Altered Birdhouse

Happy Wednesday!  Sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately but I am happy to be able to share with you my project for this week at Heartfelt Creations... I'm always trying to figure out new ways of using all the wonderful products that HC offers in new and creative ways!  Of course I love creating cards and scrapbook pages but sometime you just have to do something else and the last few weeks I've been working on the something elses to get my creative juices going... it helps to changes things up a bit at time or lese things even hobbies start feeling like a task.  So here is the super cute and easy little birdhouse I came up with this week.

 Here is the how you can recreate this lovely birdhouse yourself... It's really simple I promise.  Here is what I used but these could all be easily substituted for what you have in your stash.

HCD 702 Decorative Butterfly-Border Die  the border strip is what I used for the roof.
HCD 714 Decorative Layered Basket Die the vine is the perfect size for this kind of project especially when paired with the smaller vine from the Chateau Gate collection
HCD 718 Decorative Chateau Gate Die
HCD 701 Posy Patch Die  these are some of my favorites there is no limits to the types of flowers you can make with this set.
HCPC 3303 Posy Patch Flowers PreCut Set how easy is it when you can punch out the flowers instead of cutting them out... this cuts my time in half!
472186 Rose Creations Shapeabilities I love mixing my leaves it adds interest and flexibility to any cluster.
472123 Foliage Shapeabilities

Other Products: Wooden birdhouse, Delta Creamcoat acrylic paint – Dark Burnt Umber & Ivory, Folkart Crackle Medium, Pattern Paper – Brown & Greed, pink cardstock, Vintage Photo Distress Ink, Martha Stewart red Pigment Ink, BoBunny timepiece jewels

Directions:

Paint entire birdhouse in brown; apply a thick coat of crackle medium around the walls of the birdhouse and with a coat of ivory paint.  Make sure you allow each layer to dry completely; a heat gun can be used to speed up the process.  Be careful when using a heat tool to keep it far away from the project or else the crakle with bubble up.  If it does bubble it is OK it adds to the overall distressed worn look I was going for with this.  I confess that I am NOT the best painter in the world!  LOL!  When I was painting the walls I got some paint on the edges and under the roof so I added some paint randomly to those areas to make it look as though I wanted it that way!  Makes the whole thing appear shabbier which is right in line with my project so don't worry about perfection.

Cut a 4” strip of brown paper and punch out enough border pieces to cover the roof, I used 16.  Ink the edges and the sides of the birdhouse with vintage photo.  Arrange the strips along the roof, curling the edges and offsetting the design, trim off the excess and add a strip to finish the peak of the roof, again ink around the edges.  

Cut out leaves & vines using the dies listed above, ink the edges with vintage photo and arrange the vines around the birdhouse as desired.  I found that by combining the vines I could get a much better look to my project.  I also wanted to have the vines wrap around my house so that the sides flow with the front of the house.  I love the way that turned out, you can see in the picture above how the vines from the front and the vines from the sides wrap around the house, here is another closeup so you can see how I tied in the other wall of the house. 

Here is both of the side views of the house

To create the flowers I used the 5 smallest posy stamps and coordinating dies.  The small flowers used the 2 smallest sets, stamp and cut 10 of each size using the pink cardstock and the red ink, then ink the edges on both sides of the flowers and curl all the petals up using a stylus.  Double up each flower, alternating the petals and finish off with a jewel in the center.  The large flowers are made in the same way but for these, use 2 of each remaining flower sizes per flower and follow the same preparation and assembly of the smaller flowers, these should have 6 layers once completed.  Of couse there are closeups of these as well.

Floral Cross Release

It's time to debut another exciting collection at Heartfelt Creations and once again we are so pleased to showcase a wide variety of samples to inspire your own creativity!  I always like to find new and creative ways to use these stamps but before I show you...

Heartfelt Creations is pleased to release the Floral Cross Collection. This collection is as fresh as a blooming yellow lily on a sunny spring day: intricate flowers compliment the typographical, linear, and wooden crosses. There are 6 new PreCut Stamp Sets and one beautiful new exclusive Spellbinders die designed for Heartfelt Creations.
Leave a comment on the HC blog by February 14 to be eligible to win the entire release valued at $125.93. The winner will be announced on February 15 on the HC Blog.

OK so this wekk I decided to create a canvas... but I had such a hard time with this one.  I find it so frustrating when I have a specific idea and it just doesn't go as planned.  Before I explain what I mean here is my finished project.

I decided that I wanted the flowers stamped all around my canvas, easy right... so after I primed the whole thing with Gesso I stamped the first flower on the corner and I couldn't get a  good image!  Then tried again to realign the stamp!  Urggg... What I mess.  So I reprimed... Do you knw how many coats to cover Archival Ink once it has been stamped!  Lots (3) that how many coats!  LOL!  I finally was ready to try it again...

I figured that the reason I couldn't get a good impression was that the canvas was too loose in the middle so I inked the stamp set it on the canvas... flipped it over to rub from behind the canvas and once I was sure that I had pressed everywhere I lifted it up and I had another horrible mess... LOL!  I reprimmed my canvas and starred at it thinking that I was going to have to do something else...

I had just about given up all hope when I thought of a technique that some of the girls use to make stamped candles... stamping on tissue and embeding the image, that is how I finally got this to work and it was easy after that!  LOL!  I had planed to leave the images clear but I couldn't help myself I just had to add color to these flowers they are just too darn pretty!  Here is a close-up of the stamped flowers... can you tell it is kleenex??  I even love the added texture that it gives the canvas.

The other thing that went wrong with this one is that I had envisioned this canvas running on the opposite side.  The title and the closs where suppose to be beside each other but when I was placing them how I thought I wanted them.. It just wasn't working for me.  It took a while but I finally got something that worked, here is a closeup of the middle pannel...

I can't tell you how many times this project almost ended up being thrown across the room but in the end I do have a beautiful canvas that I'm proud of and that I love!  Thanks for stopping by this week!