Blue Fern Studios: Journals

Showing posts with label Journals. Show all posts

Thursday, February 27, 2014

February Projects w/Erin Blegen

Good morning, my Blue Fern Studios friends!

Erin Blegen here with you today to share my February projects. I have a bit of a variety for you, so I hope you have a moment to scroll on through :)

"Snapshots" Canvas

What I tried to focus on this month was specializing each piece with some special chipboard, and showing how you can create something great without a ton of effort. As you can see here, I've left this chipboard film strip raw. I loved the contrast against my brightly colored canvas and it was just what I needed to tone this project down and ground it appropriately.

I really tried to take advantage of this film strip and use its openings to showcase embellishments and even my title quote.

Blue Fern Studios Products Used:

Film Strips

On my next two projects I've showcased the "Blue Fern Garden" paper collection.

First, I have a card to share:

"You Are So Loved" Card

I'm still so blown away by the incredibly realistic details on these papers. Look at that butterfly- doesn't it appear to be dimensional, ready to fly away? It's hard to believe that this is a flat patterned paper!

I've chosen to showcase one of the Royal Page Baubles pieces on this card. I first painted it with gesso before using a chalk ink to stamp a design over top. Before the ink had an opportunity to dry, I dusted it with clear embossing powder and set with a heat gun. Finally, I backed the middle of the chipboard piece with a transparency.

Blue Fern Studios Products Used:

Blue Fern Garden: Parlour

Royal Page Baubles

Finally, I have a handmade notebook/mini album/journal to share :)

"Blue Fern Garden Journal"

The base of this journal is cardboard from an empty cereal box. I covered it with Blue Fern Garden papers before hand stitching several pages into the inside.

A really great feature of these papers is it offers the best of both worlds: fantastic imagery which allows you to minimalize your own embellishing, and amazing background papers which work great with mixed media and journaling while providing a pleasant contrast to the more bold papers.

Blue Fern Studios Products Used:

Blue Fern Garden Collection

Romantic Page Dangles

Thank-you for stopping by today!
Have you finished off your submission for our sketch challenge yet? We have a short month this month, so don't delay- the challenge closes tomorrow!

Monday, May 27, 2013

Marcasite Technique and some Tags too!

Yea!! It’s the 27^th day of the month! And, you know why I like that day of the month so much? It’s because it’s my assigned day to share with our inspiring and supportive Followers what I have been working on for BFS. I am Joyce, and I hope I can inspire you to try out this Marcasite technique to use on some of your BFS chipboard pieces. It is really quite effective on chipboard and renders a jewel like quality. The technique is easy to apply, and I’ve created two different pieces to share with you using the same technique.

Bargain Bin Journal featuring the Organic Vine Corner chipboard.

Close up of Marcasite Technique

Here’s how I obtained the look of Marcasite on the chipboard above.

1) Apply an acrylic gold metallic paint, or an metallic ink from a stamp pad, to your chipboard and let it dry.

2) Visualize where you want to apply your Marcasite application to rest and apply either (a) a liquid pearl product, or (b) an application of glitter in small dots, or (c) add self-adhesive pearls or rhinestones on your pattern, and allow any wet product to dry thoroughly before continuing on to the next step. I alternated an application of a liquid pearl product and a glitter dot on my first example.

3) Use a small paint brush and dip it in a dark grey, black or vertigris colored mist and apply the mist with your paint brush all around your pearls/rhinestones/glitter dot design and set to dry. Wipe up any excess mist that may get on to other areas of the chipboard that are not in alignment with your Marcasite design. You may need to apply another coat for more drama because the acrylic metallic paint may produce a resistance. If this happens, then try a watered down black acrylic paint on your paint brush instead of the colored mist.

4) Once the mist or paint has dried, use a moistened Q-tip to clean off the mist or paint on the pearls/rhinestones so that the radiance of the pearl/rhinestones show through.

5) Then using your fingers, apply an ivory/gold metallic paste or paint around the edges of the Marcasite technique to bring back the radiance of the original gold metallic paint application. This last application really shows up well in the door knocker chipboard tag featured below because there was more surface space available on that particular chipboard design.

The rest of the Organic Vine Corner chipboard was spritz with other colors and metallic paint was applied as well.

An image transfer technique was used on the bargain bin journal cover and it produced a lovely worn and vintage fabric appeal. It actually feels like fabric to. The technique works well when using brightly colored pattern paper. I’ve use the same technique on some of BFS gears and widget chipboard and it rendered really nice results. You’ll see an additional example of the technique used on the chipboard on one of the tags below. The Image Transfer technique will be posted on my personal blog this week.

Marcasite Technique

Embossing Technique

Image Transfer applied on first Widget

Here are pictures of the products I have used in this months project:

Organic Vine Corner

Ironwork Accents

Widgets

I hope you give the marcasite technique a try too!

