Tim Holtz 3-D Texture Fades card (2)

I have another project using the 3-D texture fades over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog and I'd love it if you could pop over to see how this one came together.

I hope you have had a great weekend. xx

Parisienne Industrial Chic

'Industrial' has certainly been on the agenda for a couple of months with both AVJ and CVC having it for their challenge themes, so for my second CVC sample today I decided to mix it up a bit and created what I hope you will think is an industrial chic feel to my canvas board card.

I began by adhering some tissue wrap in the top right hand part and then used two stencils and decoart white modelling paste to add texture.

I often gather the pieces I think I am going to use and lay them out in the design that seems to fit the pieces best - but rarely does my finished piece look exactly the same.

I also chose the paints I thought would provide me with the best shades for both my chic and industrial elements of the background.

Then onto my background. By the time I had mixed, blended, spritzed, dribbled and dried the colours on the canvas and also added some light text stamping using the watering can archival I had created this .....

.... to me it need some white contrast brought back in so I lightly brayered some white gesso over the high points and stamped a letter stamp over them too.

Next I set about altering the frame, I got into this rusty effect before adding clear crackle glaze .....

... and then grey antiquing cream and because the crackle glaze leaves a shine I gave it two coats of ultra matte varnish.

I also altered all the smaller metal embellishments and I stacked the Eiffel Tower and Paris sign with additional layers of the die-cuts and then painted in various areas with gold paint.

You will see I changed the design by the time I had finished but still used more or less the same elements.

Industrial Chic? Maybe, but I had great fun with the paints and mediums rusting and aging the embellishments.

As always every few days there is another inspiration post for you to see on both the challenge blog and the projects blog.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Through the lens of time

Country View Challenges has an 'Industrial' theme this month and it took me a while to get myself going on this. I had chosen the clip board as the substrate weeks ago and I covered it with the embossed foil tape but then it just lay around my craft room waiting for inspiration to hit me. I had a couple of ideas but as I went searching for things another idea popped into my head and with the help of Pinterest I ended up with this very quirky aged, industrial style camera lens with clocks in it - hence the title today. Although nothing like my finished article THIS CAMERA (click to be transported) became my visual inspiration.

Firstly I wanted to re-create the ridges around the inner part of the lens and some corrugated card came to my rescue. I cut four pieces each 1 cm wide and 14 cm long and carefully curved them round the outside edge of the greyboard smaller circle (bought as a wreath). When it was dry I gave it a coat of black gesso, dried it and carefully went round dry brushing the ridges and the centre piece with media metallic silver when that was dry I brushed on treasure pewter. Over the lower area I added washes of paynes grey, black and raw umber and finished with a media gloss varnish to give it a more shiny plastic effect. The numbers are remnant rubs aiming to imitate the exposure range of the lens - but I had to take on artistic license here.
 

On the larger circle I chose to use my camouflage chippy paint technique creating the outer part of the lens finishing off with several washes of prussian blue, titan buff, quinacridone gold and paynes grey and a touch of transparent yellow iron oxide. I glued on rusty circular pieces for the screw heads gave it a coat of media ultra matte varnish ....

.... but later I came back to it again and added some ransom patches of transparent crackle glaze and patina antiquing cream. I love the close-up detail of this.

The centre of the lens has been built up with a circular piece of foamboard again given the crackle and patina antiquing cream treatment ...

.... a die-cut picture wheel - coated with sand texture paste and given rusty washes of paint ...

.... and metal clocks and clock part also rusted up ....

 .... when put together have a very industrial feel to them.

There are two boards here with different sized circles cut out and when layered give the perspective of looking into the lens aperture ....

 ... and a few more pieces to add as embellishments - all altered in one way or another.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look and see how this came together. Something a bit unusual for me but I still had fun with all the DecoArt paints and mediums getting different finishes.

There's lots more inspiration from the design team over at Country View Challenges. I do hope you will join us and maybe you will be lucky and win the birthday voucher.

Have a great week, be creative and and listen to your heART.

hugs Brenda xxx

Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.

Yousuf Karsh

We are going industrial at AVJ

P I have loved putting together my February CG sample for Tracy's 'Industrial' challenge at AVJ. In thinking about the terminology and meaning of industry we think of factories with rising chimney stacks exuding steam and smoke, metals, mechanical and automated machines, blast furnaces, manufacturing industries, car plants and so on. But I also like decayed metals, particularly rusty ones so I turned to Tim's faux, riveted metal effect, his remnant rub background and idea-ology combined with DecoArt media acrylic paints and mediums to produce this Curio Box.

Easter is approaching and I had bought a papier-machie egg from Hobbycraft last week and decided to use it. Having found an old Ipod box in my drawer of alterable items everything started to come together in my head but the egg was going to be difficult to stick it in the box so I cut it in half using a craft hacksaw.

The egg was first covered in foil tape to give it a good covering of silver and then I cut and marked pieces of Tim's foil sheets and covered over to give it a stronger layer. Next I used media acrylic paints coating thickly, semi drying between each layer and wiping back. I used black. prussian blue, burnt umber with burnt sienna mix, and quinacridone gold. But I didn't get the effects I wanted as when I rubbed the paint away between each layer I had a stark contrast between the silver and the coloured paints.

 
So next I added some alcohol inks but it looked too false. Nothing to do but change it completely then..... I added some random and thin amounts of sand paste and dried then some mid grey and paynes grey paints. I blended some black round the edges, dried it and then added a paynes grey wash before quinacridone gold again. Ok it's not like Tim's 'Heart and Soul' heart which is where the inspiration came from but I quite like how it has turned out.

 

So onto the box. I gave it a coat of black gesso inside and out then did Andy's mega crackle technique on the outside with the decoart weathered wood and crackle paint so I painted the inside of the box with white gesso to lighten the whole thing. The mega crackle worked brilliantly with the large black cracks.
 When it was dry I gave it a coat of matte varnish and then a watery wash of prussian blue and quinacridone gold before adding some remnant rubs.

For the background behind the egg I revisited Tim's January tag of 2014 but changed it a little and used distress sprays and remnant rubs.

The butterfly is one of Tim's duo set,  I feel a tutorial coming on so keep a watch out on the Destination Inspiration posts next month but you can see it is well rusted and has that industrial feel to it.

The word curio is made up of Tim's alphabet blocks with the letter shapes given  a very light dry brushed layer of gesso and then a wash of quinacridone gold acrylic paint. I dabbed vintage photo distress paint over the arrow and when dry brushed a little treasure copper on it.

Finally I had almost everything made to put it together. As always my eclectic mind gathered more bits along the way and I added some natural materials, moss and husk hair to provide more interest. You can also see I found a rusty spring and finished off a little bottle that had been part painted. You can also just make out a tiny star in the moss which was punched from Tim's punch using left over card I had altered to look like rusty metal and glued it to a memo pin.

I love the butterfly adhered to the crown of the egg ......

.... and the blocks glued to the top of the box.

Here you can see how the egg and butterfly protrude from the front of the box - had to pack it out with chipboard first otherwise they would have disappeared inside.

I think the mix of industrial and natural materials have worked really well together and have put me in the mood for Spring.

Now it's finished I am very happy with the outcome and this has become one of those rare pieces that I would like to display in my house and I know I will use it for my sideboard Easter

I hope you can find some time to pop over to the AVJ challenge blog to take a look at all the other inspirational pieces mage by the very talented Creative Guides and if you take a shot at entering you could be in with a chance of winning a £20 shop voucher from Country View Crafts or being one of our Pinworthy Mentions.

I am adding my industrial butterfly on the egg to the Frilly and Funkie challenge 'enjoy your embossing'. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.

Orson Welles

Mix It Up with Tim

 

For his tags of 2016 Tim is re-mixing two of his tag techniques from previous years to bring us new ways of using them. I am sure this will be a blast bringing together old and new ideas to create something completely different and to start us off he has given us chalkboard and industrious metal to work with.

So as Tim has mixed things up a bit so have I.

As you can see I changed the colours and I used pine needles distress paint for my industrial pieces but I also added a wash of black distress paint over the top to get that industrial patina look.

I also reversed the chalk and background colours making my coffee cup more in keeping with the real ones you might get in mine and Tim & Mario's favorite coffee shop. Still using chalks I even added a bit of green colouring to the cup and although not totally clear int his picture the tiny cog has been altered with alcohol ink and copper treasure gold.

The background is Tim's mesh stamp and produced with the chalkboard technique the same as the coffee cup.The word band was first coloured with pine needles distress paint and then antique linen (using Tim's technique for distressing the bands) and I also added some treasure copper to the edges.

I changed the normal string or ribbon for some hessian ribbon painted with the pine needles and black wash and then stapled on with the mini attacher.

Yay, having missed the last three tags at the end of 2015 due to the pressure of additional workloads I now find I am catching up and getting back into the swing of my own schedule at last. Thank goodness as I have so missed joining in. Thanks Tim for a great start to the new year with the technique remix and I am now going to go and link to the January post on your blog.

Have a great Sunday and I'll see you tomorrow with my DT sample for the beginning of the new challenge at Country View Challenges.

Happy crafting.

hugs Brenda xxx

Ministry of Mixology 2015

It has been a very busy week and weekend for me with prepping a workshop project and teaching in Bedfordshire on Saturday and then after I had finished I was able to drive on up to Coventry and meet up with some of my wonderful AVJ sisters at The Ministry of Mixology retreat. 

This amazing event was organised by Di and Tony from Tando Creative and featured the extremely talented Andy Skinner and Michelle Webb as tutors. I also spent 2 hours demoing on Saturday evening before Jennie (Live the Dream) and I could get to the bar for something to eat and sadly we didn't get any photos of this to share. But I was able to meet up with Alison (Words and Pictures), Anne (Redanne) and Julie (Juliz Design Post) as well and spend time with all of them during the workshop on the Sunday. It was so relaxing to then be the other side of the table.

We made covers for a notebook using DecoArt media line acrylic paints and mediums .....

.... and Andy's Industrial Elements.

Each of the cogs, nuts, bolts and screws are from the kit and made of chipboard, but you wouldn't think that to look at them here would you?

Andy was also very generous with give-aways during the day and you can see here a fabulous stencil set that I won from the DecoArt range. Thanks Andy.

I was so busy enjoying myself I didn't take any photos, but here are a couple Julie's husband too of us AVJ teamies.

Off to get some planning done for my next workshops.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Update - I've just nicked this from Andy's FB page - I'm sure he won't mind xxx