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Wired!

By M. Elizabeth Lee
Trailblazers Mixed Media Design Team
Publisher/Editor/Designer/Writer 

This is a multi faceted project incorporating several techniques such  as wrapped wire, beading, Stargazers Watercolor Palette, and Polished Stone.  I love to share with students and readers that the Polished Stone technique originated from Suze Wineberg, the Queen of the Melting Pot!  The easiest and brightest version of creating Polished Stone uses Marvy Metallic Markers.  When you finally decide to attempt this method, you’re in for a big treat! 

Supplies:

•  Sea Horse stamp (Taylored Artwork)
•  Just a Note stamp (Endless Designs)
•  Versamark Stamp Pad (Tsukineko)
•  Black Eclipse Card Stock (Kelly Paper)
•  2 half sheets cut to size: 8½” x 4¼"
•  Black Glossy Cardstock; cut to size: 5”x4”
•  Funny Bones Bone Folder (Ranger)
•  Green, Blue, & Gold Marvy Metallic Markers (Uchida)
•  Stargazers Watercolor Palette (US ArtQuest)
•  #2 JS Jackie's Liner Brush (Loew-Cornell)
•  Waterbrush (Royal)
•  Water receptacle
•  Mono Adhesive (Tombow)
•  Scotch Foam Tape (3M)
•  Diamond Glaze (Judikins)
•  Aegean Silver Embossing Powder (Judikins)
•  Heat Tool (Milwaukee)
•  22 Gauge Silver Jewelry Wire
•  Wire Cutters (Harbor Freight)
•  Personal Paper Trimmer (X-Acto)
•  16" Cutting System (Genesis)
•  Detail Scissors (Zenlex)
•  Tri Corner Punch (Fiskars)
•  Grid Cutting Mat for Work Surface (Creative Memories) 

Instructions:

1.    Prep the cake watercolors by adding about 3 drops of water to each color (adding more as needed) with a waterbrush to soften the paints for use.  This is a brush that has a refillable water barrel. 

2.    Place the half sheet of Eclipse Black card stock onto the rotary paper cutter as if it were going to be cut in half.  Close the hold down bar and move the blade out of the way.  Take a bone folder and score the card stock twice right up against the hold down bar.  Remove card stock, fold in half, and set aside. 

3.    Ink up the Sea Horse stamp with Versamark Ink Pad and stamp image twice onto the other half sheet of black card stock.  Ink up the saying stamp with Versamark Ink Pad and stamp image once onto the corner edge portion of black card stock.   

4.    Sprinkle on the Aegean Silver embossing powder over stamped images.  Return excess powder back to the jar.  Remove powder specks from the cardstock with a dry paint brush and heat emboss until all powder is melted.

5.    For this entire painting, use a Jackie’s #2 Liner Brush.  Refer to photo for color placement.  On the first Seahorse stamped image, focus on painting the rectangle frame. 

6.    Dress the paint brush with Quasar Blue and run paint along inside border of the frame.  Rinse brush and pick up the Meteor Copper color and paint the thin inside edge of the frame.  Next, paint the seashell in each corner using the same color.  Start at the base of the seashell and stroke on color almost to the edge.  Some of the black cardstock should be showing through near the edges of each seashell. 

7.    On the second Seahorse stamped image, focus only on painting the Seahorse.  Paint the Seahorse Quasar Blue allowing the heat embossing and black cardstock to show through.  When dry, paint Steller Green stripes on the Seahorse.  Set aside to dry.

8.    Create the Polished Stone background on the black glossy cardstock with Marvy Metallic Markers.  Wet a Viva Paper towel and squeeze out excess moisture.  Using three colors of Marvy Metallic Markers, make random puddles of color onto the black glossy cardstock.  Dab the colors around on the cardstock with the damp paper towel, but do not over blend.  To increase the intensity of the color and effect, make just a few more random puddles of color and slightly dab it again with the Viva paper towel.  Set aside to dry.

9.    Cut out the entire Seahorse in the rectangle frame with detail scissors.  Cut out only the Seahorse on the second stamped image.  Cut out a narrow rectangle strip that has the words stamped on it.

10.    Punch each corner of the rectangle strip with the corner punch.

11.    Cut a length of Silver Jewelry Wire and begin wrapping the narrow strip in a crisscross fashion.  Secure the ends by twisting them together at the back of the strip.

12.    Attach the Polished Stone layer to the card base using Mono Adhesive.  Adhere the remaining layers using Scotch Foam Tape.  Attach the Framed Seahorse to the Polished Stone Layer positioning it to the right of the card.  Attach the Seahorse to this layer.  Attach the wired strip to the left side of the card.

13.    Glue on shell beads to the strip with Diamond Glaze referring to the photo.

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