Altered Canvas

Greetings! First off, thank you so much to those who left comments earlier this week, it is greatly appreciated! I don't typically watch for comments but it's been so quiet lately that I was starting to wonder if folks were still reading. :-) So it was lovely to hear from some of you!!

And now for today's project!! Two altered canvases, straight out of the Tim Holtz book of designing! A few weeks ago Tim posted a sweet project on his blog, using a tiny canvas and grunge board shapes. This week was Christmas in July at the store, and once I saw Tim's project I realized it was a fantastic idea for a class! My canvases are 4" x 4" and both have been covered by dictionary paper (nothing like buying a dictionary just to rip pages out of it...I felt a bit guilty about that! LOL!) We used Matte Medium (think Modge Podge) to adhere the paper to the canvas. The paper is wrapped about the sides and back of the canvas, like you would wrap a package. The Joy canvas has been aged with Distress Inks, stamped on with a polka dot background stamp (from SU!), and had a swirl added from a Tim stamp set (Urban Chic). The flower was cut out with one of the new Tim Sizzix die cuts. I cut up the largest flower (the die cuts out four flowers at once) to make leaves. The flowers were cut from grunge paper and color was added with Distress Inks. Same process for the Joy letters, with the exception that the letters were pre-cut from grunge board. I also stamped decorative images on the flower, leaves, and letters. The flower was bended, etc. for some dimension (grunge paper is so much fun!!) and then I added a few brads as embellishments. (For the brads, since you can't attach them through the canvas, I cut off the little arms and used Glossy Accents to attach them to the canvas.) For the Christmas tree canvas, I used a Spellbinders die cut for the tree (cut out of grunge paper.) In class, we doubled the thickness of the tree, which worked better since grunge paper is thin. You would not need to do this if using grunge board. The tree was attached before adding the dictionary paper. I then used my fingers and a bone folder to gently push the paper down around the edges of the tree so it would pop out just a bit. I then used a blending tool and Distress Ink to ink over the edges of the tree, making it pop right off the page. Edges of the canvas were distressed with more ink. Then I added a big 'ol metal plate, also new from Tim's collection, and the number 25. Some red stickles finished off my tree decorations! (Someone at class suggested adding a small star to the top of the tree, great idea!!) And there you have some fun altered canvases...I'm thinking these would be perfect on my mantle this year... Enjoy!