Authentique Guest Designer!

Hey Everyone! So happy to share this guest post with Authentique. If you're new, please follow. I love sharing with friends!

 

 

 

Guest Designer: Venetia Holbrook

Hello! I am Venetia from Atomic Venetia. I am from the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where I enjoy crisp grey days with coffee, and warm evenings in front of the fire with my family. My whole life I have created objects and art across many media.

I am incredibly happy to be sharing some projects I made with the gorgeous collection from Authentique, Natural. As soon as I saw this collection I was in love, and the collection pairs well with both warm and cool neutrals. It was a breeze to make projects perfect for host gifts for upcoming fall and winter celebrations.

My first project is a mixed media canvas. The patterns in Natural are a beautiful mix. This collection’s colors feel rich and bright. Canvases are one of my favorite projects because they are a fun way to mix techniques and media. I also like being able to add a sentiment intended for the recipeint. For this sentiment, I mimicked the design of the stickers in the Natural collecton pack. On the canvas, I mixed basic punches with Silhouette cuts. To add depth, I distressed with ink, added texture with gesso, and added a pop of sparkle with glitter glue.

I also created a pomander. I am so in love with how this collection pairs with gold, which reminds me of fall. I built stackable flowers with a mix of Silhouette cuts, hand cuts, and punches. I used a foam ball as a base, and used gold and pearl floral pins to place the flowers around the ball. Authentique papers have long been my favorite for paper floral designs because they are a heavy weight, allows for the manipulation of the floral to build dimension and texture.

For my final project, I created a wind chime. This time, I paired the collection with silver and black neutrals. I knew that Natural would pair perfectly with the aluminum pot when I found it, and I remembered a pin on Pinterest of a wind chime using recycled materials. I decided to adapt the pin into an altered project.

To create this, I punched circles from the papers in Natural. Then, I decoupaged the papers and sequins onto the bottle caps. I used some alcohol ink to distress the caps, and used a metal punch to create the holes. I connected the pieces together, and then added some sparkle to the pot with some ink and glitter ribbon. To hang the pot, I drilled two holes, and placed two eye screw and nut sets through the holes. I then used a chain to create a hanger.

I am so grateful to share my love of Authentique with all of you, and hope you found some inspiration from my projects. Thank you!

Atomic Project- Critical Friends

Today I am sharing the second of the creative realizations I have made. Facing these truths made a huge impact on the creative direction in my life. All work featured in this post included creative collaboration with friends.


This week:

1. Do the work

2. Find a group of critical friends

3. Ask the right questions

4. Reach out to others

5. Find you

SWAT- Sketch and Wooden Embellishments

Hi Everyone! It is time for a fresh SWAT challenge. This month, the sketch includes the challenge to use wooden embellishments!

This was the perfect sketch for this photo of my youngest playing with bubbles at her end of year party at daycare. I had been meaning to scrap this, and I knew this sketch would be perfect for this photo.

I added glitter glue to the wood embellishments, to the flowers on the patterned paper, and  to the Thickers, because I felt the shimmer enhanced the layout.

There is hidden journaling in the vellum bag, and the sequins added some sparkle as well.

The wood embellishments are veneers, and my favorite technique is to alter the wood to add something unxepected to a popular embellishment.

As always, SWAT has provided the inspiration, but we want to see your twist on the idea! Create a project using the layout and using wooden elements, and link it up to the SWAT blog. I can't wait to see what you come up with to share.

~Venetia

 

Atomic Project- Repost of do the work

This is a re-post of my Atomic Project Series. Keep an eye on Sundays for more posts like this.
~Venetia

Seriously, get something done. Make something awesome, or not awesome, so you know what not to do next time you try. Put the time in even if you don’t feel like it if you want a creative life. Let me share my first piece of advice on my creative realization, "Do the work" All of the pictures in this post are a result of at least one of the techniques listed in this post.

Reintroduction- Atomic Project

Earlier this year, I started a series of essays about my creative journey. My journey took a detour this year, and I am restarting the series. For the next five Sundays, I will share my project, and restart where I left off.

~Venetia

This is me.

I’m goofy, artistic, and for a long time, insecure about sharing any work, or the stories behind it. I found that I got stuck behind my own self-judgment, and never put things out into the world, despite a desire to share with others. Doing this was contradictory at best, and an ineffective plan for reaching a goal to share my art with others.

I read a lot written by other artists who blog. What I’ve noticed is that the question: “How do you do that?”seems common. This question comes in many forms (some statements):

“I could never do that.”

“Where do you get your ideas?”

“But I’m not creative”

“I just don’t see stuff like you”

Those questions and statements are mostly excuses. I know. I do it. When I look people inspiring me, I have those same doubts. Honestly, I found myself sitting in the self-pity section and wondering why nothing happens. I decided to focus more on my creative life this year, and through the process, I have come to a few realizations:

1. Do the work

2. Find a group of critical friends

3. Ask the right questions

4. Reach out to others

5. Find you

Over the next five Wednesdays, I am going to address each one of these. Facing these truths made a huge impact on the creative direction in my life. They’ve become a part of my plan for a year focused on joy. As I’ve shared, my word of the year is joy, and one of the things that I came to realize was I found great joy in intentionally pursing my artistic endeavors. It’s become my “Atomic Plan”, which sounds kind of evil, but really, it is a plan to break through self-imposed barriers.

I’m sharing my story because it is real. This has been my personal focus, and as I read about other’s journeys, I realize that humility in the process fosters true creativity. I don’t want this to be a blog that just shouts “Look at what I did!” I want this to be a place to find inspiration, to discuss challenges, and to understand that no matter what, someone has or is facing the same frustrations as you.

Please join me the next few Sundays. Next Sunday: Do the work

SWAT- Fussy Cutting

This week's drill is fussy cutting.  I adore fussy cutting. Paper is definitely my favorite scrapbook element, and I love making embellishments from paper.  This layout is a tribute to the memorial we had for my dad two weeks ago.  His ashes were given to the sound off the Bremerton to Seattle ferry, just off Alkai beach.

 

We set roses out to sea to mark the path, and the red and pink set against the grey of the day, the blue of the sound, and the wake of the ferry was gorgeous.

 

The layout turned out simple.  I just wanted to mirror what was left, the flowers against the sea. So I fussy cut a variety of roses, and let them float about the page.

 

The SWAT sponsor for Drill #17 is Creative Embellishments. Upload your fussy cut project to the page for a chance to win this awesome  prize pack!

Creative Embellishments is a new family owned company that was created by Michael and Nicolle Kramer. We are a husband and wife team who design and manufacture unique, high quality  chipboard and wood products. It is our mission is to offer fun and inspiring products to bring out your inner creativity that you can add to any project. In the near  future we will be expanding into other mediums such as rubber/acrylic stamps and acrylic embellishments. Please stop over to the Creative Embellishments store and have a look around.

Store - http://creativeembellishments.com/

Blog - http://creativeembellishments.com/blog

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CreativeEmbellishment

This is what they are giving away as a prize: