Monday, 9 December 2024

Country View Crafts CHRISTMAS Frame 'Deck The Halls'

This is a project for the December 'Christmas' challenge on FaceBook.

I love handmade Christmas decor and these little box frames from IKEA are perfect for making small and beautiful projects to put on shelves, coffee tables etc.


Process Steps

Take a piece of vellum, stamp the holly using Versamark and sprinkle the embossing powder over and heat.

Take a small paper mache panel give it a light coat of gesso and dry.

Take blue, yellow and white paints, on a palette mix your main colour leaving some of the paints to use to blend with. Using a small sponge dab and blend the colours over the surface and around the sides, dry.

Give the panel a coat of collage medium and lay the vellum over and gently press and rub so that it adheres This rippled more than I thought it wood but embrace the imperfections as Tim says and actually I quite like the distressed look.

Take the Christmas ephemera piece, blend the edges with brown distress ink and then secure to the panel using foam pads.

Cut the frame, ink the edges and stack the layers over the wallpaper background inside the the frame.

Add the quote chip and some 49 & Market rubon transfers.

Gather some berries together, bind the middle with ribbon and tie it around the frame. Adhere the middle of the bunch of berries with hot glue.






Materials

Tim Holtz 

IdeaOlogy Ephemera pack - Christmas Noel

Wallpaper - Christmas Noel

Quote chips - Christmas Noel

Stampers Anonymous - Yuletide CMS356

Distress Ink - Walnut Stain

Sizzix thinlits TH Stacked Deckle frames

PaperArtsy

Fresco Finish Paints - Midnight, Zesty Zing, Snowflake

Ranger Seafoam White Embossing Powder

49 & Market - Rub-on Transfers

Miscellaneous - Vellum, berries, ribbon.

Sunday, 8 December 2024

CVC Workshop Winter Wonderland Project

 

Some photos from my Winter Wonderland workshop at Country View Crafts - 30th November 2024













My 2024 Christmas workshop project for Country View Crafts - I so love making 3D boards and they are very popular. I used lots of Tim Holtz products and loved adding the ledge and blocks to help create this wintry landscape. The natural elements helped add a wonderful cold, icy, wintry feel.

1.    Paint all the small wooden pieces with 1 coat of white gesso – dry. Repeat with a coat of white acrylic paint – include the base of the silver trees. Sand the edges of the cubes and blend the exposed edges with a dark brown DI to give a shabby effect. Repeat the effect randomly on the corners and odd parts of the ledge and frame.

2. Paint the large board with a coat of gesso to seal it and dry. (no paint)

Take speckles or snowy effect stencil and texture paste (I used distress texture paste matte) add very sparingly mostly round the edges of the top 2/3 of the board and dry.

Take tumbled glass and broken china Dis and speckled egg and iced spruce DO. (or any sky blue colours). Create puddles and dabble them over, spritz, drip and dry. Take white acrylic paint and lightly brayer over the top, the white will hit the top of some of the snow droplets but also create lighter areas on the board that you can rub in with your finger to create cloud effects. Dry.  If you want to add more of the blues, repeat puddles and daub with a brush, the texture paste soaks up some of the blue watery ink and also the inks lay and puddle between the snow droplets. When it’s dry scrape the texture paste through the speckles/snow stencil to add more white snowy texture through it. Again, dry it. KEEP BOTTOM THIRD OF THE BOARD CLEAN.

Moving to the bottom third of the board use the tumbled glass DI and Iced Spruce DO to make puddles of colour. With a paint brush daub a light layer over the board and add a little silver paint into it, let it all move around a lot in your hand and dry it. Splatter with water and watch some rings appear. Dry and take iced spruce distress ink and a chosen small chosen stencil (I used the mini version of Festive THS029) to create background for the seed heads.

Glue the ledge on at this point. The top of the ledge is 22 cms from the top f the board. Put to one side to dry.

 

3 Take the four, silver, die-cut trees, glue shapes back-to-back, offset slightly, and don’t worry if some of the white shows through, it actually looks like snow. Glue a gold star to the top of each one.

Take the gold sparkly row of fir trees, Cut the sides to fit the wooden panel and use a palette knife to add a small amount of snowtex to both the gold and silver trees using a palette knife. Put aside to dry.

