Friday 30 December 2016

Tag Friday at AVJ

Yay it's Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey and time for the Creative Guides to have some time to create a tag that is totally their own without any constraints whatsoever and I have to say I really enjoyed getting out some new (to me) dies from Seth Apter and my box of left over backgrounds to create one with a grungy, timeworn feel to it.


I cut the tag from a a piece of card that I had obviously been experimenting on using both my treasured DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints and much loved distress inks. Later I added some stamping using one of Seth's background stamps.


Using more leftovers I die-cut shapes that would fit together to make up a design and several of those shapes I cut several times to create strong, rigid pieces that when layered together produced a fabulous 3d feel.


I built up the focal section and then layered it using foam squares to create height and more dimension.


I love it when rusty elements can be created from dies and scraps of card on which I have had fun practising techniques to create timeworn effects .....


..... and when those pieces fit together quite naturally without too much effort.


The focal word came from Tim's Big Chat stickers and the only deciding factor for my choice of the word was it's length - it just fits neatly into the frame.


So there we have it .......


..... a battered, weathered construction that has a bit of an assemblage feel to it.


Thanks for coming over to see what I have made for the Tag Friday line up and do pop over to AVJ to see the most amazing inspirational pieces from the rest of the team.

hugs Brenda xxx


Saturday 24 December 2016

Prancing deer

Here we go my last Christmas card of the year.


Tim's prancing deer with the shape echoed in the paper used for the background. I gave him a coat of aged gold embossing powder.


Tim's drippy edge die cut from card I had in my bits box which had been given a rust and patina finish to it.


A Tim sentiment and frame.....


.... and all the edges were finished with some of the aged gold frantage embossing.


It's Christmas Eve, we already have our guest arrived to spend a few days with us and we have 14 for pre-Christmas dinner tonight. I love Christmas.


Enjoy your Christmas Eve and any final preparations you have left to finish..


hugs Brenda xxx

Friday 23 December 2016

Oh deer, deer, deer


Another of my panelled Christmas cards and patterned paper backgrounds.


A simple mini tree and deer die-cuts .....


........ a wooden embossed snowflake and a sentiment and look how the gold glows in the light.


Again I made a batch of two for putting in the post.


One more to come if I can find time tomorrow to post it lol.


The presents are wrapped, the food is in and everything is more or less ready - yay. Time to enjoy the festivities.


I hope all your preparations are finished too.

hugs Brenda xxx

Monday 19 December 2016

A holly jolly Christmas

I said there would be a few more Christmas cards to come. They're all in the post now so I hope the recipients like them. This one is very mixed media in style and follows the theme of using up some of those precious designer papers we tend to stash away. Like the last one it also has a media board background panel painted, stamped with flitter glue and foils added. I also splattered it with white gesso to it a snowy feel.


As the background paper has some beautifully distressed brown holly on it, I followed the theme and added brown and white winter foliage .........


... with some red gems for berries .......


....... a cut out ornament from more patterned papers and a Tim framed sentiment.


Two people received one of these as I doubled up the design.


I have now just got to wrap some presents to put under the trees and get a bit of baking done and then I am ready for the weekend. Only 6 more sleeps to the big day!

Enjoy your week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Thursday 15 December 2016

Winter Green Holiday Knits

Just catching up with making some cards to get in the post and I followed a technique I used here on - an Artsy Christmas card - but this time I tinted the white modelling paste with sap green media fluid acrylic paint and used a green music background patterned paper. The stencil is from Tim's mini stencil set 19 and I used his holiday knit, garden greens and holiday greens thinlits as well.




I actually made four of these with different borders from the holiday knit set, but three are already in the post.


I'm still in production mode getting extras made which I need to send asap so you'll see a few more over the next few days.


Hope your preparations are going well.

hugs Brenda xxx

DecoArt products
White gesso
White modelling paste
Media fluid acrylic paint - sap green


Friday 9 December 2016

Expression - altered frame

Today I'm sharing an altered frame made for the lovely Katy at MixedUp Magazine and happy that it is featured in the December Issue which can be obtained here. There are lots of amazing projects from incredibly talented artists so I feel very proud to have mine there alongside this amazing line up.


Using a cheap Ikea frame and DecoArt media products, a special give-away cabinet card (which is available in the magazine), and some games pieces, ........... 


....... I had fun creating this shabby grungy project.


There is a step by step with photos in the magazine if you want to see how I achieved the effects.


Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend - hopefully not too busy in the run up to Christmas.

hugs Brenda xxx

Friday 2 December 2016

Winter Magic

Our lovely Deb has chosen this very apt theme for our December challenge over at AVJ.
For us in the northern hemisphere December brings the start of winter and for many that means freezing cold weather and Christmas. But winter is so much more than that and so we ask, how would you interpret the magic of winter? Snow, icicles, colours of blue, silver and white, the festivities of Christmas, misty winter landscapes; show us what your magical focus is for the season and in a vintage; shabby; mixed-media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk style.


I have used one of the frame boards I designed for Tando Creative and used for my Ministry of Mixology project a couple of weeks ago. I had already made the cute house back in the summer when we were making beach huts for a Country View Crafts workshop and the initial idea was to utilise it as a shepherds hut out in the wilderness on a cold and frosty night which reminded me of Christmas carols and songs (Good King Wenceslas, past three o'clock and a cold and frosty morning, here we go round the mulberry bush and more), but as the project progressed you can see it changed and became Santa's Store shed.

I collected together chipboards and painted the trees and deer all white with gesso. The star I painted gold and the gate raw umber to start with.


For the background I used a technique I have used before which you can find here ....  and scraped titan buff, light grey, sap green and transparent yellow iron oxide, then brayered quinacridone magenta and titanium white and cadmium red with titanium white, splattered prussian blue, sap green, raw umber before brayering white gesso randomly which created a white misty/snowy landscape feel to it.


I stamped some trees using sap green and paynes grey to improve the effect of the landscape and provide more depth and perspective.


The fence was painted with raw umber and then white gesso and snowtex added to it.


The trees were give watery washes of different greens using sap green, paynes grey, yellow iron oxide and viridian with snowtex added to the edges and patted over with a palette knife.


I found a photo on Google of a deer and painted him using raw umber, transparent yellow iron oxide, burnt umber and titan buff and added some snowtex to him too.


The cones were given some snowtex texture .....


.... and I found a 'beach hut' from the summer workshop left over and decided to use it as a hut in the forest.



I used grey board to create the roof with layers of santex, media acrylic paints and gesso and I used a mini saw to cut off the stand at the bottom.


Now time to assemble and I had shared this tip the workshop groups at Ministry of Mixology as how to get an even spread with the four frame panels. Clip them on dry and when you are happy with the placement take each piece off individually, use decou-page to glue it and repeat with all four sides. Leave the clips on until the glue has adhered and dried.


So here are a few photos of the finished frame.
The deer waiting at the fence .......


.... star shining in the sky (this shape made me think about the shepherds out on the hilltops) .....


.... and Santa's Store hidden in the forest amongst all the trees.


I love winter when it's dry, cold and frosty  and coupled with Christmas, it's my favourite time of the year.


Have a great weekend and if you missed my mosaic Christmas easel card yesterday scroll down or you can find it here.

Thanks for stopping by and thank you to everyone who has been leaving me comments for the past couple of weeks. I haven't got to blogland much lately, Ministry of Mixology and Centre Parcs last weekend with the family have kept me busy but I promise to be better this coming week.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx