Looked Who Just Moved In!

For those of you familiar with the monthly "ATC Workshop & Swap" group here at CraftFusion, you know we're often given "Challenges" along with creating our regular Artist Trading Cards.  This past August was no exception. Presented by Rita Blocksom, we were each given a piece of 2x4 scrap lumber in varying lengths and challenged to create a "house" using any type of technique and embellishment we wanted without considering any themes or other guidelines of any type.  While the original results were posted in a blog post August 14th, two of those taking part in the Challenge weren't able to attend the August Workshop, but brought their finished "houses" to the September Workshop.  Take a look at our new neighbors!

(l to r) - "The Gingerbread House", Kristin Johnston;
"Little Mississippi Church", Mimi Lawrence

With its "thatched" roof and crisp white trim, Kristen's sweet two-story "gingerbread" house is easy to fall in love with.  Covered entirely with green paper with white polka dots, this little house would be the perfect neighbor we all want to live next to.  Using kraft paper for the doors and blue for the window, Kristen outlined each with a flexible white scalloped trim often used in scrapbooking.   Using more kraft paper in various sizes for the roof, she clipped the edge of each piece to create the look of tiles. She created the look of a window box full of beautiful colored flowers and blooms with self-adhesive "bling", and her garden surrounding the base of her house was created with felt & sequin embellishment pieces.  Two "door knobs" were created with petite white buttons.  With Kristen's creative imagination, you'll never look at a "plain ol' sticker" or button in quite the same way!

Having grown up in Mississippi, Mimi fondly remembers the little church she and her family attended when she was young. Using bits and pieces of dictionary pages, sheets of music, as well as computer generated lettering, she's torn each into various sized shapes and placed them over the surface of her "church" using Mod Podge.  Once dry, she toned down the brightness of the paper by using inks and paints, wiping away excess after each application.  After she reached the tone she wanted, she sealed her church with a second coat of Mod Podge before beginning the addition of embellishments.  She created the "door" using hinges from the idea-ology collection from Tim Holtz, as well as other miscellaneous metal pieces from her craft room.  To create the look of cobblestones or sidewalk pavers, she used a hexagon punch and punched shapes from various papers, gluing each one down separately.  To finish off the roof, she used corrugated paper with a coat of paint in an aged brown tone.  For her "steeple", she used pieces normally used to create jewelry and strung them onto a wire for stability, before anchoring the wire into a hole drilled at the crest of the roof.  As her final touches, she added a little picket fence all around, and placed two Tim Holtz bottle brush trees in the corner, which she colored using spray inks.

So, there you have it . . . our "new neighbors"!  Please leave us a comment . . . or two! . . . and let us know what you think.  In the meantime, join us in congratulating and thanking both of these great artists for a job well done!

 If you'd like to take part in our monthly "ATC Workshop & Swap", join us the second Thursday evening of each month from 6:00pm-8:00pm and you too can begin to think big in a small way!  There's no membership required and it's FREE!  Hope to see you there!

CraftFusion

(480) 821-3758

2986 No. Alma School Rd. #4 ~ Chandler, AZ 85224

s/w corner of Alma School & Elliot Roads in the Mervyn's Plaza

(located between Zoe's Quilts & Catherine's)

Tuesday - Saturday 10:00am-6:00pm  ~  Closed Sunday & Monday

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