Monday, April 1, 2013

Introducing: Our Monthly Sketch Challenge!

Hello Blue Fern Studios fans! We're very excited to announce that we will be kicking off the new month with our very first monthly sketch challenge! If you love our chipboard designs, then you are certain to love our sketches- they are designed by the very same fabulous talent, Michele Singh!

Let's take a look at what she's created to kick-start your creativity, along with some inspiration from some of our design team members:

Gorgeous, isn't it?! Let's see what those design team members came up with:

As you can see, there are many ways to interpret this sketch! Feel free to flip or turn it as you like, mirror it, whatever- although we of course would like to see that your project was indeed inspired by our sketch. And the rules are simple:

1. You must use at least one piece of Blue Fern Studios chipboard in your entry (any piece of your choosing). If you're wondering where to buy, see the link HERE!

2. Please do not use any other brand of chipboard.

3. Upload your projects using the Inlinkz tool below by midnight EST on April 30th, 2013.

That's it! And for your efforts, one randomly drawn winner will receive this fabulous arrangement of Blue Fern Studios chipboard:

So why not have a go at our sketch this month? We simply cannot WAIT to see what you will do with it!

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Want to Catch Your Dreams....

Hello everyone. Joyce here, hoping to inspire you to create your own dream catcher too. I've been seeing a lot of reference to dream catchers in movies, books, and while surfing the net, and I found the idea fascinating. Of course, if you're like me, once you've been bitten by the inspiration bug, you just have to give a try and see what comes of it.

I found an ugly journal in a bargain bin at a craft store and applied gesso to the cover. Once the gesso dried, I then started applying mists, paints, fusible webbing and stamps to create an earthy looking cover to go with the theme of the dream catcher. The Floral Clock just so happened to be the perfect size for the journal and here's what I did to create a dream catcher out of it.

1.Cut out the floral circular portion of the clock and apply a layer of gesso over the entire chipboard, allow to dry.

2.Spray Expresso Adirondak over a few parts of the chipboard, set to dry.

3. Spray Shimmerz Sea Foam over other areas of the chipboard that were not covered with the Expresso Adirondak spray, set to dry.

4. Apply antique gold Rub’N Buff over a few areas of the chipboard.

5. Glue a piece of netting behind your chipboard, set to dry.

6. Apply glitter and micro beads on various parts of the chipboard with glue.

7. Add feathers, shells and beads to beautify your dream catcher.

Caution: The Rub’N Buff product is flammable so be careful when you’re using your heat gun.

Inside of the cover of the journal: The clock face was treated with white crackle paint, and sprayed with the same mists as was used on the circular part of the chipboard. A brown watercolor pencil was used in the small crevices. Add some Glimmer Glam sparingly on top of the clock and set to dry.

Easy, right?

Here's another project featuring the Brigitte Butterfly Chipboard.

One of the Brigitte Butterfly chipboards was immersed in water to break down the chipboard and split in two. One-half of the chippie was set aside to dry flat, and the other was treated with a little fabric stiffener, gently folded over (do not crease) and set on a lid on a bowl and allowed to dry. Apply tacky glue with your fingers over the chippies sparingly (don’t cover up the entire chipboard) and sprinkle some Stampendous Enamel Embossing powder over them. Heat set the embossing powder with your heat gun, and watch the lacy appearance emerge from the embossing powder. Apply some color glaze paint over the embossing treatment sparingly. The same application was applied to the one of the Blue Fern Studios nesting circle chipboard as well. I used a Design Honey Sketch on this layout.

We hope you found some inspiration today to create something fabulous with your Blue Fern Studios Chipboard.

Thanks for looking.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Two projects with Irina Gerschuk

Hi there my dear scrappy friends))))

It's Irina with you today. And I'd like to share with you my two new projects.

First one is a LO. On the photo is my little sister. Well, maybe not so little any more... She is almost 12 years old now and has her own opinion about everything)))) For example not long ago she decided not to photo ever again. Thanks the Universe, Alexandra loves scrapbooking! So after all she agreed to stand in front of my camera for a few minutes)))

And here are some close-ups:
I mixed six different kinds of BFS chippies in this LO. Different designs perfectly match and complement each other! And it was so much fun to play with them)))

I used Blue Fern Frame as a mask here. It looks amazing!

The designs of some of the chippies are so delicate that it was not hard to gave them more dimension by bending them and passing between other embellishments:

It took quite a time to realize how to finish the composition on the top. But after all I saw a swirly heart from the Heart Set and took a little piece from it that matched all the flourishes.

All the BFS chippies I covered with white embossing powder and than added a little bit of bronze emboss powder as a second layer. I was trying to achieve some shabby effect (as an old paint or rust).

And here are the Blue Fern Studios products I used for the LO:

Blue Fern Frame (074325):