Prima Design Team Call

When I heard the news that Prima Marketing Inc. was hosting an open design team call I decided to give it a try!  I am obsessed with their newest line called Relics and Artifacts and I know my work would be well suited to this line (and many others) due to my love for assemblage.  Additionally my addiction to their metal embellishments, trinkets and flowers will be quite obvious in this post! So, without further ado, here is my application post to design for a wonderful company that I would be absolutely blessed to represent.  P.S. this post is long, please stay tuned!

Altered Metal Box

Supplies:

Altered Metal Frame - Pedestal

Prima Flowers

Gears

Screw Heads

Hexagons

Faucet Wheels

Engraver Buttons

Satin Strip with Rhinestone Center

Faucet Wheels

Resin Icon: Feather

Printery Paper 6x6

Microbeads Silver

Mica Flakes Frosted

This project was inspired by the metal frame as well as a bird's nest I found that had fallen to the ground.  I decided I liked the contrast of the delicate nest and nature theme alongside lots of industrial touches and a metal base.

You may notice that I "hacked" the small gray flowers a bit.  They used to have a pearl center, but I replaced them with lots of metal trinkets that fit better with my theme.

Inside I was sure to embellish in layers to ensure lots of texture and dimension.  The background of the box was treated with silver leaf.  I intended for the reflective quality of the technique to keep the inside as bright as possible.

Perhaps my favorite technique in this project was how I created my little bird.  I started out with Printery paper I treated with Ice Resin.  

Just after adding resin to both sides of the paper, I sprinkled in some art ingredients from Finnabair: micro beads and frosted mica flakes.  After the paper had cured, I used my steel rule die to cut out the bird shape and then I added the gear for an eye, which made for a really cool embellishment!

Printery Shadowbox

Supplies:

Printery 6x6 paper

Art Ingredients Glass Glitter: Pitch Black

Ship Parts

Plate and Label

Typewriter Words

Handles and Turns

Faucet Wheels

Steampunk Air

Hexagons

Screw Heads

Zipper Pulls

Typo Bulbs 1

Engraver Buttons

Gears 

For this portion of the application I wanted to showcase my love for assemblage, texture and found objects.  I have paired a fair number of Prima metal trinkets and junkyard findings along with a few special treasures to make a fun nostalgic collection.

To achieve texture in this piece I chose to blend my edges and corners with a treatment of black glitter.  I love how this adds some sparkle, but still looks grungy and industrial.

I found myself drawn to using symmetry more than once as I pieced this together.  I framed out the outside corners of the box as well as the large inset. 

One trick that I often use to alter things is to layer them.  By adding the tiny gear inside of the hexagon and framing it out with the watch fobs, it created a whole different embellishment.  You can also see my layering technique below with the faucet wheels. 

The special touch of a few trinkets that are vintage also give this piece a bit more of a story.  A vintage clip, a skeleton key, found safety pins from button cards, anything like this can give a piece personal meaning.  I also love these old jacks and how the color has been worn off of them through play!

Winged Heart Plaque

Cartographer Paper
Archival Cast Relics and Artifacts Rising Spirit III

In this project I really wanted my love for mixed media to shine through.  The focal of this project is from the new Archival Cast Relics and Artifacts line and I am just absolutely in love with these art elements.

The plaster pieces are easy to alter and they accept so many different mediums.  I have layered on so many things and they still look fantastic!

Peeking out from behind the heart is a snippet of Cartographer paper.  The map symbolism for me represents growth, new journeys  and a global point of view.  All things I hope to get with a potential new design team appointment! I love incorporating personal meaning and symbolism into my work, I think it makes it just a little bit extra special.

Last up is just a quick snapshot of a project that really shows off the new microbeads as well as some sweet gray flowers.  While this project is not totally Prima, I absolutely love the texture that those tiny beads gave this project and I wanted to show off this creative application of yet another amazing Prima product.

Thank you so much for tuning in for this extra long post!  

Cheers, 

Rhea

Mixed Media Butterfly Box

I had so much fun really altering this box from Graphic 45.  

P.S. sorry about the moody morning light, I was under a deadline and had to work with what I had! 

I even made a tutorial on Snapguide so you can see how I achieved this lovely metal texture on plain old kraftboard!  

Check out How to Alter a Graphic 45 Mixed Media Box by Rhea Freitag on Snapguide.

The addition of all the microbeads at the end really adds to the texture I created on this project. I admit it was a little scary to slather my project in glue at the end, but it was worth it.

I am running low on those amazing butterflies from Graphic 45.  This is a great way to pay homage to a retired supply!

Here is a photo of the back of the project so you can get an idea of what my base looked like.  I even managed to stamp a little in this project, which rarely happens because I am a sloppy stamper.  I used the purposefully messy "technique."

While there is not a ton of paper in this project, I do love the snips of Artisan Style that I used in this project.  What a lovely paper line!

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I hope you found a little bit of inspiration to take into your next crafting session.

Cheers, 

Rhea

Soul Restoration Canvas

I was so excited when Canvas Corp asked me to do a special project in partnership with Faber-Castell! 

As you can see I was certainly inspired!  For more information and images of this project please check out this post!

Winged Heart Plaque

I have been so excited for these new Archival Cast Relics and Artifacts by Prima to come out.  They are just as amazing as I had hoped, and no matter what you do to them, you can make it work.  This project is proof of that!

I started by staining a Walnut Hallow plaque I had on hand.  I followed up with an edging of glitter and then some Inka gold. The stenciled words are actually with the Inka gold too and I rather like how they turned out.

The heart was treated with many mediums, too many in fact.  In the end I coated it with super fine glitter and accepted all the bumps and texture since I had played just a little too much.  The wings were treated with silver leaf and I think it worked perfect.

Under the heart is a wooden medallion thing that I purchased at a big box store.  I also treated it with leafing and matted it with paper from the Cartographer paper line.

I used gelatos, stickels and Twinkling H20's on the top portion of the heart.  A few pieces of vintage rhinestones add a nice detail behind the tied on key.  

Beware, I am going to guess these relics will be showing up in lots of my posts!

Cheers, 

Rhea

Printery Shadow Box

Wow, was I inspired with this one!  In this project I challenged myself to use lots of goodies from Prima Marketing.  The Printery paper line was the source of inspiration for this shadowbox.  

The base is a 7 Gypsies shadowbox tray. I chose to have the small cubbies on the side, as you can really orientate the tray in any way you want for different looks.  

I have paired a fair number of Prima metal trinkets and junkyard findings along with a few special treasures to make a fun nostalgic collection.

To achieve texture in this piece I chose to blend my edges and corners with a treatment of black glass glitter from Finnabair.  I love how this adds some sparkle, but still looks grungy and industrial.

I found myself drawn to using symmetry more than once as I pieced this together.  I framed out the outside corners of the box as well as the large inset. 

One trick that I often use to alter things is to layer them.  By adding the tiny gear inside of the hexagon and framing it out with the watch fobs, it created a whole different embellishment.  You can also see my layering technique below with the faucet wheels. 

The special touch of a few trinkets that are vintage also give this piece a bit more of a story.  A vintage clip, a skeleton key, found safety pins from button cards, anything like this can give a piece personal meaning.  I also love these old jacks and how the color has been worn off of them through years of play!

Cheers,

Rhea

Graphic 45 2014 Final Audition

Once again I am absolutely thrilled to have made it to the finals for the Graphic 45 2014 Design Team!  In the video below I have chosen to take you on a tour of three projects that I think represent me as a designer including assemblage, mixed media and book making.

Since the Botanical Tea Printer Tray is new, I thought I should also post a few pictures of that.  I made this project just for this audition, so I would have a little something fresh and new.

The spring theme is perfect as the weather finally slowly turns.  It has been nice to get outside and catch a few rays of sunshine. There are additional bits of embellishments within the peice that have special personal meaning to me.  I love this aspect of assemblage and collage.  

I even saw a few real spring blooms on my walk today, a sure sign it is really on the way!

I just adore all the details inside of each cubby.  I was sure to even cover the tops and sides of each box to ensure that the patter repeated itself consistently.

I could not resist adding a few eggs to the mix, as they were perfect for this theme.

Thank you as always for stopping by!  No matter what the outcome of this audition, I have to say it has been a great year Graphic 45, and I have immensely enjoyed the journey.  

Cheers, 

Rhea

Cartographer Journey Journal

I was super excited to make this project for Alpha Stamps using all the newest Tim Holtz goodies alongside a lovely paper line called Cartographer by Prima.  Everything was made easy with the use of Xyron.  Here is a full supply list with all my goodies!  P.S.  There is a video tour at the end if you are so inclined.   

On the cover I used different forms of vintage photo to color my cover.  Even though Tim does a nice job of aging it, I love the effect of the watered down stain and ink.  The spinners still move around which adds a fun element.

Inside I used lots of travel themed ephemera and added lots of pockets.  It is my usual busy haphazard collage style.

I love the hot air balloon images.  There is something that intrigues me about these, perhaps I will have to take a ride some day.

This layout is filled with lots of images from Alpha Stamps.  The vintage Paris postcard collage sheet was a perfect addition to this project.

The new ephemera sets from Tim and the found relative cards are simply amazing and made for great vintage additions to my sturdy book.

Each page is actually made of chipboard to ensure stability as I like to layer lots of stuff and add embellishments.

The philosophy tags I added inside can still move as I matted them with stickers that came with the cartographer paper.  It makes me so happy to have interaction and movement in my work.

On the back I included lots of envelops and pockets to tuck things in.  This is yet another form of interaction that I often enjoy in my work.

I hope you found a bit of inspiration in today's entry.  This project is one of my favorites in a while, so I think I am off to make a video to add to this post shortly!

Cheers,

Rhea

And here it is, a real peek inside:

Well Traveled Shadowbox Book

When these shadowbox books by Tim Holtz came out I knew I would absolutely have to make one.  Lucky for me, Alpha Stamps decided to carry them, so I got to create one just for them!

I love the brass frame I used to encase some random numbers.  The word "journey" was laid out with cirque alpha stickers. 

Throughout the project I used a ton of Tim's Elements Tissue Tape.  This worked really well for framing my front page out, as well as covering the edges of each little compartment. 

I went with the Well Traveled theme once again since it would compliment my selection of trinkets for the inside.

Sadly, this was the last on of my typo bulbs, they were fun while they lasted!

In these little cubbies you will find a cool brass arrow, a teeny tiny compass, and a perfect clock face to accent the theme.  The wood doors are a nice touch too, I just wish I made them with the ability to open.  Instead, I popped them out a bit by adding some foam behind them to add some depth.

The bigger compass is one of my elements in this project, as I believe it represents direction and purpose.  It was altered a little with the help of silver gilders paste.

The dream placket below has been in my stash for a while.  Again, I used a bit of silver gilders paste to add some age and dimension to the piece.  The word was in a bright blue that did not go with my color palate so this addition really helped it to fit in.

In order to get the words to show up on the word band above, white gilders paste was used .  

I hope you found a bit of  inspiration in my shadowbox book!  It was really fun to do assemblage work again, as this really is my absolute favorite way to go when it comes to art. 

Cheers, 

Rhea