Altered Art Mouse Trap

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first post as a regular design team member for Gina's Designs Lasercut Chipboard.  I am so excited to be here as a regular designer.  I love Gina's chipboard, and the ideas just seem to flow from me whenever I look at her designs. 

I was at my stamp club meeting a few weeks ago and we were altering mouse traps.  These make fabulous little note holders.  I had taken some of my Gina's Designs chipboard with me, and I thought, why not share my project with you.  

You can purchase mouse traps quite inexpensively from dollar stores, as well as hardware stores.  The first thing I did was remove the holding bar and the u-clip.  See photo below. 

You can paint the base platform or cover it with paper by working around the spring and hammer, you can carefully slide your paper beneath it and glue it down.  Be very careful lifting the hammer so you do not get your finger pinched.  

Sanded the platform first.  Then painted it with Broken China, Peeled Paint, and Tarnished Brass distress paints.  I added the ART image to the top section, adding more paint around the image to make it blend into the background.

I used an awl to hold the hammer up while working in that area. I next cut little pieces from the Diamonds Texture Sheet, painting it with the same colors as the platform.  I adhered them, as shown.

I cut away a small piece of the dress form so I can place it around the u-clip that holds the hammer and springs in place, and then I painted it and a key plate with Rusty Hinge distress ink.  I then distressed the edge of the dress form with Gathered Twigs distress ink, and heat embossed the key plate with Versamark ink and rust embossing powder.  

Insert two tiny brads through the key plate holes and adhere both shapes to platform.

Paint small dragonfly with Silks Cool Water, Teal Zircon, and Sunburst Silks Acrylic Glaze.  

I painted small butterfly with Ginger Peach, Sunburst, and edge with Bolivian Blue Silks Acrylic Glaze.  Peridot glitter was added to wings, and Amber glitter to butterfly body.

Cut two sections from the Border Sticks Lace strip, color with Rusty Hinge, Tarnished Brass,  Broken China, and Peeled Paint distress paint.  Adhere to top of platform.  Add Cream Pearl Pen dots to upper right corner and three in lower portion.

Use an awl to start a hole at the bottom center of the platform, insert a screw eye.  Heat emboss key with Versamark ink and  Rusty Nail embossing powder, then two clock hands with Patina embossing powder.  Hang from screw eye with a jump ring.  

Supplies used:

Gina's Designs:  Dressforms and Wings Shape Set,

 Keys and Plates Shape Set, 

Texture Sheet Diamonds,

 Butterflies and Dragonflies,

 Border Sticks Lace, 

Clock Hands Shape Set

ColourArte: 

 Silks Acrylic Glaze - Ginger Peach, Sunburst, Bolivian Blue, Cool Water, Teal Zircon

I Create, Therefore I Am collage sheet (Altered Pages)

Mouse Trap

Peridot and Amber Glitter Liner, Cream Pearl Pen (VivaDecor)

Ink Pads:  Versamark, Gathered Twigs Distress Stain

Distress Paints: Broken China, Peeled Paint, Rusty Hinge, Tarnished Brass

Embossing Powders: Rust, Patina, Rusty Nail

Mini screw brads, screw eye, jump ring

Beacon Quick Grip Glue

I hope you enjoyed my project and that I have inspired you to create one of these fun little note holders for friends, or keep some for yourself.  Add a magnet to the back to hang it on the fridge to keep your grocery list nearby, or hang it on the wall to keep your notes and reminders.

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to visit Gina's Designs blog every day for more inspiration from the team, and check out the online store for more great shapes for all of your art projects.    

Have a wonderful and creative weekend!

Barbara

Father's Day Cards

Hi everyone!  Barbara here with my third post as Gina's Designs guest designer for June.  This has been a thrilling experience for me, and next month, I will be posting regularly as a member of their design team.

With Father's Day right around the corner, I thought I would make a couple of vintage cards of the masculine variety.  We gals find it so hard, sometimes, to leave the flowers and lace and other frilly things aside, so I hope I can help you out a bit today.

I call my first card "Family Man".

I first layered the "hats" paper onto a dark brown card stock layer, and then onto my base kraft card.  I cut a few of the printed papers to layer over that, edging each with brown distress ink.  

I next colored each of my laser cut chipboard pieces from the three sets listed below.

"Family"was colored with Dark Brown, Creamy Brown, Bisque, and Tangerine chalk inks.   Creamy Brown was used to add the ribbon around the hat and add highlights.

The hat was colored with Dark Brown, Creamy Brown, and Bisque chalk inks.   Creamy Brown was used to add the ribbon around the hat and add highlights.

The pocket watch was inked with the Brilliance Platinum Planet, then embossed with the Retro Circles embossing folder.  The raised areas were highlighted with Dark Brown chalk ink.  A metal clock face, hands and brad were attached to the face of the pocket watch.

The balloon base was colored with Blue Lagoon and Creamy Brown chalk inks.  I trimmed a small piece of the diamonds texture sheet to fit over the balloon, which was colored with Tangerine and Yellow Cadmium chalk ink.  When dry, the diamond texture was glued to the top of the balloon.

I used my Silhouette machine to cut the word "Man" from dark brown card stock and adhered all of the pieces to the card, as shown.

My second card is called "Handy Man".

I first layered the "rulers" paper onto my base kraft card, edging with Vintage Photo distress ink.

I used my Silhouette machine to cut out the words "Handy Man" from dark brown card stock.  I used tan and rust colored chalk pencils to add some dimension, and after adhering the letters, I shaded the words with a charcoal pencil and blending stump.

Each of the chipboard pieces were colored similarly as for the previous card, with just a few differences.  For the hammer head, I added a bit of the Brilliance Cosmic Copper over the Platinum Planet to give it a bit of a brass or coppery look.

The bike was painted a bit differently, as well.  I used Pitt Big Brush pens to color the tires (black), the seat (brown), and the metal part of the bike (white & cobalt turquoise), while coloring the spokes with a silver Krylon leafing pen.   Tiny metal gears were added to the bike wheels and randomly on the card front, and also some metal screw heads.

Two of the larger gears are Gina's Designs chipboard, which were heat embossed using Versamark ink and Rust Tapestry embossing powder.  To get a richer orange rust color, I added Rusty Hinge distress ink over the embossing powder.

Gina's Designs supplies used:

Miniatures Shape Set - Guy Thing

Words & Phrases 1

Texture Sheet - Diamonds

Other supplies used:

Pre-folded Kraft Card (5" x 7" )

Brown card stock (4-3/4" x 6-3/4")

Paper Pad: 6x6 Garment District (Marion Smith); Rock Island Route 4.5" x 6.5" pad (Paper Studio)

Silhouette cut file and machine ("Man" - used Segoe Script font)

Ink Pads: Dark Brown, Creamy Brown, Bisque, Charcoal, Blue Lagoon, Yellow Cadmium, Tangerine, Chestnut Roan Chalk (Colorbox); Platinum Planet Brillance, Cosmic Copper, Versamark (Tsukineko); Vintage Photo, Black Soot, Rusty Hinge Distress (Tim Holtz)

Embossing Folders:  Retro Circles embossing folder

Clock hands, metal screw heads (Prima); Metal clock face (Tim Holtz), tiny metal gears (Bead Landing)

Pitt Big Brush Pens (Faber-Castell): Black, Brown, White, Cobalt Turquoise

Krylon silver leaf pen

Rust Tapestry embossing powder

Charcoal Pencil & blending stump

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you enjoyed my cards today and perhaps be inspired to make some masculine cards for those men in your life with this fabulous "Guy Things" shape set from Gina's.  

Have a wonderful and creative week! 

Barbara