Helmar Creative Team

DIY SPRING FRAME WITH HELMAR

Hello crafty friends, Martha Lucia here with you today!

Spring means flowers; and frames are always part of my decorations. Today I have an idea to do it yourself: a quick and easy  spring frame with Helmar. You only need a few materials and your favorite style of frame to recreate this idea. Let the creative process begin:

Select your frame and remove all the pieces.  Cut a piece of decorated paper with the corresponding size and use this as mat. Assemble your frame again.

Cut the flowers that you want to use to decorate the frame. You can use plain or 3D flowers, for this purpose you can cut them with die cuts or electronic machine. I used my Cricut explore to create rosettes in two different colors and designs.

To assemble the flowers I used a thin stick to crisp the flowers and then I sprayed these with Fireworks to give a few touches of color. 

After I sprayed them with the Fireworks I secured them with Helmar Premium Craft Glue.

I added on the center of each flower one DoubleClick Skittle Purple Twilight or  watermelon using the same Premium Craft Glue. 

Then I pasted each flower in the same place of the flowers designed on the paper mat using  3D Double Sidez Adhesives Zapdots Clear.

As final touch I stamped a sentiment on Vellum card stock using Memento Luxe Ink and secured it on the corners frame.

And voila! My spring frame with Helmar is totally finish and now I can exhibit it in any corner at my home and the best part is that I can change the theme any time that I want!

Thank you for stopping by and see you soon with other easy and creative idea!

Martha Lucia

 

Birthday Gift Tags by Sarah Rosse

Hello crafty friends, I am here today with some gift tags for you to create. These ones are for birthdays, however you could design them to for any occasion you wish.  I had gifted myself some new goodies after Christmas, and this project was the perfect one to try them out!  The techniques used in this project were inspired by Susanne Rose Designs and a recent tag tutorial she completed.

For this project you will need the following;

• Luggage tags / or you could cut your own out using cardstock
• White gesso
• Brushos or another medium to make the background colour - you could use paint instead
• Embossing powder - I have used gold
• heat gun
• Versa Mark ink
• Background stamps of your choice
• Plain cardstock
• Stamps for embelling - I have used 'Party Monsters' by Taylored Expressions
• White acrylic paint / coloured paint for splatters
• Paint brush
• Water sprayer
• Gelatos
• Baby wipe
• Cotton (for embellishing at the end)
• Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive
• Helmar Acid Free Glue
• Helmar liquic Scrap Dots

Cover your tags with 1-2 coats of white gesso. Leave them to dry

Spritz the tags with water all over. Shake on the Brushos. Spritz them again lightly with water and watch the colours expand!

 

Dry with a heat gun

Here are some of the amazing colours from the other tags...

 

Apply your background stamps using black archival ink.  It is important to use archival ink as this will allow other mediums to be layered on top of the stamped images.

 

Stamp with versa mark onto the tags and add embossing powder over this area.  Set with a heat gun

Here you can see the beautiful gold embossing powder once heat set

 

Apply a thin layer of white acrylic paint to the tags. Allow to dry for a couple of seconds then with a baby wipe, gently wipe off the paint on the embossed areas.

 

Using a paint brush, add some splatters of white acrylic paint on each of the tags

 

Once dry, add some coloured paint splatters to each of the tag.  I colour matched them with the background colours, however you could do them whatever colour you like

 

Once the paint is dry, take some gelatos (if you have them - if you dont, you could use a marker or a darker paint colour) and add colour to the bottom cente part of the tag.  This is to provide a 'centre point' for the little monster stamp to sit on. I used a colour that matched with the tag and a darker charcoal to add some contrast

Before you go ahead and put the rest of the tag together, I stuck each tag on to some coloured cardstock as a backing, using the Helmar Acid Free Glue.  This is where I will write on the gift tag and it also helps hide the painty, messy back of the tag.

Next, stamp your images and colour them in.  I stamped these on to smooth blending card and coloured them with Touch Five markers and Stampin Up blendabilities. I added some Wink of Stella to parts of the images to add a little sparkle.  I also outlined the stamped images and sentiment pieces with a black marker.

To finish off some of the gift tags, I used some cotton, stuck on using the Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive to the centre of the tag, with the stamped image stuck on top, as seen below. Using the Helmar Acid Free glue, I stuck on the sentiments to the tags.

 

For the other tags, I used the Helmar liquid Scrap Dots to ensure the lil monsters stood up from the tag background, as pictured below

 

If you dont have stamped sentiments, you could use stickers to include a saying - here is where I did that on one of the large tags

I hope you enjoyed this tag project - I would love to see the tags you create for this month....lets take a closer look at these cute monsters!

 

 

Until next time, happy crafting!

 

 

 

Underwater Bubble Canvas by Tamiko

Hi folks, Tamiko here.  I told myself as a newly proclaimed artist, I would incorporate more of my work on  canvas.  I even told myself I would try to create 1/2  canvas a month... Uhhmm well part of that works  for me.. (smiles) This month's canvas I decided to use my Helmar bubble theme to create the piece below.

 

The list of supplies would include:

Helmar Products:

Craft & Hobby PVA Glue

Premium Craft Glue

Crystal Kote Matte (optional)

 

Other supplies:

Canvas Board

Deco Art America Acrylic Paints

Paint brushes

Watercolor paper (90lbs or higher)

Waterbrushes

Prima Oil Pastels

Scissors

Seedbeads

index card

 

I began first by creating my canvas background by loosely painting waves in hues of blue and green.

 

After a while I decided to create bubbles on a separate sheet of paper because it is almost impossible to create bubbles on top of acrylic paint with watercolors/gouache.

 

 Once the bubbles were made and cut out, I stuck them down to the canvas with some Craft & Hobby PVA Glue.

 

While I was pleased with how things looked I felt like it still needed more .. I added some oil pastels for shading. I thought to myself, SEED BEADS!!  Now how will I pull off adding these???  I grabbed a piece of scrap paper, like an old index card and cradled the seed beads within it.  I used a small bit of Premium Craft Glue to adhere the beads to the bubbles for 2 main reasons. First, because it comes in like a clear gel which hugs the beads and prevents the beads from rolling about once in contact with the glue. Secondly, because the glue dries and continues to stay clear, flexible and sturdy! 

 

That all came together and created awesome detail on an otherwise flat surface.. See here.

 

Now to be honest, if you plan to hang or sell this I would also reccommend using  the Crystal Kote Matte, to varnish the piece with a matte finish.

Coasters made from Wood Flooring Samples

 The term “mixed media art” is a broad definition that covers many arts and crafts, including collage, assemblage (both 2D and 3D), altered objects, including books and boxes, handmade greeting cards, artist trading cards (ATCs) and tags, art journalling and book making.

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a wonderful day.

Today I am showing how to make coasters.

When we were looking at flooring for our dining room, I grabed some sample wood pieces of wood flooring. And of course I kept them knowing I could find something to do with them. (rolling eyes here) Well, I looked at them and thought coasters for our new living room furniture.

Here is what I did...
After painting each piece with a sample paint I had purchased from Home Depot, I then
took tissue paper and stamped a script stamp all over it and then tore it up to the size I wanted for each piece of wood.

 I then used my Helmar Decoupage and Craft Paste to glue it down on top of the wood. Then took an old book I had laying around (everything is laying around, imagine that) called Time-Life Encyclopedia Of Gardening called Roses. I picked the pictures I wanted and tore them out of the book where I then used my Decoupage glue to adhere them down.

When that layer of Decoupage was dry, I gave it another 3 coats letting them dry in between each coat. Then took my Helmar Crystal Kote Gloss Varnish and gave them a good spray. Now I figure I need to put some kind of padding on the back so the wood does not scratch my end tables and coffee table so I cut up pieces of fun foam and glued that to the back of each piece using Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive  And they are done. Now, you don't have to use them for coasters, you could put picture hanging hardware on the back and make mini wall hangings with them.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out all of Helmar's glues and varnishes they have to offer and I am sure you will find all your glue needs there!