Saturday 28 October 2017

Halloween for Tando Creative

HI All
We are getting closer to All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Eve which is a celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October and is the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.
Of course activities include trick-or-treating, attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories and watching horror films. In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular, although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration. But whatever you believe and observe,
HAPPY HALLOWEEN.


For my Tando DT sample today I am using a medium media board that I cut myself and have added a stand for it.

I love using Pinterest and found a great colour combination -


and collected together media paints that I thought would give me the range of colours I wanted.


I took the purple and black and mixed them on the card whilst painting it at the same time.


I then stamped the spider's webs with grey and interference gold mixed together and then brushed over a watery mix of burnt umber and grey together and dried it whilst dabbing with some kitchen roll to get that misty, eerie look. I also splattered a little with watery grey on its own.


I painted the frame with violet, purple, black and grey paints again mixing them on the substrate to give lots of colour variations through it.


I gave it a coat of clear crackle glaze and rubbed in white antiquing cream when it was dry.


I gathered a few Tando chipboard pieces and a metal skull to start the design.


The spider has a speckled body as I gave it a coat of texture sand paste, painted all over with black and then rubbed some of the purple and silver paint over the high spots and the tops of the legs and repeated with interference gold.


The bat was painted with black and burnt umber mixed and I stippled a little grey on him with a small stiff brush, I then gave him a couple of dirty washes using the black and brown paints and sanded around the edges of him and blended in brown DI and also some silver paint.


To assemble I adhered the background card to the media board and rubbed cosmic blue and fab fuchsia metallic lustres on the skull and chose some remnant rubs to use.


This is ta side view showing a simple stand to make the board stand up.



Thanks for stopping by and maybe you might like to see the project in more finished detail over on the Tando blog.

I hope your weekend is going well and that you get lots of treats and not tricks.

hugs Brenda xxx

Friday 20 October 2017

Vintage Autumn for Tando Creative

Hi All - have you missed me? I've had a long break over September and October and because hubby has now retired we went away for a whole month to our lovely friends and 'home from home' in California. We didn't stay put the whole time though as we took a 4000 mile drive through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and back into California. It was an amazing journey as we saw so much variation in landscapes, the most incredible scenery in several national parks and some incredible ancient native American sites with settlements built high up in the craggy rocks and fantastic pueblos with one that so inspired me in terms of colours and design, it was amazing!

But back to reality and I'm sharing a long tag over at the Tando Blog today and am revealing more of the process steps here on my own blog.


I began by collecting the substrates and embellishments together designing the tag as I went along.


I looked for a colour palette to inspire me and found this on Pinterest.....


.... and gathered my paints together to achieve similar colour tones, but as always I ended adding others to get exactly the look I wanted and I always have white, titan buff, raw umber and black to hand to change shades and tones.


I took each piece individually painting, texturing and colouring before putting back together again.     
The tag was painted first with gesso, given a watery coat of orange and buff mixed together, dabbed with kitchen roll and then dipped in watery washes of the autumnal colours.



The media board with a hole in was gives a coat of brown acrylic and then white crackle paint, sanded and inked with ground espresso distress ink.


I took texture sand paste and covered the gasket and then stippled with green and brown paint.


The brick grid was painted with reds, bronze, orange and brown......


..... and I used raw umber, dark green, silver and grey on the camera, but you'll see it didn't make it to the final cut lol. Do you do that too, plan on using a piece and then leave it out at the end?


The two sets of leaves were also painted with the acrylics, dipped in some watery washes sanded and inked with brown distress ink, in fact everything got that treatment..


The tag really wasn't looking good in my eyes so I used an old Tim Holtz grungy number stamp with quinacridone gold and raw umber paints, sanded the edges and inked them and oh boy I am so much happier with it.


When I put it together I added the vintage photo that sits behind the gasket and media board ...


... and an altered little metal heart.


Thanks for checking in and if you can pop over to the Tando blog you will see the list of products I have used with links to their website.

Have a fabulous weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx



Friday 6 October 2017

The Colours of Autumn

More limited supplies for my contribution to the Colours of Autumn challenge at A Vintage Journey. I have so many mop up tags and scraps I really do need to use up or get rid of!!!!!

