Thursday 30 April 2015

Visual Journey #18

I began these pages with a light coat of white gesso and let them dry. I have Tim stamps UNUSED - oh boy who else does that? Buys new stamps then takes forever to use them? Not just me I hope!!!


Using the classics #11 I stamped two of them onto my pages and stamped two onto thin card. I also found a mask also UNUSED in my drawer, a crafter's workshop one called mini dragonfly harmony, so I squeezed some turquoise acrylic and added some white gesso and blended it over the mask using a piece of cut and dry foam. I then washed over some decoart quinacridone violet and used a wet babywipe to pull some of it off again. This was quite damp by now so I left it to dry and began the next two pages. (I often have two on the go at any one time).


The background needed more layers and textures but my mind is on today and excitement got the better of me - today is my travelling day - flying to California  - and the dragonfly dance reminds me of the whirl my brain is in trying to remember everything and getting things finished before I go. I set aside my two stamped pieces of card and began to rework the pages.


Mixing a watery wash of transparent yellow iron oxide on my craft mat I dipped the pages in it twice and dried them, then I took the Decoart turquoise shimmer mist and transferred some of it to a mini mister (one part turquoise and 4 parts water) and sprayed through one of Andy Skinners masks.



The two previous colours are transparent so I took the opaque carbon black and another Andy stencil to give me my words and focus which was when I decided the stamped head would fit in well relating to the hundred and one things to think about. But my head is really in California already, you can tell that by the stamps I added that relate to our destination.


I typed and printed the words I wanted to add .....



... including my feelings about why we are going -
'We are now travellers in California, having seen what we wanted to see, we now visit to make the most of what there is to see.'


We also go because we want to spend time in a place we call home from home with our friends Joni and Leo and take time to do some travelling, especially to spend a day with Terry and Steve having a lovely meal together and getting into some craft shops but  also to live the American way.


I will be on Face Book with updates so if you follow me there you will see some of what I see too.

I have some posts scheduled whilst I am away, so stay tuned and I shall continue to follow the journey of my fellow visual journey followers too.

Here is the link if you wish to share the collection and the linky is below for you to add your journal pages.


Take care and thanks for being part of my journeys.

hugs Brenda xxxx



Tuesday 28 April 2015

Rusty Steele telephone - DecoArt techniques - Board 2

Ok, ok so I have given myself some artistic license here,  but did you know that the first early telephones were made of metal, but were switched to plastic at the start of WWII.  All phones thereafter were plastic.
This is board two in my DecoArt series for my workshop for Country View Crafts on the 6th June (details on my side bar). Participants won't actually be making these boards, they will be learning the techniques and then using them to alter a box. These are to show how the effects can be used in  different ways.



Again I have used the DecoArt media products for this technique which includes layers of the acrylic paints and one of the texture mediums and I have used Tim's mini movers and shapers telephone die to show the effects.


The ATC background has a paint technique I am calling 'camouflage chippy paint' and has a very weathered and mottled look to it. The numbers have been added with Tim's stencil and DecoArt modelling paste.


The cabinet card was cut from foamboard and given a coat of white gesso to begin with. I randomly splodged a watery wash of Traditions quinacridone gold over it and used the heat gun to dry it. Next I repeated that process with Traditions prussian blue hue and when dry painted on a coat of DecoArt weathered wood crackle. When that had fully dried I painted on a coat of titan buff and watched the crackles appear.

I wanted to continue the number theme so when the background was again dry I stamped the numbers from Tim's little labels set in black archival ink.


I adhered the ATC onto the cabinet card and 'painted' some matt medium round the edges and used a vintage photo distress marker to create some shadow all round.


The backing board was dipped in a mix of tea dye and pumice stone distress inks. I love how the paints and the inks complement each other so well.


I've got the last of my packing to organise today, my hair and nails will get done tomorrow and then Thursday we will be off to see our friends in California. It won't be long now Terry.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

hugs Brenda xxx


For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
Leonardo da Vinci



Sunday 26 April 2015

April Tim Tag

I took inspiration from several different sources to create my Tim tag for this month - Tim's April post of course but also a couple of things on Pinterest caught my eye using heritage photos (see my Pinterest board Here).


I began by cutting the front of an an old book cover away from the pages to use as my base .....


.... and gathered the resources and materials I needed to put this together.


I chose to use different stamps to Tim as I don't yet own the beautiful flowers but I also wanted to use one of the photobooth images and chose this one to go with the saloon stamp.


I am definitely in USA mode (we fly Thursday - yay not long to wait now) and picked out the word adventure to use on my project. Looking through my other thinlits I noticed the holiday word set has wonderland in it and that I could cut off the piece I wanted to make up my sentiment ..... and so it started to come to life. Having cut the kraft card to size and cutting the slits in it as Tim shows us, I turned my card over and adhered a piece of red card so that it showed through the cut out word.


I stamped and watercoloured my chosen image using distress markers and a water brush using the Wild West stamp set.


I distressed the edges of the book cover and inked the edges, you can see it has this wonderful linen cover over it that distressed really well .....


.... and I also stamped the stars from the same stamp set, coloured a star with denim alcohol ink and added some star brads and rusty elements.


Finally I attached some rusty wire to two clips and clipped them at the top to make this into a little hanging.


I know this is not at all like the master's inspirational tag, but I am pleased with the way it worked out and it does use his techniques and a similar layout.


