Trust Your Heart ~ eP Get Altered Challenge

It's that time again...time for eclectic Paperie's Get Altered Challenge. The Get Altered Challenge is held on the first Thursday of each month and each challenge is an opportunity for you to be inspired by one of our eTeam’s creations. This time it is Toni's turn to set the challenge and she has chosen the theme of Altered Spoons. The first time I encountered this idea was when I received a lovely altered spoon for my birthday as a gift from my good buddy, Paulette. I loved it and said I was going to alter one myself but you know how that goes :) Thank goodness Toni set this challenge so I finally made good on that intention.

I raided my grandmother's silver chest to find a vintage spoon with lots of character that didn't actually belong to her good service. My mom thinks it was my great grandmother's serving spoon that I actually altered. I think that's very cool. I pulled out my alcohol inks and applied copper, lettuce, and stream to the spoon's bowl with a felt applicator. I actually had to remove the felt from the blending tool in order to get into the curved part of the spoon. My hands are exceptionally lovely today. I applied the inks a couple of times letting them dry after each application in order to achieve the depth of colour I wanted.


While that was drying, I fussy cut my fairy from a Paper Whimsy collage sheet and the butterfly wings from an internet image. I added Black Diamond Stickles to the outside edges of the wings and blue metallic gel pen to the lines where the blue meets the black. The wings were adhered to the sweet fairy and more blue gel pen was added to the buttons and buckle of her outfit (I think it's actually a him but not in my world :D). Her crown is a silver charm with black and white half pearls added to cover the holes and make it regal enough for Sweetie to wear.

A section of a small doily was fussy cut, spritzed with Irridescent Gold Glimmer Mist and adhered to the bottom of the spoon with Glossy Accents. A scrap of Grunge Paper was sprayed with Dylusions Vibrant Turquoise and Fresh Lime ink sprays along with a little water. It was blotted with paper towel and allowed to dry before being stamped with Versamark on a sentiment from Donna Downey's Empowered Words set. White embossing powder was layered over the Versamark and then heat set. The grunge paper was then cut close to the words and the edges were inked with Black Soot Distress ink before the message was adhered over the doily. The way Sweetie is standing with her hand on her little hip and the message under her feet makes me smile. It's like she is saying, "Trust your heart, for goodness sake!" in an impatient tone like I should remember that without her telling me...again :) Sweetie was mounted on a double layer of foam tape with a good layer of Glossy Accents on the tape and the crown. To frame the bowl and add another element, Versamarker pen was applied to the edges of the spoon and Frantage Aged Black embossing enamel was added and heat set...cool effect!

To complete the top of the spoon, a Maya Road canvas butterfly was stamped with Christy Tomlinson's Copped Up Notes stamp and Tuxedo Black Memento ink. It shows more IRL but I kept getting a glare from the silver which messed with the photos.  A Blossom Bucket heart was coloured with Wild Plum alcohol ink plus a little Snow Cap mixative. The heart and butterfly were stacked and adhered to the spoon top with Glossy Accents. An Idea-ology metal word stick was tucked under the heart so that the hole was covered by the point. A length of seam binding was knotted onto the handle to repeat the heart's colour and bring it down to the base area.

I am now the proud owner of two altered spoons. I already have Paulette's displayed in my craft room so I'm thinking I need another little shadowbox for this one. You know, things look more pleasing hung in threes so I do see another one in my future. I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge. Be sure to pop by the eclectic Paperie blog to see Toni's amazing crackled altered spoon and while you are there check out the DT makes by clicking on the thumbnails in the linky section. I can't wait to see what everyone creates. I'm hoping you'll join us for this Get Altered challenge at eP. It can be any kind of spoon...wooden, plastic, metal, old, new...have fun.

Thanks for joining Sweetie and me today. I do love and appreciate your visits and awesome comments.

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie

To connect with the eclectic Paperie store to see what products were used in this project, click on the thumbnails below:

Dylusions Ink Spray - Vibrant Turquoise	Dylusions Ink Spray - Fresh Lime	Inkssesentials - Glossy Accents 2 oz.	Idea-ology Word Sticks
Idea-ology Grungepaper	VersaMark Stamp Pad	VersaMarker Pen	Ranger Embossing Powder - Seafoam White
Unity Stamp Company - Empowered Words (Donna Downey)	Stickles - Black Diamond	Distress Ink Pad - Black Soot	Wendy Vecchi - Blossom Bucket - Natural Hearts