and minimal embellishment, but still fun and eye-catching! By the way, the Tigers won! ;)

Sew Busy
 

I wanted to do a page with some of my sewing projects from this year, but I didn't need a lot of room to tell a story or for lots of photos, so I decided to do an 8.5 x 11"  page. Again, I mixed the Metropolitan (teal and black) and Candy Shoppe (watermelon) lines for this page. 

I resized my photos to 2x3" to fit on the shipping tags, then adhered them and stitched the tags on. The Metropolitan alphas were perfect on this layout against the pink  paper, so I adhered, then stiched them on, running back and forth with my sewing machine several times. 

One of the journaling stickers from the Metropolitan element sticker sheet made a nice little embellishment at the bottom paired with some Maya Road chipboard sprayed with Black  Licorice Maya Mist.

Preschool Graduate
 

I again mixed papers from both Dots & Stripes lines- Navy and Ruby Red from Metropolitan and Mango from Candy Shoppe. The green paper from the Life is Good line shows again how these lines coordinate so well with their previous releases. 

I made a little cluster of embellies using the 1,2,3 stickers from the Playground line, a layered apple from the Ruby Red paper cut with my Slice, and a sticker and tin pin from October Afternoon. If you're in need of some basic, primary colored papers and stickers for some recent end of year school photos (or you're catching up on a year's worth of school stuff), this line is absolutely perfect for that!

 

Products used in this reveal: