AVJ Tag Friday

It's another of those Fridays when the contributing Creative Guides from A Vintage Journey have fun and produce a tag for the line up that has no boundaries other than our favourite genres to work with. Of course I went very vintage and mixed media.

This tag came out of nowhere, in fact I wasn't even planning to make it that day but I had seen something on Pinterest that I liked and I had a brainwave, you know one of those epiphany moments of how I could use my decoart products in a different way. I grabbed a Tando greyboard tag and decided to experiment.

I was quite happy with the ways things went but I want to experiment a bit more before I write up the process steps. But here are some close ups. The colours all came together beautifully and set the vintage atmosphere.

 The metal stars were given a quick coat of quinacridone gold with a little cerulean blue to age them and you can see an old swirl stamp from Tim Holtz, I still love the shape of this one.The clock piece on the side is a piece left over from another project from at least a couple of years back.

When looking for the collage elements this little piece of lace just fell out of the box, so I had to see if it would fit and it did. I just coloured it by spritzing it with water and adding cerulean blue and transparent red iron oxide. It does actually look a little greener in real life.

Would you believe this little wildflower also fell out of the pile of bits I was going through, definitely another serendipitous moment and it went beautifully over the foliage stamped in the background - another old stamp of Tim's.

All the elements fitted the background perfectly and I had left it light enough in the middle to provide a good contrast to the darker collage pieces.

Finally a word band and some rusty wire. I was totally living in the moment creating my tag for today and I really love the outcome.

Another fabulous Tag Friday line-up is over at A Vintage Journey for your perusal.

Thanks for following me and stopping by and ....

xxx

My beating heart

Sharing a project I made at a class with the lovey Monika Maksym a week last Saturday. I so enjoy taking workshops with other tutors, especially when I learn something new which I did with Monika but also as it keeps my feet grounded in what it's like on the other side of the fence.

The shabby crackled doors open to reveal an amazing heart which was made from a mould ......

... layered onto a heart shaped board with a crown.

We used chalky finish paints as well as media fluid acrylics from DecoArt and three different types of crackle medium.

My heart was painted with prussian blue and raw umber before dry brushing a light chalk paint, some silver and then flooding it with a wash of quinacridone gold.

I won't give any other secrets away as those are for Monika to share but .......

 ... this looks amazing on a shelf in my workroom.

Such a lovely way to spend a day with like minded people and enjoying the processes of making art.

Thanks Monika for a fabulous day and .....

xxx

Crackle Circles - Tando Creative and DecoArt

Another of the long thin tags for Di's outing to Hochanda last December. I love mixing up vintage with mixed media techniques and effects.
First I found the photo for this tag which is from my own collection of old cabinet cards.
So we have some dip, drip and dry and crackle circles in the background and then some vintage feel with the collage and colours. It fits the bill methinks.
I've saved this tag to fit the new theme over on the Tando blog this week which is called Photo Booth.

1.  Seal substrate with light coat of gesso.

2. Stencil circles using white crackle paint and leave to dry naturally.

3. Dip, drip, daub, spritz and dry with watery washes of fluid media acrylics. I used quinacridone violet, dioxazine purple, dark grey value 3 and translucent white.

4. Stamp using watering can archival inks.
5. Blend watering can around the edges.

6. Tear and add some small pieces of tissue tape.

7. Gather some small pieces of ephemera for using as a layered collage.

8. Find a vintage brad for the tag hole.

9. Cut and mount a heritage photo and add it to the collage layers.

10. Add some pertinent words or a phrase.

The beauty is in the detail.

 You don't need many bits of paper/ephemera to create a collage. I think three pieces was just enough here.

I stamped the sentiment onto patterned paper and coloured part of it in with a purple distress marker.

I'm thinking now that I could have added even more detail by altering the vintage brad, maybe painted it or rubbed over some metallic lustre.

Torn Tissue tape adds a lovely detail. Two pieces placed like this creates an uneven line across the surface making your eye move around more at the bottom of the tag.

The crackles really pop on the circles with the dark paints showing through them.

This was the second in a series of three of these tags made for Di for one of her Hochanda outings. You may have seen the others but if you missed them they can be found Here and Here.

xxx

Book panel for Andy Skinner

So I decided to do something different this year for my Andy Skinner posts and create a heavyweight panel book so you will see a few more of these coming over the next few months so that I can keep some of my more grungy mixed media work together..

Process steps

Paint the board with phthalo green-blue, prussian blue hue, cerulean blue and titan buff. Heat dry.
Drag slightly watery paynes grey around the edges, spritz with water, let it move about and heat dry. This frames the board.

Apply crackle paste through Andy's fossil stencil and put aside to dry.

Take the telephone dial and roughly scrape over some texture sand paste.
Rustify the frame pieces of greyboard I wanted to follow along with team member Hannah's fabulous Facebook live video which you can find HERE.

I sort of repeated Hannah's process on the telephone dial as well but she talked about mixing it up - so I did.

I took the printed numbers dial from the kit and gave it a coat of dirty matte medium wash to seal it and make it look aged. I stamped the circular board from Andy's Curiosity set of stamps in both coffee and black archival ink and also gave that a coat of dirty matte medium (thats decoart matte medium mixed with a little paynes grey and quin gold - just the tiniest pin prick amounts and a wet brush!).

It was here I started to assemble pieces and play with designs to the point that I really didn't like the room the frame took up, it created a distraction from the beautiful fossil and telephone dial. I knew I would use it some point but just not on this composition. After fiddling with all sorts of bits and pieces I decided I would go for book corners and simply make them look rusty with layers of watery quin gold. I also added some watery washes over the fossil crackle to start the transformation process using cerulean blue and red iron oxide,

 Next I scraped black modeling paste through Andy's Bubbles stencil around the fossil. When that was dry I also added some random patches of texture sand paste. It looks really grungy and not too attractive at the moment. Now the inner critic set in - was this going to work? etc, etc.

Once dry the fun began using all the rusty layering colours of paint with a water spritzer and a heat gun. I used paynes grey, burnt umber, transparent yellow iron oxide and quinacridone gold.

Then time to assemble.

My project is over on Andy's blog today with links to all the supplies.

Have a great weekend, thanks for stopping by and ....

xxx

Supplies

Andy Skinner stencils - Fossil and Bubbles

Andy Skinner stamps - Curiosity

Andy Skinner (Tando) kit - So Call Me Already

DecoArt media fluid acrylics - phthalo green-blue, prussian blue hue, cerulean blue, titan buff, paynes grey, silver metallic, yellow oxide. metallic gold, quinacridone gold, burnt umber, transparent yellow oxide.

DecoArt Media - white crackle paste, sand texture paste, black modeling paste, matte medium

DecoArt Media Team - Fabric Journal

I have a post live today on the DecoArt Mixed Media Team Blog which includes these lovely little pages from a brand new Tando mini album.

I'd love it if you could pop over to see how the album came together and leave me a little love over there. Thank you.

I'll be back tomorrow with a project on the Andy Skinner blog too. It's busy, busy, busy!

hugs Brenda xxx

My first workshop this year at Country View Crafts

I had a fabulous workshop at Country View Crafts last weekend teaching techniques and sharing tips with a fabulous group of people who attended. This was the project - a shadowbox filled with textures, images and ideas.

I enjoyed putting this together as well as teaching the process steps and taking centre stage are two od the Tim Holtz Cottontail die cuts, created in a mixed media style.

Participants also put together a collage layer for a rusted frame to sit over using ephemera and papers ....

.... and I demonstrated quick and easy way to add watercolouring using decoart media fluid acrylic paints.

I love the entomology bugs which come as stamps and dies and these are fabulous for adding interest with the layers ......

.... including one hiding in the wildflower foliage.

The crackle background worked perfectly using a stencil with the decoart media crackle paste and then layers of watery acrylic paint washes.

I have a post over on the CVC project blog today that also shares these photos and also a video of the projects made on the day.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Supplies

DecoArt media fluid acrylics - quinacridone gold, paynes grey, raw umber, sap green and cobalt turquoise hue, green gold, cerulean blue, viridian, pyrrole red, titan buff, raw umber, titanium white, translucent white, cobalt teal, burnt umber, yellow oxide .
DecoArt mediums - media white gesso, media white crackle paste, decou-page sealer, texture sand paste, matte medium.
DecoArt - Glazing medium

Tim Holtz dies- Cottontails, Wildflower stems #1 and #2, mini 3d border

Tim Holtz - entomology stamps and dies