Monday 28 September 2015

Fall from Summer

It's my turn to post over at A Country View Crafts today

The foliage in the garden has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.... . September is dressing herself in showy dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias. October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes


I had a leftover tag with picket fence distress paint resist and what looks like picked raspberry, dried marigold and scattered straw distress inks or stains. It has a lovely summery feel to it and decided I wanted to create the feel of summer turning to autumn when the colours begin to change and the gardens and countryside are a wonderful blend of the pinks through to reds and orange and into autumnal gold and browns.


More details and photos are on the CVC project blog if you would like to pop over and see.


Thanks for stopping by today.

hugs Brenda xxx



By all these lovely tokens 
September days are here, 
With summer's best of weather 
And autumn's best of cheer.

Helen Hunt Jackson


Saturday 26 September 2015

Find your style

I am still loving a return to some Wendy Vecchi style tags using die-cuts and wooden pieces in a similar way to Wendy's art parts.



I began with Wendy Vecchi's archival reinkers background using surgical spirit to help blend the colours on the tag adding a top stenciled border using dried marigold DI and I drew lines in using a fine pitt artist pen. For the bottom border I used wild honey and the central stenciling is a light layer of ground espresso. I also stamped an old wooden stamp to create more depth with the text.



I painted a wooden frame, stamped on it and blended ground espresso round the edges, the dress form was die cut from greyboard and Tim's papers and the sentiment is one of Wendy's.


I added two buttons on the dress form and there is a wooden star that was rubbed in ground espresso distress ink.

 
In true Wendy style my tag is shorter than normal at 5 1/2 inches long. It's a great size to create on.



I finished off with a few remnant rubs and a piece of distressed ribbon.


Thanks for stopping by today and a huge thank you to those of you who leave me a comment. I read and value each and every one of them.

Take care, have a great weekend and let your creativity fly.

hugs Brenda xxx

Thursday 24 September 2015

Visual Journey #34

My first experiments with Brusho crystal colours.


At Ally Pally last weekend I sat at a make and take table to have a play with Brusho colours. I have used them in the past for simple watercolouring with 11 year olds but never really experimented and played for myself. In fact I had completely forgotten about them until they started becoming popular on the blogs. The colours are so vibrant, I love them.


Using pre-stamped and white embossed watercolour paper given to me and with two layers of brushos spritzed with water I was quite pleased with the effects so I've had a quick play in my visual altered journal and this time used black embossing powder and just a small range of colours that I bought to experiment with.


I prepared an A4 piece of  textured acrylic paper spritzing the brushos and then completing with a wrinkle free technique leaving some white space.The leaves are Tim's framelits stamped and die-cut.


When I saw these photos together the background colours reminded of blackberries - don't ask me why!!!!


I'm obviously still in that transition mode from summer to autumn with the greener colours behind the very autumnal leaves.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope your week is going well.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tuesday 22 September 2015

Farewell to Summer

The evenings are drawing in and the mornings are damp and chillier which is a sure sign that summer is fading and autumn is upon us.



My tag today is called Farewell to Summer and whilst we are thinking of the changing colours from fresh greens to dusky oranges and browns I don't want to loose the lovely warmth of the sun.

I started with some of Wendy's re-inkers to make the background and added some stencilling and stamping



The cone flower is one of Wendy Vecchi's art parts painted with distress paints, some gold embossing paste rubbed on randomly and then distress inks to build up the layers.



The arts part border at the bottom was painted with mustard seed distress paint, dried and sunset orange, butterscotch and sandal alcohol ink dripped on and left to dry.



I finished off with some remnant rubs and a stamped and punched number that fitted over the tag hole perfectly.



Although we will miss the summer colours and long summer days I love to see the autumn hues appearing and already I have some of the gold and red leaves appearing on my flowering cherry tree. They are beautiful.

Have a fun filled week.


hugs Brenda xxx

Saturday 19 September 2015

Numbers (2) for Country View Crafts

Antique enamelled number plates

This is my second post for the September Country View Challenge and I am still focussing on number plates (see my previous post for rusty antique French number plaques here.) Also you can seeee the finished project that I used one of these plates on at the end of this post.

I had seen a set of metal number plates for sale on ebay and thought I would make myself a set to use as vintage/antique embellishments on future projects.


I die-cut rectangles of chipboard and added a hole in each side to take a split pin or brad. I then die cut a number several times using greyboard with my chosen die. I used the Tim Holtz wordplay die and it takes chipboard perfectly so I only had to do two of each. 


I painted the rectangles with picket fence distress paint leaving rough edges to create a distressed look when I was finished. 


I played around with different ways to get the effects but ended up adhering one (or more if you have chosen thinner card) of the numbers onto the chipboard rectangle and leaving the other one for later. Then I realised I needed to have the edges of the numbers painted as well so out came the paint again. 


When they were dry I pushed them into a distress embossing ink pad, covered them with white embossing powder and rubbed some of it off around the edges and heated it. When cool I blended in vintage photo distress ink to create a worn and rusted effect. This is a similar technique to Tim's rusted enamel technique which you can find here. Repeat the embossing steps on the chipboard numbers you put aside using black embossing powder and again rub over with vintage photo DI. I also used a gathered twigs distress pen to get into the nooks and crannies that the ink blender couldn't get into. 


