Vintage Mixed Media - Tando Creative and DecoArt

Last November I offered to make some bits for Di at Tando Creative to help her have some samples for a Hochanda show she was planning for. This was the first of three of this new sized tag. It is 26 cms long and 6 1/2 cms wide. I wasn't sure when I first saw them if I'd like the size but I found them so easy to create designs on I soon fell in love with them. She has also designed some new stencils which fit exactly over these tags and are perfect for creating the backgrounds.

1. Seal substrate with white gesso.

2. Dip, drip and dry washes of media fluid acrylics.

3, Stamp some text using treebranch archival ink.

4. Tear some used and dried teabags and add to the background.

5. Seal with matte medium or decoupage sealer.

6. Stencil numbers with white modeling paste coloured up separately with raw umber and quinacridone gold paint paint. Leave to dry.

7. Sand the edges to remove excess tea bags and distress the edges with ground espresso distress ink.

8. When dry add focal, rusted chipboard images, some embellishments and some words

Rusty Patina

a. Pounce over some raw umber, payes grey and cobalt teal hue over the stars, blending the together as you go.

b. With a piece of wet and dry foam blend some carbon black media acrylic round the edges of the star letting some blend over the top. Dry.

c. Spritz the stars with water and paint over a coat of neat quinacridone gold media acrylic and leave to stand so that the pigment pools in various random areas and heat dry. 

d. Repeat again if you want a more rusty look than you have already achieved. Also use some neat paint over the pooled areas to rust it even further.

e. Blend a tiny amount of brilliant turquoise metallic lustre round the edges and randomly over the surface keeping it very light. (You can always dabble a bit more quinacridone gold back onto the surface if you need to - I did!)

"The beauty is in the detail"
This is a saying I often use when teaching my workshops and to me it is so true, I always think about the details whether they be large and important ones or small finishing touches.

Just like these stars that had a lovely mat patina on them but I thought a little bit of metallic lustre would lift and brighten them some more.

 Words are always so important and I have loads of stamps with phrases and sayings on them but I also have a huge A4 file with my own computer generated ones. Then I get something unique to my project and the right size for placing them on.

 By stamping in a lighter ink you can get some lovely subtle details in the background.

So there we have the first of my trio and I was able to use the stars I designed for Di to use on a Ministry of Mixology make and take earlier in the year. Bonus!

Keep your eyes open for the next two long tags to appear .......
and

xxx