Oh Christmas tree for AVJ

Hi Everyone, it's November (eek how did that happen???????) and it's a new challenge at A Vintage Journey with a very unusual but brilliant theme from Nikki. She has called it
'Baby you're a firework' 
and she has described it for us - "Fireworks are a big part of celebrations at this time of the year. Be inspired by them to create a Tim style project; think distress glitter, bold colours, ink and paint splats and fun. Go on, light up that night sky".  Well when thinking about what I could do for this I had some new goodies arrive and in the box was Tim's new 'Sparkle' embossing folder, it immediately reminded me of fireworks and as I am in a mission to get my Christmas cards done I was off making four of them.

Playing with a mix of brushos and distress inks and Tim's new woodlands dies and the sparkle embossing folder I created what was going to be a quick and easy card (so I thought!) that can be sent through the post. However, as always with my 'overthinking' this became a longer project than anticipated. I just can't leave things looking unfinished to me and have to keep playing adding more and more details until I am satisfied with it.

So to begin I embossed a piece of card and painted it with gesso, dried it and mixed brushos and distress inks to get that lovely blended watery look. (1)

I inked the edges with broken china and ground espresso and sanded back the twinkles until they were white again. (This is how I thought I was going to leave them). (2)

Having diecut the tree from dark green card I painted areas with decoart ice crystal glitter paint and when that was dried I added some glossy accents in places and sprinkled on clear rock candy glitter.

When dry I adhered the tree to the card and used watery ground espresso, pine needles and forest moss distress inks to paint in the gaps in the tree. Although you can still see the twinkles through you get a more defined colour to the tree.

It was at this point I felt it need something else (see how I have to add the details?) so I mixed some crystal glamour dust with white gesso and painted on some glistening snow to the tree also adding some to the bottom of the panel to give the effect of snowy ground.

I then used a quickie glue pen to add some glamour dust to most of the top sparkles really making them twinkle. Now things were coming together, but I walked away from it and did something else before coming back the next day.

I wanted to create a couple of borders to go behind the panel, one is Tim's tattered lace strip die the other is the waste from the trellis frameworks die which I dipped in broken china and vintage photo distress inks before stamping Tim's ledger stamp in watering can archival ink.

To provide an embellishment I die cut the snowflake on the edge die using old glitter card I found in the cupboard......

.... but it was rather plain and as I looked around for something to 'pretty' it up I was reminded of the work that Annamarie (of Annamarie Designs) does which looked beautiful on her stand at Ally Pally in September. I had bought some of the natural accents and combined it with a bow and tiny punched flowers. I also added some watery distress ink to it all to make it look a bit more grungy.

With the waste from the glitter card I punched some little stars using Tim's small star punch, edged them with ground espresso and adhered them to the panel. (here I go again adding more detail again!!!!).

Anyway once assembled I am really quite pleased with the overall effects and have made four of these that can be sent out at Christmas - I just hope the snowflake embellishment holds up in the post.

So there's my firework link, sparkles in the background with a wintry tree in the foreground and lots of glitter and bold colours in the background too.

Thanks for joining me today I hope we will see you over at a Vintage Journey and remember the theme is not about fireworks per se, it is more about using inks etc with splats and splashes on your project. With glitter and that twinkle pattern I think I have lit up the night sky.

We look forward to seeing your linkup at the AVJ blog and how you interpret Nikki's fab theme.

Have a great month before the chaos, I mean fun really starts.

hugs Brenda xxx

Mixed media snowflake canvas

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome to November, I really think that time has speeded up again as the days, weeks, months and years seem to be just whizzing past before my very eyes.

Using DecoArt paints and mediums and Tim Holtz dies I am sharing a cold, wintry, blue snowflake canvas today which is my contribution to the new challenge at Country View Challenges.

This canvas has been getting little bits of attention over many days and at last it is finished for Christmas. I didn't get to take too many photos of the process but hopefully you will get the idea of the steps involved.

I began with a coat of gesso then painted decoart 'vintage' chalk paint over (if you don't have this try Fresco Finish chalk paint). When dry I used a snowflake mask and decoart sand paste which created a beautiful gritty texture. For the next layer I rubbed in a little victorian velvet and broken china distress paints to create some colour tone both on the canvas and the snowflakes.  I wanted to create the look of snow on the snowflakes so I dragged gesso across the top of the textured areas which got caught in cracks and on the tops of the highest points leaving a random white snowy effect.

A stencil and gesso added more interest in the gaps and I also stamped with white pigment ink.

After brushing on a little watery vintage photo distress ink I achieved some glistening effects by rubbing some glue over the snowflakes and sprinkled on glamour dust.

 I also added some gold foil randomly around the edges.

The next step was to die-cut some of  Tim's snowflakes using a variety of dies, punches and some wooden shapes shabbying them using gesso, cobalt blue and cerulean blue fluid acrylic paint and making them twinkle using rock candy distress glitter.

The pieces were layered up to create one large and several smaller snowflakes ....

.... creating varying heights and dimension ....

.... and so it all came together with some smaller white punched snowflakes to fill the gaps and create a snowy day feel to it.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by, I love to see the page visits I get on the stats and there are so many of you who obviously take the trouble to share in what I am making, thank you so much.

I hope to see some of you over at Country View Challenges this month, but in the meantime have a spooktacular weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

These are the supplies I mainly used and that are available at the Country View Crafts shop. Please be aware that I have substituted some products for similar ones that will still create the same look.

DecoArt Mixed Media - Texture Sand Paste DecoArt Mixed Media - White Gesso PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics 50ml - Lake Wanaka Decorative Strip Die - Snowflake Rosette By Tim Holtz Tim Holtz Layered Snowflake Tim Holtz Paper Snowflakes Thinlits dies Tim Holtz Decorative strip die - Mini snowflake rosettes Wooden laser cut ornaments - Snowflakes Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Snowflakes Tim Holtz Distress paint dabber - Broken china Tim Holtz Distress paint - Victorian velvet Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Latticework Distress ink pad - Vintage photo DecoArt Mediums 29.5g - Glamour Dust Crystal Ranger Foil Transfer Sheets - Holiday DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Cerulean Blue DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Cobalt Blue Hue Tim Holtz Distress glitter - Rock candy Tim Holtz Sizzix Thinlits - Holiday greens

InLinkz.com

Tag Friday for AVJ - Happy Halloween

Here is an after dark halloween tag with deep blues, purple, gold and black and traditional images to wish you all a

Happy Halloween.

It is also my contribution for the Vintage Journey Tag Friday post which only happens about 4 times a year, this is our third since our birthday in March and there will be one more in January. Do pop over for a varied and mega dose of inspiration from the Creative Guides taking part.

Begin by smooshing three blue/mauve distress inks on your craft mat and spritz with water then drag a tag with a couple of strips of tissue tape through and dry it several times until you get the depth of colour you want.

Stamp text over, heat dry again and lightly paint a layer of mat medium over to seal it. Take the shatter stencil and apply transparent texture paste through with a stencil, leave it dry or help it on it's way with a gentle blow from a heat gun. (Sorry forgot a photo here).

Mix some gold paint with water on the mat and let it drip from a paint brush over the web and before it's properly dry rub as much of the paint away from the raised textures as you can leaving golden threads of webbing showing through. Because we used the mat medium and transparent texture paste we can still see a lot of the blue/mauve tones of colour showing through.

Whilst I had left over distress inks on my mat I dipped and dried more card so as not to waste any and stamped and gold embossed the greeting and then cut it out. To get a more grungy effect also dip in some muslin and use it behind the greeting to lift and create dimension.

After die-cutting the shapes and gathering all the other bits you need assemble the tag.

Supplies

Distress inks - blueprint sketch, chipped sapphire, dusty concord, ground espresso

DecoArt gold acrylic paint

Stamps - undertaker, halloween 2

Mask - shatter

Dies - movers and shapers mini spider and 31 set, mini cat and raven set

Miscellaneous - gold embossing powder, embossing ink, muslin, transparent texture paste, charm, loop pin, seam binding for bow.

Have a great weekend, I'm off to Ramsgate again with my family to meet up with cousins and siblings. We won't be doing anything special for Halloween but we're looking forward to having a relaxing weekend, I hope you are too.

Take care and thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Evergreen for Country View Crafts

It's my turn to share a project on the Country View Project Blog and I have been making Christmas cards. This is a really easy one to make but still has technique and colour and I have left it flat so that it can post easily.

Here's a couple of sneak peeks to tempt you over to see more details if you are interested.

Thanks for stopping by today and have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Update - copied over from CVC

Good morning crafters, Brenda here to share my latest Christmas card with you. Now it's been designed it doesn't take too long to make and I think I will try it again using different background colours. In real life the background on this card is a bluey green whereas this looks very yellow - obviously the light conditions have affected the photography.

Anyway to make a start take the green distress inks, smoosh them on your craft mat and spritz with water until you see small droplets form.

 Press your card into it and dry with a heat gun, repeating these two steps several times until you have this lovely mottled effect.

Die-cut the tree and flick watery picket fence distress paint over to look lie snow. Ink the edges with ground espresso.

Die-cut the mini reindeer from greyboard, ink and cover with glitter.

Stamp the background card using distress paint, then blend complimentary or contrasting inks over, then use a damp babywipe to remove it from the distress painted parts.

Assemble the pieces and complete the card with some glitter stars and a script word.

My Christmas card box is happily increasing in numbers - what about yours? If you are like me you try to keep costs down when sending cards through the post and this will go as normal letter post, so couldn't be better eh?

Thanks for stopping by today. All the main supplies I used are listed below and with just one click you can be transported to the Country View Crafts shop.