Friday, 29 July 2016

Under the Sea - DecoArt challenge

I am participating as a DecoArt Mixed Media Design Team Member (DMMDT) in their summer challenge 'Under the Sea', you are invited to submit a project up until the 12th August and there are two fabulous media packages to be won.


So get your DecoArt supplies out and get your thinking caps on, this is one not to be missed.
I have had some fun with a cheap Ikea frame for this one.


Process steps 
(These can be taken out of order, when you are waiting for drying or crackle times work on another piece of the project)

1. Give your frame a coat of white gesso and dry. Take some muslin and cheesecloth and adhere to the frame with a fabric structurizer (I used one I have in my supplies but DecoArt do a fabric stiffener you could try). Leave to dry.


2. Cut your card to fit the frame and give it a coat of white gesso. Mix some transparent/semi transparent sea blue and greens with water separately on a craft mat and dip and dry your background several times keeping the wash very light in colour.


3. Use a bubble like stencil with transparent crackle glaze and randomly add sections to the background. Leave to dry.


4. Take a piece of card and brayer red, orange  and yellow paints over the surface both horizontally and vertically and finish with a brayered wash of yellow oxide. Use a crackle stamp with red geranium archival ink and when dry die-cut flowers. Because they looked deeper than I wanted I dipped them in a watery titan buff and dried them.


5. Make another piece using greens and brown (without the crackle stamping) and cut foliage. Again I knocked the pieces back by dipping in watery titan buff.


6. Adhere glass flat backed cabochons to the background. Make more colour washes in the blue/greens and then drip and spritz with water. Repeat layers as necessary to achieve required results.


8. a) Die cut two seahorses from mount board and glue them together, dip in tiny amounts of pyrrole red and cadmium orange with water, seal with a coat of matte medium. b) Draw on markings with a ground espresso distress marker, c) then spritz lightly to move the distress ink around a little and seal with micro glaze. d) I spritzed again to check it was sealed but it wasn't fully and more ink moved around so I dabbed it off and re-drew in a few parts of the seahorse and sealed it again. e) To finish I splattered with some of the pyrrole red and quinacridone orange and used a posca white and a posca black pen to draw in a few dots and details. 


9. I didn't like the eye in the last photo so I played with it a bit more and now I'm happier with it (although he doesn't look as angry irl).


Right after that marathon onto more of the frame.

10. a) When the fabric is dry on the frame adhere glass glitter and micro beads to the fabric using matte medium. b) When dry splodge translucent blue and white paints over, spray with water mister and dry - you will need to repeat several times all around the frame. c) Again when dry spray perfect pearl sprays and dry again. This time add in some brown and yellow colours.



11. Knock back the deeper colours by splattering translucent white paint and by adding some snowtex.


10. Take the fun crab chipboard piece, add sand texture paste and dry, then stipple sandy colours and brown over him.


11. The other embellishments also had a bit of a make over including the starfish and shells that are real.


12. Give everything a spray of Americana matte sealer and finally put the frame together adding some knotted string and raise the seahorse to give it added dimension. I hadn't added the title of the piece on this photo but I am really pleased with the effects.


I hope you have been following the team and their projects this month, so do pop over to the Media Blog to see what they have been creating AND look too at what you could be in with  chance of winning if you join in.



 Many thanks for stopping by Bumblebees and Butterflies and checking out my Under the Sea frame.

hugs Brenda xxx

Taking Sara's steer I am entering this into the 'By the Sea' challenge at Frilly and Funkie which includes a nautical or beach theme and colour palette. Thanks Sara. xxx

I also notice that Anything but Cute has a Summertime Fun challenge going so I thought I would enter it there too. No better fun than being by or in the sea.

So then I thought let's have fun with anymore challenges I could find and Mixed Media Mojo has Summer Fun with a twist of Shells.



PRODUCTS AND SUPPLIES

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Phthalo Green Blue
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Cobalt Teal
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Phthalo Turquoise
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Titan Buff
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Quinacridone Magenta
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Yellow Oxide
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Pyrrole Red
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Red
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Cadmium Orange
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Transparent Red Iron Oxide
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Viridian
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Prussian Blue
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Green Gold
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Raw Umber
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Raw Sienna
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Gold
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Burnt Sienna
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics – Translucent White
DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products – Transparent Crackle Glaze
DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - Clear Matte Medium
DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - White Gesso

Sizzix (Tim Holtz) Wildflowers thinlits
Sizzix (Tim Holtz) Holiday Greens thinlits
Sizzix (Tim Holtz) Sand and Sea Bigz die

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

D2C Skinzapfel board

I realised I hadn't shared my Skinzapfel project from Dare to Create in Coventry a few weeks ago with the amazing Andy Skinner and Tracy Weinzapfel.


I loved this class where both Andy and Tracy shared the projects they had made whilst on a Skype or FaceTime session, daring each other to add the next layer and not showing what they had created until the end, their projects were very close in visual appearance. The heart took centre stage and you can see it has been distressed with Andy's stamps and given a dark shadowy aura around it, it really stands out.


We added stenciled modeling paste for texture ......


.... and stenciled with the media paints as well.


I love the colours I used and wish I'd written down the names of the ones I had chosen to put together. Of course they were all from the DecoArt media line.


No process steps today in respect for Andy's and Tracy' class, but I know I will be making something similar again soon. I did however get my three D2C pieces shown on Andy's blog HERE.

Hope your week is going well.

hugs Brenda xxxx

Sunday, 24 July 2016

Weathered Beach huts for CVC

I am sharing some of the workshop photos from yesterday over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog today.

I loved creating the Weathered Beach huts with a brand new technique from me to achieve this very weathered and aged wood effect.



I always believe the best finish is in the detail and here we have faux rusty nail heads ....


.... roof details and door latches.



On the back are some maritime and beach elements.






Because we changed venue to CVC headquarters with Susan as host I made her this set of beach huts in the colours she wanted.



All the products are from Country View Crafts and all the mediums and paints are from the DecoArt Media line.

I hope you have enjoyed my 'show and tell' here, there are more workshop photos on the CVC Project blog.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tuesday, 19 July 2016

Dare to Create catch up 2

I did  the Sunday morning class with the amazing Tracy Weinzapfel at D2C a few weeks back and made this framed board in her style using Tracy stamps. 


I have added a few bits since I got home, the shading using a ground espresso distress marker and white drawing pencil .......


.... and some fun words - 'Summer days' and 'Special Moments'.


Although it's not my usual style I had great fun making it and will certainly use the techniques in my journal.


Hope you are loving the sun and warmth here in the UK, it's got to be the best weather of the summer so far ....... and I'm so happy my garden is looking lovely (thought I would add these as they fit the project above and were taken just now in the sunshine).

I love my pots and have various little groups of them round the back of the house and patio and most of them contain at least one Fuchsia - you'll see all my cuttings being grown on in pots. They are all hardy but it doesn't stop a few of them dying off over the winter.














The sun loungers are in the shade at the moment but they get the last sun of the day too.

Right off to go and meet up with Nikki for coffee or maybe that will be a frappuccino today!!!

Enjoy your week.

hugs Brenda xxxx