CVC Challenge February 2025 #2 - Romance and Friendship

 The Colour Purple

My second frame for the CVC Challenge is for my grandaughter Maddison who is at 6th form college doing dance and musical theatre. She wants to be an actor and be in musical shows. She recently was on stage in Guildford, in a production of '6' as one of Henry the Eighth's wives - Catherine Parr. The whole show was electric with so much energy on stage from this group of youngsters and the wives were amazing. We were so proud of Maddison and her achievements, when it came to her solo and taking the lead she absolutely rose to it, and sang so incredibly well and belted out her singing whilst acting and dancing as well. We came away feeling ecstatic. 

This frame contains a lot of meaning and is representative of her whole theatre story. I included the glass star, of course I'm biased but that is what she is to us. A bottle of love, a key to her future in this world of musical theatre, flowers that we always give her after seeing one of her shows, a sparkly heart recognises the emotions we feel when watching her and the excitement it gives us, 14 because this is a valentine gift and a bottle of gems to represent the costumes and jewellery that she will wear so beautifully. 

Maddison has been having dance lessons since she was about 3 years old so here is a ballet dancer dancing to the music.

Anyway Maddison loves the colour purple. We have an embossed musical score background representing her singing abilities, this was dipped in a mix of spray stain and distress spritz, spritzed with water and dipped and sprayed until I was happy with it, once dry I blended distress ink round the edges.

The heart is for Valentines Day - the 14th February. It was painted with Purple mixed with Distress Spritz Villainous and the tim plaquette added.

The ballerina was stamped, cut round and supported with a small block of wood underneath.

Tucked in the little base of the frame a bottle of LOVE containing mauve gems and tiny seed beads, a resin flower, a token and a key.

Tucked in the other corner another small bottle coloured with alcohol ink and some little paper flowers.

The bottles were sealed with a coat of collage medium. I applied rub-ons around the frame just to distress it a little. 

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain -  Seedless Preserves

TH - Distres Spritz -  Villainous Potion

TH Distress Ink - Villainous Potion

TH - Metal Plaquettes, Gumdrop Hearts, star

Ranger Archival Ink - Hydrangea

Ranger Alcohol Pearl - Villainous

DecoArt Metallics - Purple Pearl

Visible Image stamps - Born to Perform

All and Create Rub-ons - Stainy Rainy

CVC Challenge February 2025 #1 - Romance and Friendship

 PRETTY GRUNGE AND MORE

I thought I'd make all of my three grandchildren a Valentine gift, which would also be a bit of a keepsake. (Well it will be if they like them lol). So here are three small shadowboxes.

The heart was made using layers of Americana Decor chalk paints, metallics, PaperArtsy Fresco Finish and Distress Spritz. I just painted, sponged, waxed, rubbed and sanded it until I was happy with the results. 

Ella is the eldest and at university training to be a teacher, she is the pink girl. I found a background already made and distressed, cut it to size and attached it to the back of the inner white frame. I also found a piece of card embossed with Eileen Hull's lace folder and again in the pink tones. I cut strips to cover the inner frame, splattered with a mix of picked raspberry distress stain and worn lipstick Spritz mixed together and also with white acrylic paint. Once finished I rubbed the white paint over the raised areas of the texture to bring the pattern back to life.

I collected elements together to build the design, painted and rubbed down some metal bits and as I built the project and as I got further into it more pieces were gathered, altered/distressed and added.

Close-ups of the elements.

The distressed heart.

A shabby bow coloured with distress inks.

Snippets to create interest in the background.

The largest of the two bottles, both were painted with collage medium, left to dry and then painted with crackle paste I filled this one with pretty coloured beads, painted and distressed the cork and tied pink thread around it.

Three little flowers were tucked into the corner.

The smallest bottle was coloured up with alcohol pearl and a snippet cut down to fit. On top is a small pink eyelet.

Here is a small frame with a distressed metal button, an altered key and a glittery heart.

I also added a metal plaquette, small metal snowflake and beads, Ella's name and rub-ons to distress the frame.

xx

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain - Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar, Seedless

TH - Distres Spritz - Worn Lipstick, Villainous Potion

TH - Collage Medium, Crackle Paste

TH - Rock Candy Glitter

TH - Snippets

TH - Gumdrop Hearts

TH - Metal Plaquettes, Gumdrop Hearts,  

Ranger - Patina - Cinnabar, Rust

Ranger - Alcohol Pearl - Deception

Ranger Archival Ink - Hydrangea

Americana Chalky Finish - Innocence

All & Create Rub Ons - Acid Blends

Eileen Hull - Lace embossing folder

A Winter's Tale - Alison Bomber

 I bought some of Alison's mini stamps in the Country View Crafts Advent sale and I've had fun using this gorgeous image of Star Anise and using it in creating this frame .

Background - a scraped layer of gesso using a palette knife leaving a gap around the edges. Dried, dipped in pumicestone DI, dripped and dried again. Blended gathered twigs around the edges and added some text stamping using hickory smoke.

2nd layer using vellum, tear the edges and stamp with textured stamp from Alison's pressed grasses set, using versamark and embossing powder.

Focal panel - stamped with Alison's Winter Tale stamp in coffee, painted in the image using lost shadow and walnut stain DOs and brown distress watercolor pencils. The image has watery tea dye roughly painted around it and hickory smoke blended around the edges.

The winter greenery was die-cut with white card and snow-tex daubed over it for texture,

I found the snowflakes (which are glued to the underside of the frame) and icicles already cut in a bag ..........

..... and used those with the other miscellaneous oddments to add interest to the frame.

Supplies

Alison Bomber - PaperArtsy  -  mini Winter's Tale stamp,EM90, pressed grasses EAB40

Tim Holtz - Sizzix - Festive Gatherings, Paper Snowflakes,

Tim Holtz Ranger Distress inks - pumice stone, gathered twigs, tea dye, hickory smoke

 Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Watercolor Pencils Vintage Photo, Ground Espresso

Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Oxides -  lost shadow, walnut stain

Ranger - Seafoam White embossing powder

Miscellaneous - vellum, star anise, silver berries, twigs, pinecone, 

Ranger Coffee Archival ink

49 and Market Garden rub on transfers

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

AVJ March Challenge Tutorial

I'm sharing the process steps for my March AVJ project today over on the AVJ challenge blog.

Come see how I made this background

The candlestick ......

The platform it all sits on .......

The vignette box ......

Embellishments

The word banner and little extras ......

I was so pleased with the outcome of this and it now sits proudly on the sideboard in my dining room.  

Thanks for stopping by and ......

xxx

Happy Birthday 'A Vintage Journey'

Today we see AVJ celebrate its 5th Birthday. Can you believe we have been offering challenges for five years? It has been an amazing journey and adventure.

We are hoping that lots of readers will join the journey for our Birthday challenge. To do so we are asking that you include the word or any images that depict a 'journey' or even something that shows a creative journey you are on. Please tell us how your project fits the theme in your blog post and remember to create in one of our preferred styles of vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk.

 

I created this shabby piece of home decor which is going to fit in beautifully in my dining room.

I haven't included any of the process steps as a description of how I put this together will be available on the AVJ blog on the 15th March.

There is though lots of inspiration from my very dedicated and talented friends on the challenge blog so please pop over to AVJ and leave us some love for our birthday and it would be wonderful if you could find time to add a project to the line up.

Have a great new month of March.

xxx

Supplies

Tim Holtz stamps - Mercantile, air travel, dapper, purely random, vintage auto

PaperArtsy stamps - HP1802EZ

Paper Doll
Tim Holtz wooden vignette box
My candlestick was from Ikea