As I sit here this Sunday afternoon waiting for my camera battery to charge, I thought I would take a few minutes and tell you a little bit about our Spellbinders Design Team Retreat.
There were so many highlights during the retreat that I may never be able to relate them all. Two come to mind today that will be important over the next couple of days.
Some of you may already know, and some may not, that Spellbinders has a new Senior Education Manager and his name is Richard Garay. Richard is so overwhelmingly talented and creative, let alone a huge inspiration! Richard spent 12 years working for Stampin’ UP! and now has his own company, Fun Stampers Journey. One day we took a field trip with Richard and visited the store in Phoenix. I used some of the stamps I picked up there in my test journal page later in this post. If you are and have been a fan of Stampin’ UP!, you are going to LOVE Richard’s line of stamps . . . all on cling mount, nice red rubber, with their own mounting page for easy storage in a binder or simply to hang on a ring.
The other thing to talk about today is that Linda Peterson was also at the Spellbinders Retreat. She has been busy doing the Monday Mixed Media Videos for Spellbinders and came along to retreat to teach us good video techniques to make our videos more professional. She also spend a few hours teaching us how to make the little birdhouse charm that you can find in this video. I worked on the one there, but when I got home I started a second one. The second one is still in the finishing up stage, but I’ll have it ready to show you in the next day or two.
While chatting with Linda about different mixed media techniques, etc., she mentioned that she often went to Lowe’s and had them mix up sample paints that she could use in her art, in particular she was looking for the exact blue that was in the denim jacket she was wearing. I don’t have to tell you that when I heard that, little bells went off inside my head. I came home and started doing some online research on Lowe’s and their paints. Did you know that Lowe’s has partnered with Pantone and you can now get paints in the Pantone colors at Lowes? Call me giddy!!!!!
Yesterday afternoon I made a beeline to my local Lowe’s . . . and look at just some of the little samples of paint I purchased.
Lowe’s also has pre-mixed samples in their seasonal colors. I was over giddy!!!!! Dear readers these little paints cost me $2.99 a piece. That’s 8 oz. of paint for $3. Oh stop my giddy heart!!!! Of course I had to try them in a journal page to make sure that I was truly going to love them.
YES, I LOVE them! These two pages in this journal have been coated with gesso, painted, coated with gesso again, misted with ink sprays and then coated with gesso one last time. (Okay I was having a little trouble getting the desired effect I wanted). Finally last night I applied one more coat of gesso, letting it sit overnight to dry so I could start my test this morning.
I added some paint, misted with water, added more paint, smooshed the pages together. It all dried quickly . . .
I used a couple of the new stamps I got from Fun Stampers Journey and did some over stamping with the paint. The stamps easily cleaned with soap and water leaving no paint residue behind.
Oh and I may have forgotten to tell you that my Spellbinders Blog Team Member, Seth Apter, came to retreat packing new stencils that he has designed. They are being produced for him by Stencil Girl Products and I purchased all three from Seth before he could leave the retreat. I used two the stencils on the journal page by adding the paint with a sea sponge and just dabbing it through the stencil.
I LOVE these Lowe’s paints . . . and . . . I LOVE these stencils!
DISCLAIMER: I’m not sure if these two journal pages are complete or not. I came to the point with them that I didn’t know what else to add so I knew I needed to stop. I may eventually go back to them and add something else, until then they’ll be my paint test pages!
So that’s all I have today. I really and truly wanted to share my experiences with the Lowe’s sample paints and let you know how super excited I was with them!
Project Supplies:
