Altering embellishments

I made the background for this tag at Dare to Create with Andy Skinner at the same time as making my altered box (if you missed it you can find it here). That was grungy and this is much more shabby and feminine.

So I had the idea I would add something to it (it is far too pretty and textured to just discard) and to give the post more interest (because I can't share the process steps for the background as it was part of the workshop) I thought I would create a collage with embellishments and give you some ideas for altering them using DecoArt products.

Tinting photos.

The media paints have a number of translucent colours that I used to colour just some parts of this photo, not all of it.

Wikipedia says -

Typically, watercolours, oils, crayons or pastels, and other paints or dyes are applied to the image surface using brushes, fingers, cotton swabs or airbrushes. Hand-coloured photographs were most popular in the mid- to late-19th century before the invention of colour photography and some firms specialized in producing hand-coloured photographs

Coloured gems.

Glass stars and clear gems look fabulous with translucent media paints, like cobalt teal, and some white gesso over them.

Metal embellishment with a shabby appeal.

A light coat of gesso with some gently dabbed off using kitchen roll. When dry spritz with water and drop some quinacridone magenta and titan buff onto it, the colours mix on the embellishment itself creating tones of different pinks. Finish with metallic lustres rubbed gently over - I used  orange flicker and champagne ice.

Chipboard pieces with metallic effects.

(I left out rust ones as I have covered these on numerous occasions)

Give a light dry brush of gesso over the surface (note you are not looking to seal the wood). Spritz with water and dab on paynes grey and silver with your finger, again this produces an uneven coverage rather than a painted one. When dry ink the edges with ground espresso distress ink.

Plastic number.
This is not my technique it belongs to Tim Holtz, he uses distress paint but the process and results can be achieved with the media acrylics. You can find the steps on P.45 of Compendium of Curiosities 3.

Coloured shabby seam binding.

Spritz, dip and dry using the media acrylics. If you are using more than one colour dry between each of them. 

Textured background
Here you can see the colours and textures on the tag and because I kept to the lighter, brighter colours it has more of a shabby feel to it.

When putting it together I added some florals to give that feminine touch.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx