Seek Joy

Jan 20, 2011

I was asked to cre­ate a few things for Ranger to dis­play at CHA. One of the prod­ucts they wanted me to cre­ate with was their Ultra Thick Emboss­ing Enamel (UTEE). I had not really played around with this all that much but let me tell you I now have a seri­ous addic­tion… really, if you have not cre­ated with this you need to give it a try. It is FUN and comes in sev­eral dif­fer­ent col­ors. I used their Plat­inum, Black and Gold to cre­ate this wall hanging.

Sup­plies Used: UTEE — Black, Plat­inum, Gold, Clear, Plat­inum & Crys­tal Stick­les, Dis­tress Emboss­ing Ink, Maya Road Philadel­phia Upper­case Chip­board Alpha­bet, Maya Road William Mini Chip­board Alpha­bet, Per­fect Medium, Per­fect Pearls — Per­fect Pearl, Per­fect Pearls Mist — Per­fect Pearl, Heavy White Card­stock, Archival Ink — Jet Black, Wendy Vecchi’s Stu­dio 490 Be Inspired… Make Art Stamp Set (Flower) — Live and Make Art (Script), Cut­tle­bug — But­ter­flies, Vin­tage Sheet Music, Gold Self Adhe­sive Pearls, Cream Self Adhe­sive Pearls, Foam Squares, Black Trim, Aleene’s Quick Dry Liq­uid Adhe­sive, Glossy Accents

Tools Needed: Heat Gun, Scis­sors, Cut­tle­bug, Ranger Melt Art Craft Sheet,

Mak­ing the flow­ers: I used my friend Wendy’s Stu­dio 490 flower stamp. I stamped the flow­ers on heavy white card­stock using Archival ink, cut them out, applied emboss­ing ink, added Black UTEE and melted it with my heat gun. I repeated this process two times on each flower and while the UTEE was still warm on the final layer I placed Wendy’s script back­ground stamp on top. After the  UTEE cooled com­pletely I removed the stamp. Then I applied Crys­tal Stick­les to my fin­ger and rubbed it into the embossed script pat­tern and let dry.

Please note… I added the tuto­r­ial on how to recre­ate the flower cen­ters to my Tips, Tech­niques and Tuto­ri­als online workshop.

Cre­at­ing the but­ter­fly: I used a Cut­tle­bug But­ter­fly die and cut a but­ter­fly out of heavy white card­stock and vin­tage sheet music. I glued the two together then repeated the same tech­nique as I did with the flow­ers only I used Clear UTEE instead of black. I accented the head and body of the but­ter­fly using gold self adhe­sive pearls.

Alter­ing the chip­board let­ters: I applied Per­fect Medium on top of each let­ter, applied Per­fect Pearls in Per­fect Pearl then misted over each let­ter using Per­fect Pearls Mist in Per­fect Pearl. Once dry I applied Emboss­ing Ink over the let­ters then some Clear UTEE. I melted the UTEE with a heat gun and let cool. I only did one layer of the UTEE on each letter.

Cre­at­ing the heart: I cre­ated a heart tem­plate to the size desired. Traced it onto heavy white card­stock and cut it out. I then applied Emboss­ing Ink over the entire heart and added Gold UTEE on top, using a heat gun I melted the UTEE until smooth. Next I reap­plied Emboss­ing Ink over the entire heart, reap­plied the Gold UTEE then heated the UTEE just until it started to melt then I pulled the heat gun away. This is how I got the lumpy bumpy look on the heart and the base of the wall hanging.

Alter­ing the base: I cov­ered a 5.5″ inch wooden puz­zle with Emboss­ing Ink and applied Plat­inum UTEE  on top, using a heat gun I melted the UTEE until smooth. Then I reap­plied Emboss­ing Ink over the entire piece, reap­plied the Plat­inum UTEE and heated the UTEE just until it started to melt then I pulled the heat gun away to get the lumpy bumpy look. I then added black trim around the edge.

Once I was fin­ished with all these steps I applied the heart to the base using foam squares. Using Aleene’s Quick Dry adhe­sive I attached the two top flow­ers. The bot­tom flower is attached using sev­eral foam squares on top of each other to get the right height. I used the Quick Dry Adhe­sive to attach the words Seek and Joy and foam squares to attach the but­ter­fly. Each cor­ner was then accented using cream self adhe­sive pearls.

The rea­son­ing behind my some­what hid­ing the word “SEEK” with the but­ter­fly is…  “Seek joy as it is always there. Some days you just have to look harder than others.”

So if you have not played around much with UTEE I say, DO IT!!! It’s a BLAST! I’ll be post­ing a few super cute Valentine’s Day projects to my Tips, Tech­niques and Tuto­ri­als work­shop using the Clear UTEE and Beadaz­zles –Waltz, Hot Pants & Jazz. If your aren’t signed up you might want to do so… just saying!