Adhere them over the top of the ones on the rectangles and paint in some gathered twigs distress paint in random places around the number and spritz with water dabbing the excess off with kitchen roll. You can see in this photo how prominent the numbers are on the plates.


Hey presto you have yourself a set of antique enamelled number plates to use as embellishments on cards and canvases etc.

I wanted to use one straight away so I took some Tim Holtz ephemera and embellishments and a small canvas and set to work.


Firstly I stamped the canvas with one of Tim's new ledger script stamps and then added decoart white crackle paste through Tim's ruler stencil.


When that was dry I added some neutral distress colours using vintage photo, antique linen and hickory smoke DIs.


And once the embellishments had been added I had myself  a vintagey little piece to hang on the wall.


If you haven't yet seen the challenge do pop over to Country View Challenges and click on the September challenge in the side bar and it will take you straight there.



Thanks for stopping by to take a peek at my work and hopefully you can take yourself some time to be creative this weekend. I hope to get some designing done and some planning for next years workshops but I am also off to Ally Pally today and tomorrow, so maybe I will see you there.

Take care.

hugs Brenda xxx



Thursday 17 September 2015

A Visual Journey #33 with DecoArt fluid acrylics.

Everyday Moments


You know when you go through a bereft period with your art work? Well that's how I have been with my altered journal and my Visual Journey is in a hiatus as I have not had any new ideas for ages. So this week I got out an old gelli print and decided to play with my DecoArt paints.


I cut the print in half and added a piece to either page and using one of the large DecoArt stencils I sprayed through with my new ground espresso distress spray. Not wanting the ink to blend with another layer I sprayed it will spray and shine and left it to dry.


Over that I added modelling paste through a stencil and then played with the DecoArt paints until I was happy with the results and dabbed on a little postbox red and london blue dylusions inks to bring in some other hues.


I had some die-cut houses and played with paints over them using cadmium red hue, quinacridone red, phthalo green-blue, hansa yellow, dairylide yellow, phthalo blue and titan buff and I added some stamping to create more depth and texture. The quote is one of Tim's stamps.


Taking some stars and arrows die-cuts, I painted them black and used water soluble wax pastels to edge and shadow them.


The Tim sentiment was the last to be added.

I'm pleased to get creating in my visual journal again, let's see if I can keep it going.

Enjoy the rest of the week and have a great weekend. I will hopefully see those of you who are going to Ally Pally this weekend, I shall be popping in on Saturday and Sunday. Don't spend too much lol.

hugs Brenda xxx

Monday 14 September 2015

DecoArt configurations box for CVC

Today I am sharing a configurations box with lots of photos and details at Country View Crafts Projects blog which was my workshop focus last Saturday as a DecoArt Helping Hand Artist.
 To whet you appetite hear is a little taster of what is included.





There are lots more photos of all the details and techniques I taught at CVC so if you would like to see more please pop over and take a little look.

Thanks for popping by and thanks to all the course participants who made it such a great day.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxxx




Friday 11 September 2015

Gift tag

Just a quickie from me today as I have been busy prepping and organising for my next Country View Workshop which is tomorrow. The boxes are almost ready to be packed into the car and then I will be off to my sisters to see her too and then home again Saturday night.  

I would like to share a small gift tag (I know it has been received so I'm good to go with this).


It is a little gift tag I made from a left over tag. Do you make something and then have a change of heart or a light bulb moment and go off in a completely different direction? What do you do with the piece you were working on. I had a little gift I wanted to get in the post and also wanted to share a few words with a dear blogging friend and this tag, cut down to fit in the small package, was just the answer.


The bird and feather had been clear embossed before I inked over the tag .....


... and I finished it off by adding some stamping in hickory smoke, a friend hashtag and some remnant rubs.


I also dipped and dried the other side and added a little space to write my note .....


... and once it was written it was ready to add to the little package and go off to the post office.


Of course I still have the bottom half I can use another time.


Please share what you do with your left over projects, I'd love to know.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you get lost in some creative time this weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Monday 7 September 2015

James Fallon - The Undertaker

Having got one of Tim's new Halloween sets of stamps I decided to use the large skull with a cabinet card for some spooky results.


Process steps -

Undertaker background - stamp and black emboss the image.


Dip in distress inks.


Paint teeth, eye hollows and light areas of hat with watery picket fence distress paint, dabbing it and drying it several times. Then paint in the skull with watery DI to darken it.



Mask it off and stamp over with distress damask stamps using DI.



Foe the cabinet card - blend gold embossing paste lightly and randomly with finger.
Blend archival inks over the top which leaves a translucent colour and stamp over with archival ink.


Embellishments - stamp labels (I used a left over piece of inked card from another project).


Distress the monocle with distress paints and add to the background with a ring fastener so it hangs over the stamped eye..


A mini bottle, die-cut a spider and add chit chat stickers.


A die-cut bat and the name of the undertaker from the stamp set.


The bottle was cracked using Wendy Vecchi's tutorial here.


I hope you like my spooky cabinet card, this is the first of my Halloween creations this year, so I need to get on and make some more.


Products
Stamps - Tim Holtz - Distress Damask, Undertaker, Mini Halloween, Classics #12
Archival inks - black, potting soil, cornflower blue, dandelion
Distress inks - dried marigold. tea dye, wild honey, ground espresso, hickory smoke
Movers and shapers dies - bat, 31, spider



Thanks for stopping by, have a great week and don't forget creativity takes courage (Henri Matisse).

hugs Brenda xxx