 

4 Take the white card panel. Blend silver paint through a star stencil and dry it. Blend tumbled glass (light blue) DI over the surface. Sparingly rub some micro glaze randomly over the surface and gently buff off excess. Blend broken china (mid blue) over the surface. Splatter water droplets on, leave for about 30 seconds and the blot off with a paper towel and dry. You have created a mottled sky with snow falling in the background. Sand the edges and then blend a dark blue and then a dark brown distress ink round. Splatter it, the main board, the panel and the row of fir trees with some white paint. Dry the card panel, then adhere this to the wooden panel to create a frame. Paint glue round three sides of the frame (not the bottom one) and sprinkle rock candy glitter over it. Put aside to dry.

 

5 Take the round circle, lightly blend antique linen over the surface. Spritz with water, blot & dry. Spritz, blot & dry a second time. Place the moon mask over the top & blend antique linen distress oxide through it to create the texture of the moon. Dry it. Use a very fine paint brush to add glue over the oxide and dip into rock candy glitter.

 

6 Take the ribbon spritz it with water. Make a little puddle of tumbled glass, dip and dry. Repeat with a watery puddle of salty ocean. Make it into a bow.

 

7. Make up the double snowflake. Use small amounts of brown and white paints to colour the deer.


Now all pieces are prepped it’s time to assemble the project. Start by adding the star background frame on the ledge and adhere the two blocks either side of it. Glue on the silver icicles strip, the moon, gold stars, silver snowflakes. Adhere the white dried flowers and bundle of sticks on the blocks. Use a glue gun to add the seed head spray, bow and bells. Glue on the silver trees then use snow-tex on the ledge and adhere the decorative pieces – I always add glue to the areas that are going to sit in the ‘snow’. Add the Winter Wonderland title. Lay this flat in a box to carry it home.





Saturday, 23 November 2024

Winging It 2 for Country View Crafts

Create a piece of home decor for a shabby display. 


This is my second inspirational project for the 'winging it' challenge on the Country View Crafts facebook page. It was inspired by looking at home decor projects on Pinterest.

Die cut two wings from the 3D Impresslits 'Winged' embossing folder.

Create a small puddle of watery white acrylic paint and brush over each wing. Heat dry for about 15 seconds and then use kitchen paper dipped into hand gel to rub the paint away from the raised surface. 

Take a block of wood, give it a coat of gesso, dry and then a coat of white acrylic paint and dry.

Using gold embossing powder and stamps create simple designs on all four sides of the block.

Sand the edges and rub the exposed areas with a dark brown distress ink. Paint a bbq stick with gold paint and drill a hole in the cube to take it and glue it in.

Cut the snowflake strip and make up ready to add to the top, also give it a light wash with watery gesso. Punch a hole through the middle and in the extra star. Add these to the cube.

Glue the wings together leaving the central space open to use hot glue to adhere it to the stick and two small stars back to back at the top.

Stamp the label, cut and ink the edges, everything is now ready for the final assembly.




xxx






Materials used -

Tim Holtz -

3D Sizzix Impresslits 'Winged' embossing folder, snowflake rosette strip die

Stampers Anonymous - Simple Sayings CMS155, Christmas Magic CMS247, Letter to Santa CMS053

TH small star punch

Idea-ology Kraft Stock Sparkle Classic


Miscellaneous -

white gesso

white acrylic paint

a bbq stick

Saturday, 16 November 2024

Moth Wings are so beautiful

A project for Country View Crafts - 'Winging-it' themed Facebook challenge, November 2024.

 

Take a piece of Tim Holtz scrapbook paper for the background and dip in puddles of faded jeans and frayed burlap. Dry, then roughen the edges  and blend over with faded jeans and scorched timber.

Gather neutral papers for a collage.

Tie a small bundle of sprayed dried and sprayed seedheads, add white berry.

Assemble together, paint small cones with a topping of white paint.

The sentiment I chose reflects how I feel about the world at the moment, not because it is coming up Christmas. I'll be making my Christmas cards in the next few weeks.

