Challenge: Paradise

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This week our challenge is about paradise. I decided to be inspired in two ways. First, by warm tropical colors that make me think of Hawaii…

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The second way was by playing with supplies I love to be in crafty paradise! I just love how this tag turned out. It was made in two sessions first the background stenciling, then I had to decide “ok… so what to put on this?!” and I got to play with my bird stamp and putting some bits and pieces onto this tag.

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Supplies Used:

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Simon is, as always, offering a generous $50 voucher that will be randomly drawn from the eligible entries each week. Join the fun by creating a project this week – and for your chance to win a $50 voucher you should hop on over and join in the challenge here.

Mixed Media fun!

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I’ve been playing + loading up the content for my Mixed Media cards class (self-paced and it’ll be live on Monday!) and I stumbled across a fun technique.

1. Take a Heidi Swapp mist and just barely shake it. Then splatter onto area

2. Shake the mist FULLY. Splatter again

This gives you more variety as to how much color is being splatted – because the sediment/sparkle isn’t mixed in! This could work with other brands you’d just need to find a mist that is very different shaken vs not and try it!

Here’s a video to help illustrate this:

If you’d like to see more and to register for class you can check it out here.

My piece for 2015 Ranger Designer Challenge…



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I’ve got a confession. I’ve always wanted to do the Ranger Designer challenge. I see the amazing things people make and I always thought it’d be cool to be asked. They display these pieces (all focused on a single product/line) at their trade show booth and it is always a favorite of mine to see.

Well… last November I got the call. I then stared at a blank canvas for something silly like 2 weeks unable to bring myself to make anything even though I had a vision almost immediately of what to do.

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The focus was on Dina Wakley Media products, and I got to thinking about using just a few… and ended up using every single one except red. I sketched on this canvas. I added paper layers. metal. alllll kinds of things and initially very little color.

If you follow me on instagram (@may_flaum) you get all kinds of sneaky peeks into my happenings here.

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What intimidated (and made me determined to work on my lack of skills) me was that I really wanted to doodle. Sketching with gesso helped me formulate my plan. The use of layers worked well for me. Once I got my petals down and my many things glued down it was just time to color and play.

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I played. Then I painted and painted more.

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I even painted + cut out “color” from cardstock. Yeah, my own handwriting. Then more texture. More colors. More play.

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I was so very happy with this finished piece and I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the absolutely wild canvas I made. Thank you to Dina Wakley and the Ranger Ink crew for inviting me to take part. It truly was an honor and my pleasure to spend so many hours crafting this.

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This week my head is in the creative clouds..

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This week… well my head really was up in the clouds as I COMPLETELY went off topic and was playing with the pretty kit and just, well, forgot the challenge theme! WHOOOPS!

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It’s cool though – I can tie this in because the theme is “in the clouds”! Simon is, as always, offering a generous $50 voucher that will be randomly drawn from the eligible entries each week. Join the fun by creating a project this week – and for your chance to win a $50 voucher you should hop on over and join in the challenge here.

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My project started simple (haha) and actually took less than an hour of actual craft time. Want to see how I made it?  I made videos! Yes!

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Supplies Used:


The 3-part series of tutorial videos – and many more to come – all are on my YouTube channel here. I’m almost into a good groove here of having new content up every week! So if there is anything you’d like to see featured – let me know!

Monday Challenge: Inky Background

I used a rarely used (but needs a lot of ink!) Hero Arts background stamp then sprinkled black embossing powder on it (just randomly), and also some texture paste + stencil.

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Along the edge stitching + ribbon + stars and words finish off my celestial inspired and very inky project.

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Be sure to check out the other entries in this week’s challenge – and stay tuned here as I share with you many articles and photos from CHA!