Nevermore Books by Jessica

After a couple of weeks of waiting for things to dry and aging effects, I present to you Nevermore Books. I'm ridiculously pleased with how it came out. I love the colours and I love the aging. I love all the books and I love the brick and stone and I really hope you do, too.

Full view.

Some scrolls tucked in with the books out front.

Wisteria flowing down the side of the brick wall.

The Nevermore Books sign.

This old door has seen a lot of customers.

Books flowing outside - inside the store is overflowing with books.

Materials Used

Rustic Door 1:12

Victorian Corners 2

Hinges Shape Set

Retro Style Cards

Hi everyone!  Barbara here today on the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts blog with a couple of retro style cards for you.  These cards can be used for any occasion, especially if the recipient is into vintage or retro styles.

Milk Can Card:

This is what the chipboard looks like.  I left the bits from the detail cuts in the milk can.

Paint milk can with black gesso and sprinkle salt over it while still wet.  Let dry.

Rub salt off of milk can and paint a light coat of Vivid True Silver, allowing some of the black to show through.  The salt left a cool texture on the can.

Use a silvery dimensional paint (steel) and make 3D lines where the detail cuts were made in the can.  Set aside to dry.

Paint two of the Mixed Media Fragments Retro with white gesso and let dry.

Paint the diamond retro piece with Rusty Hinge acrylic paint.  Let dry.

Adhere polka dot print paper to card front.  Cut diamond retro piece apart and adhere to card front, as shown.

Resize and print collage image onto white card stock.  Distress and ink edge with brown distress ink. Adhere to center of milk can, and adhere can centered over the retro diamond pieces.  Fussy cut print milk can, milk circles, and tags, adhere to front, as shown.

 Coffee Commercial Card:

Paint retro circles with Malted Milk acrylic paint.  Let dry.  Glue to black print paper, trim excess paper around retro circles.

Adhere red print paper to card front.  Glue retro circles to card front, and use punch out piece of unfinished chipboard from inside one of the retro circles, adhere to card, as shown.  This will help give a level area for adhering the TV in a later step.

Paint retro TV with black acrylic paint.  Let dry.  Resize and print coffee advertisement to fit inside TV screen.  Trace around TV and cut away excess paper.

Glue retro TV over collage image.  Paint antenna with Vivid True Silver acrylic paint.

Adhere retro TV to card front, as shown.  This is why that extra piece of chipboard was necessary, to help stabilize the TV when adhered to the front.  Add stickers "ridiculously good" to front, as shown in finished photo above.

Supplies Used:

GSL Retro Frame Set
GSL Milk Can
GSL Mixed Media Fragments Retro
Black card stock
Jenni Bowlin Classic Red/Black Paper Pad
Collage Sheets
ColourArte Vivid True Silver
Acrylic Paint (Malted Milk, Rusty Hinge)
Lumiere Steel 3D acrylic paint
Chit Chat Word stickers

I hope you enjoyed my retro card projects today.  Check your stash and see what fun things you can find to use with any of the fabulous Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts.  You may surprise yourself at how easy it is to make some really creative cards that everyone will be talking about.

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to play!

Barbara

Day of the Dead Frame by Lora

Hello everyone! Lora here with my last project for Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts as a guest designer. It has been a boat load of fun and I want to thank Gina for letting me play!

This weeks piece is all about the very cool Victorian Frame and Easel that I've transformed into a Halloween-ish Day of the Dead frame. I love all the bright colors on the skulls made of sugar and a hundred other medium nowadays to celebrate the holiday and I wanted to paint my version of them on the frame.
It really lends itself to this style of painting with all it's pierced swirls and curlicues.

This project is really straight forward....just the frame and some paint. I mostly used Ceramcoat Matte Acrylic Paints. The first thing was to prime everything in a coat of gesso, and then I painted the back piece of the frame orange.

Everything else got a good coat of black and I gave it a lot of time to dry completely. Like about fifteen minutes, because that's a long time for me. Maybe in dog years it's about an hour and a half.

After that, it was mostly painting around the edges of the pierce work, emphasizing the shapes. I used mostly bright shades of green and purple with a little red and accents of white to make things pop.

 

This guy was hanging around on my work table and wanted to get into the pictures....

For the easel that the frame is resting on I drew (in pencil) the repeated flower design that is in the center of each side of the frame and painted it green to match the frame. I added some dots and a couple of curlicues that help tie both pieces together.

I really like that you can turn the frame long-ways to fit a different shape picture. I plan on using this frame to show off my business card at my market table this Halloween.

SUPPLIES from GSLCuts

Victorian Frame and Easel

Skeleton Shape Set 

Additional Supplies

Ceramcoat Matte Acrylic Paint

Gesso

Golden Black acrylic paint

Mad Hatter Tea Chest

Hello, it is Gloria with you and it is my turn again on the blog! I had a blast making this Mad Hatter Tea Chest using the GSLCuts Treasure Chest (check availability at the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts Store).

I decorated this little chest all in purple and black! With a few red hearts! I added some purple flowers, plus the magical Alice in Wonderland Chipboard Silhouettes and the Tiny Alice Props.

The chest is 2 1/2" x 5 1/4" x 3 1/4" the way I have it assembled. It is perfect place to store some tea or coffee packets. (Or candy, for you non-tea drinkers!)

Let's get started making this project!

1. Remove the Treasure Chest pieces from the packaging and give them a good wipe with a damp cloth. (The laser cutting process generates a lot of soot!)

2. Spray the bottom of the chest, the lid "frame," and the thin pieces with black glitter mist. Allow to dry.

3. Cover the inside of the chest pieces with decorative paper. Use a gel medium (or similar product) to attach the paper to the chipboard. Sponge the edges with black ink.

4. Assemble the chest. Attach paper to the outside surfaces of the chest. Coat the outside surface of the box with gel medium to seal it. (You can see here that my gel is still wet. It will dry clear.) Spray the other side of the "frame" piece with black glitter mist and allow it to dry.

5. Glue the frame to the top of the box. (This is not how the box is to be assembled, but I decided that this is how I wanted it.) Cover both sides of the largest chipboard rectangle with paper. Glue the chest to the center of the piece.

6. Glue the thin pieces of chipboard around the top and bottom of the chest as shown. Trim thin pieces of decorative paper and sponge the edges with black ink.

7. Wrap the chipboard pieces with the decorative paper and glue securely.

8. Cover both sides of the larger lid piece with paper and sponge the edges with black ink. Mark the center of the smaller lid piece and make a hole for the knob. Cover both sides of the smaller piece with paper and sponge the edges with black ink.

9. Attach the knob to the smaller lid piece. Glue the smaller lid to the larger lid, making sure to center it.

10. Place the lid onto the chest.

11. Choose decorative chipboard shapes from the Alice in Wonderland Chipboard Silhouettes, Tiny Alice Props, and Alice String Alongs. Spray some of the pieces with black glimmer mist. Sponge others with purple or red ink.

12. Glue a selection of purple flowers to the left side of the lid. Add a few of the chipboard elements as shown.

13. Glue the White Rabbit and Mad Hatter silhouettes to the front of the box. Decorate them as desired. (In person, these are very sparkly! The camera had a hard time picking up the glitter!)

14. Fill your chest with tea and enjoy!

Thanks for looking!

~ Gloria:Scraps of Life

Supplies Used:

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts:
Treasure Chest (coming soon)
Alice in Wonderland Chipboard Silhouettes
Tiny Alice Props (coming soon)

Partner Products: Graphic 45: Hallowe'en in Wonder Land Deluxe Collector's Edition, Rare Oddities 6x6 pad

Other: spray mist (black, purple), ink (black, red, purple), paper flowers, metal knob, gel medium, glue, foam tape

Welcome to the Nuthouse - Fall Canvas by Lynne

Hello there and happy fall! So far we're having gorgeous weather here in Southwestern Ontario after a hot and stick summer. In honour of this gorgeousness, I decided to create a canvas with some warm fall colours and one of my favourite little creatures!

I dry-embossed the chipboard leaves using a leaf-themed Darice embossing folder by lining them up as closely as possible with similar-sized leaves on the folder to get the lines in the right places. The pumpkins were covered with corrugated cardboard. The heart was dry-embossed.

I attached some bits of crumpled tissue paper and pieces of burlap and cheesecloth for texture as well as some mesh ribbon and corrugated cardboard. I  added some stenciling with texture paste then primed everything with gesso before painting it with gold acrylic paint.

I then used Colourarte Silks and Twinkling H20s to add some splashes of warm colour here and there.

I finally figured out how I  wanted to add texture to the cute little squirrel (after trying a couple techniques that provided somewhat less than stellar results....hey that happens to all of us right??) I combined texture paste with microbeads and spread it with my finger for a rough texture. When it was dry I painted it gold.

I then sprayed the canvas with a variety of mists and added some brown ink on the letters as well as on the edge of the squirrel. I  attached a couple metal and wooden embellishments to finish it off. This little project will suit my house perfectly for fall decor, not only because I love squirrels, but because my home is definitely a bit of a nuthouse....and that's just the way I like it! Wishing you a happy and at least mildly nutty week!

GYPSY SOUL ITEMS USED

Fall Shape Set

Build A Layout Lovebirds (heart frame)

OTHER ITEMS USED

gold acrylic paint

gesso

Twinkling H20s and Silks by ColourArte

mists by Tattered Angels

Mister Huey's

Recollections

Heidi Swapp

Prima static stencil 6x6