I shall be linking this to Tim's April tag post.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of the weekend and have a great week ahead.

hugs Brenda xxx


We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
Jawaharlal Nehru

Thursday 23 April 2015

Visual Journey #17

Here is my next instalment of journal pages and I am so pleased I began recording my visual journey of experiments and learning for this year.


The pages were prepared with a light coat of gesso and left to dry.
I chose four DecoArt acrylic colours - medium grey value 6, cobalt turquoise hue, viridian and phthalo green-blue. My choices were guided by some new washi tape I bought at Ally Pally (it's strange where inspiration comes from sometimes). Using a baby wipe and a little water I covered the pages in layers of each colour rubbing them on and off again in places.
When dry I used an old credit card to scrape some titanium white over the pages. I dried them well with my heat gun.


I wanted to do some painting to be included in the background so I used some Tim stamps - classics #2 -with black archival ink .....


.... and then using a selection of small brushes I painted them in using acrylic paints.


The colours I chose were - DecoArt phthalo green-yellow, transparent red iron oxide, transparent yellow iron oxide, sap green and translucent white.


Next came the new and some old washi/tissue tapes ...


... and a small text stamp using black soot distress ink.



Finally I die-cut the Eiffel tower and fleur de lys from Tim's bigz die using core'dinations paper and sanded them down and added explore moments from Tim's journey thinlits dies.


I also edged the words and die-cuts with a black soot distress marker.


I love the collage style, the new mix of colours and the overall effects - hope you do too.

Please come and join me with your journal pages and your visual journey, I'm loving seeing what you are doing.

If you would also like to share everyones work on your blog then locate the code below and add it to your blog post.



Enjoy the rest of the week.

hugs Brenda xxxx




Monday 20 April 2015

Copper patina star - DecoArt techniques - Board 1

As part of being a Helping Hand Artist I was lucky to receive a box of DecoArt products the other week and I have been having great fun experimenting with texture and metal techniques using some other products I have and mixing them together. I am focusing on building some samples for my next Country View Crafts workshop where I will teach some metal effects that I have devised and that can be used in both card making, mixed-media and altered art.

This is my first piece and I have used the Tim Holtz star to show off this particular effect.


The tarnished copper patina star uses media fluid acrylics and patina cream antiquing cream with Onxyite Treasure Gold.


The base it sits on is a Tando ATC on which I used a Andy Skinner rust technique I learnt on one of his workshops again using media fluid acrylics with a red metallic paint I have. Over it I stamped Andy's scratch stamp in media white gesso and gave it a coat of watery quinacridone gold, then when it was dry I sanded the edges back.


A close up of the crackle on the cabinet card which is a foamboard base, I used the white crackle paint and added some raw umber to age the edges and a watery wash over the top.



On the star you can see the glow of the copper and the fabulous green patina that can develop on it.


There will be a few more boards being shown here over the coming weeks as I want one for each of the six metal effects I have devised.


Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. This workshop will be up on Country View Crafts soon and if you can get to Flitwick in Bedfordshire fairly easily on the 6th June it would be lovely to see you.

hugs Brenda xxx





Thursday 16 April 2015

Visual Journey #16

I love happy accidents and that's what happened with todays journal pages. 


The pages were gessoed over and left to dry. I took weathered wood, antique linen and gathered twigs sprays with Tim's new typo and brick stencils to create the background. I sprayed through with the chosen colours and flipped the stencils to create other textures.


I noticed colours mixing and changing and when I looked at the full double spread I knew I wanted some spaces filled (mind you I think I over did it lol). So out came a thin paint brish, I sprayed the colours onto my craft mat and I began filling in some of the bricks and extending them beyond the stencil outline. I loved the effects so much you can see from the finished pages that I kept extending it more and more until the pages were almost full.


I had gathered a few collage pieces together including one of the found relatives and started altering and changing pieces as I was designing.


I had the film strip die-cut left over from another project and it seemed to fit in well here, so I added some of the small heritage photos cut from a TH paper stash.


The chit chat stickers were perfect for two reasons, one I was able to make up my own quote and secondly they reminded me of bricks, so they fitted in perfectly.


Wow I'm lovin' creating these pages and I've just worked out I have enough blank pages in the book to complete the whole year - yay.

Thanks for stopping by and a big thank you if you are leaving me comments. I know how time consuming it is and I really appreciate each and every one. Welcome also to new followers who have joined me recently, it's lovely to have you along on this creative and visual journey with me.

If you fancy linking to me then please add your journal pages below and if you would like to li k with each other and share your work around the world then please add the following piece of code to your blog.


Take care, enjoy Friday and have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx


Wednesday 15 April 2015

Kraft cards for Country View Crafts

I love using kraft card in my work and was so pleased to find some good quality and 'real' kraft coloured cards in Michaels last year. So taking the plunge I decided to create my designs straight on the card itself - - - - scary!!!!!


Taking a palette knife I daubed small amounts of gesso onto three cards.


Then using torn paper I masked off  areas and stamped through the gaps to get my random stamped sections.


Next came  torn strips of tissue/washi tapes........


....... and strips of stitched torn paper or stitched hessian ......

.... then stamped and inked images I found in my left over images box and watercoloured them with distress inks.



I finished them all with a stamped word and a single embellishment.

If you like to use kraft card somewhere in your projects then we would love to see them at Country View Challenges. There is a £20 voucher from Country View Crafts for the lucky winner.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxxx