Summer memories - Olya & Aggie

 August is a perfect time for preserving and conservation. Some people preserve fresh fruit and vegetables for winter, some sundry herbs and flowers from their garden, and others start to preserve their summer memories. We are more of that last type :) Therefore our projects in the summer usually reflect some events, experiences, or just flashbacks of the season. 

-OLYA-

This particular canvas has been inspired by the incredible coast of South Frace, Cote d'Azur. Everything you can think of when imagining the perfect seaside holidays can be found there. 

- AGGIE -

This time for our joint post I decided to make a layout. Mediterranean Heaven collection and Sicilia collection perfectly match photo of my daughter.

Sunflower Thank You Teacher Cards

 Hi Loves! 

I never make school or teacher cards because usually those type of cards are very minimalistic, well and i am the opposite. But i received a messaged from i customer asking for a card with sunflowers for a teacher. I said ill give it a try since i already had the paper but then my crazy mind decided i needed to do the flowers as well. Long story short both me and the customer absolutely loved the cards.

Mediterranean style cards - Gida & Aggie

 Finally proper summer arrived to Ireland and we can enjoy sun and hot weather. You don't even have to go anywhere for holiday because we'd like to invite your for mediterranean journey. This month Aggie & Gida decided to make some mediterranean theme cards for their joint post. Enjoy!

- GIDA -

For my part of the Joint Post I made a set of cards using the Mediterranean Heaven from Mintay Papers. I also made lemons from air dry clay to accompany the collection and some Snipart chipboards. Its Mediterranean Heaven for sure!

- AGGIE -

Here is another card made out of Sicilia collection by Ciao Bella. This time I decided to make some wedding card using this collection. Wouldn't be the perfect wedding?

Altered Bottles

 

I don't know about you but I am a hoarder of bottles and jars of interesting shapes and sizes and decided it was a time I made a dint in the pile so that I could fill my Candy Cart from a next blog post with something decorative but still functional. 

The process for all of these items is the same. Firstly you need to clean the jars throughly and degrease the outside with alcohol  - hand sanitizer with do the trick and I am sure we all have plenty of that at home. Once cleaned I then applied bonding primer and let it dry. You will find it is better to use two layers - paint with a brush the first layer, let dry thoroughly and then dabb on the second layer and dry again.

Once prepped the bottles can be altered in lots of ways. I knew that I wanted to add rice papers to most of the jars and they are definitely best applied over a pale surface so the true colour shows. So I took my jars and added co-ordinating paint from Pentart over the jars and once dry applied white crackle paste varrying the thickness to get different sized cracks and giving me the white surface to add the rice papers too. To adhere the rice papers I used decoupage glue - mod podge or watered down PVA will work too. Once the images had dried in place I added splatters of paint to co-ordinate with the images.

 The rice papers I used were everyday a fresh start for the purple flowers and mantel clock image.

For the pink flowers I used the bouquet of roses rice paper.

For the last jar I actually used  paper from the Rose Parfume paper pad wrapping it around the center of the jar and adding the words which were fussy cut out.

My issue with using jars and bottles is how to disguise the thread for the lid which I did not want to use. My way of solving this was to wind string around the tops and secure in place before adding co-ordinating shabby ribbons and then some silk flowers that went with the papers though I am thinking that the new fabric flowers would work just as well.

I do hope you have enojoyed reading this and it encourages you to use the products in your stash and upcycle some of the jars we all have instead of throwing them in the bin.