My winged element is one of the Tim Holtz moths which I always find too shiny for me so I have given it a coat of matte collage medium.

The splatters on the edges of the frames are cut from some 49 and Market Rub-0n transfers

Once everything has been glued into the frame splatter with some watery white acrylic paint and add cones and snow.


xxx

Thursday, 31 October 2024

Halloween Collage Panel - Country View Crafts Design Team

Having had a playtime creating some potential halloween backgrounds (see post) I've taken the red one to use but before I created the collage I splattered some Barn Door Distress Spritz over it to give it some highlights.


This is my second inspiration project for October's Country View Challenges theme on FaceBook.



The Wicked Undertaker 
It is Victorian England and one of the creepiest crime waves in the East of London is surging. Anatomists and surgeons are needing an ever-increasing amount of bodies to advance their research in the study of human anatomy, and, as a result, they turn a blind eye to the dead body trade that is booming. Individuals and gangs are turning to body snatching (digging up graves to extract bodies) and selling them to make a neat profit— these are the scary body snatchers known as the London Burkers (burking meaning ‘killing someone for their marketable cadaver’). A gang led by John Bishop and Thomas Williams, who began their crimes by robbing fresh graves, quickly graduate to murder for an even fresher corpse to sell to the unscrupulous anatomists who are working with such criminals very regularly. Frightening!

Here is one of the unethical undertakers, Bertie Burns who engages in some of the underhand activities. At times bodies are very hard to come by, and sometimes, because desperate times call for desperate measures, the trade in human bodies also includes body parts, and often those who need bodies settle for body parts instead and Mr Burns makes a pretty penny.








xx

Materials

Dies Sizzix - Specimen,

Stampers Anonymous - Apothecary CMS138,  

Distress Inks - Seedless Preserves, Ripe Persimmon, Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed, Vintage Photo, Ground Espresso, Scorched Timber

Distress Spritz - Barn Door, Fossilized Amber

Idea-ology  Corked Vials, Snippets Curator, Film Strip Ribbon, Muse Token - Halloween, Found Framed Portraits - Halloween, Remnant Rubs - Curiosities, Mummy Cloth, corked glass vials


Sunday, 13 October 2024

Halloween Twilight Panel - Country View Crafts Design Team

Twilight 

Imagine it's dusk, there's a clear starlit sky and the moon is bright and golden and shining down across the wooded landscape. Slowly the nocturnal creatures are emerging into the shadows and a gentle breeze is beginning to rise. The leaves are rustling and whispering together softly whilst beautiful spidery sculptures of silvery threads entwine between them often glistening as they catch the light of the full moon. Bats are seen swooping and flying between the trees looking for their food and are beginning to gather together before migrating or hibernating. A large black bird with shimmering plumage alights on a branch of the gnarled tree amd cautiously surveys the area around him.  

It is October 31st, it is twilight and so a Halloween night of chills and tension begins.


Process Steps













I had such fun putting this panel together I thought I would frame it to go on the sideboard at Halloween. When I'd finished I also took some close detail photos. I love how 3D it looks now.









xxx


Supplies

Distress Inks - Scattered Straw, Bundled Sage, Evergreen Bough, Cracked Pistachio, Forest Moss, Pine Needles, Salty Ocean, Scorched Timber, Walnut Stain, Scattered Straw

Distress Spritz - Weathered Wood, Peacock Feathers

Distress Sprays - Black Soot, Mica Spray Brushed Pewter

Distress Watercolor Pencils - Scorched Timber, Iced Spruce

Distress Crayon - Peeled Paint

Distress Paint - Rusty Hinge

Distress Embossing Glaze - Hickory Smoke

Ranger Embossing Powder - Black

Distress Crayons - Fossilized Amber, Peacock Feathers, Peeled Paint

Sizzix Dies - Vault Lovebirds, Funky Wreaths, Festive Gatherings, Mixed Media Halloween

Idea-ology -  Muse Tokens - Halloween, Metal Quote Band Ephera Snippets - Curator, Remnant Rubs - Curiosities, Mini Pumpkins, Boneyard

Stampers Anonymous - Halloween CMS093, Halloween 2 CMS 113

Treasure Gold - Aquamarine, Treasure Silver