This is a tag background that I found with colours and a design that seemed perfect for Jennie's fabulous challenge.


So out came some papers, flowers and a vintage photo from one of Tim's ephemera packs and I was away.



I often find that reducing the supplies in front of me helps me focus and create something in less time than normal which is just what I need to be doing at the moment.

Hope we see you over on the challenge blog and joining us, but even if you just pop over to see the wonderful contributions from the AVJ team we would love to see you.

Take care.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tuesday 3 October 2017

Halloween Triptych

I am up on the DecoArt Media Blog today with a Halloween Triptych made from Tando media boards and embellishments.



The raven is from a stamp but I have made him very textural and I've used Andy Skinner stamps too.
If you'd like to see all the details then please pop over to take a look. There's all the process steps and photos to go with them that you can look through and have fun with if you fancy making something similar.

Have a great Halloween month making your own decorations and spooky projects.

hugs Brenda xxx

Updated from the DecoArt blog

Face Your Fears Triptych
Halloween is the perfect season to use some of the Andy Skinner stamps and I have combined them with some fabulous small greyboard shapes from Tando Creative to create this Halloween Triptych. Items needed :
  • DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Prussian Blue Hue
  • DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Payne's Grey
  • DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Gold
  • DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Burnt Umber
  • DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Titan Buff
  • DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Raw Umber
  • DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Carbon Black
  • DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - Gesso - Black
  • DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - Modeling Paste - White
  • DecoArt Media Varnishes - Gloss Varnish
  • Americana Decou-Page (Glue-Sealer-Finish) 8oz - Americana Decou-Page Matte
  • Andy Skinner Stencils 12x3 - Shedded
  • Metallic Lustre 1oz - Iced Espresso
  • Metallic Lustre 1oz - Orange Flicker
  • Assorted Brushes
  • Tando Mammoth Mechanical
  • Tando Minis Halloween Mix
  • Tando Spiders Grab Bag
  • Tando Cogs Grab Bag
  • Tando Media Boards
  • Stamps - Andy Skinner Birds and Bones, Unexplained, Toxic
Instructions :Take three media boards and paint them with black gesso.
Using Andy Skinner's stencil apply black modeling paste - it doesn't have to be an all over coverage.
Find a piece of leftover painty card that will fit in with your planned colour combinations and stamp 
some words.
Layout your design so that you know where everything will go and adhere the chipboard pieces and 
some metal spacer beads to add more interest.
Make up a spray of fairly watery Titan Buff and spray over the chipboards and the background.
Spritz water around the chipboard pieces and dab on raw umber, let it drip around and then heat dry.
Spritz the chipboards with water and randomly dab on some Burnt Sienna and dry.
Spritz with water again and this time randomly add dabs of Paynes Grey and dry. You van see how 
the color is beginning to build up n all three boards.
Spritz around the metal elements and the chipboards and add dabs of both Raw Umber and previous 
colours if they're needed and dry.
Spritz lightly all over with water and dabble Quinacridone Gold in a couple of areas on each board 
and dry.
Take Iced Espresso and Orange Flicker lustres and paint over some of the chipboards and metal beads 
and if necessary dabble on some Paynes Grey. Raw Umber and Quinacridone Gold to create well 
mixed, dripped and metallic grungy effects and dry. Spray with the Titan Buff and add a wash of Quinacridone Gold
Using Titan Buff rub over the top cog and stamp over the oval and rectangle chipboards.
To create the raven daub embossing ink onto some card large enough to take the raven stamp, heat 
emboss with black EP, when cool repeat with clear ultra thick EP and repeat again with black and 
brown EPs sprinkled together. On this last round whilst it still hot stamp the raven having inked him 
up with versafine black pigment ink. Leave the stamp to cool in the embossing before removing it. 
Add some paint to the body and wings to subtly bring out the features.
Adhere the bird and words onto the boards and mix up a dirty glaze - I have a tutorial on my blog for 
this which can be found here - and paint it over everything on the three boards to seal and unify 
them.
Take a piece of leftover greyboard and make a panel for the back.
I hope you enjoy the grungy style and even if you don’t like to use Halloween images the steps 
and techniques will work with whatever you have.
Thanks for joining me today. Happy crafting.