Texture Boards at CVC workshop

Hi All, what a busy time I had last week, two full day workshops and all the prep that goes with it, but both were amazing days.

I love making, creating and teaching and this workshop for Country View Crafts was great fun with 12 lovely ladies, 11 of whom I already knew and one I felt I knew as she is a friend of a friend.

This is the texture board I created using the fabulous DecoArt fluid acrylic paints and their mediums along with some embossing powders. The wonderful Di at Tando Creative made up the small and large boards especially for us as a kit and they woked beautifully. Thank you Di.

There are nine individual boards each with a different and unique texture technique that can be used in mixed media project work.

1. Stamped Texture Paste.  2. Stencilled Crackle.  3. Textured Collage.

 4. Rusted Enamel.  5. Weathered White.  6. Crinkled Highlights.

7. Layered Shapes.  8. Subtle layered shapes.  9. Textured wallpaper

There are lots more photos over on the CVC project blog today including those of the lovely workshop attendees and some of their samples.

I hope you have a good week, we had a touch of snow yesterday; sadly it didn't last long, but we're in our first bite of winter and it's still very cold out. Stay safe and warm wherever you are.

hugs Brenda xxx

Watercolour playtime

Well my poor blog has been so neglected and at last I've had time to have a little play. I have other workshop things to be shown but I can't put them up until a little later.

These little postcards are the experiments of playing with brushos, bisters that my sister bought me for Christmas, watercolours and stamps.

 

The background was started first using distress inks before stamping this gorgeous bee by Wendy Vecchi which was stamped twice, once with sandstone brusho and again over the top with black archival which helped to get me a watercolour shadow. Water was used to be;each out some of the colour in the wings and watercolours painted in. Bisters were add and spritzed over the background and the hexagons stamped (also Wendy's) to finish it off.

 

The leaf gave me quite a bit of a headache. It's one of Tim's blueprint stamps which I masked and stamped over with another of Tim's old stamps to create a background, but it was far too busy and the leaf was completely lost. But I added brushos and bisters and spritzed to get the watercolour background, then using water bleached some of it out around the leaf trying to make it come to the front and show up more. It didn't!! After a while I took my watercolours and painted white around the edges and let it dry, this was beginning to look better and I repeated the process about 3 times. Now the leaf pops out more and the background looks quite misty and ethereal. Yep I am quite happy with that.

This last one is one of Tim's landscape stamps and you can guess where (even if the main buildings are all in the wrong place lol). Again I used the brushos and bisters to get the watery looking background and used bleach spray to create the clouds and to take out some colour from the buildings, painting them back in using the powders. I used just a little grey on the clouds.

Although I studied three years of oil painting at college I am not a watercolour artist, but the powders help create those lovely indistinct backgrounds and can be manipulated and changed. I just enjoy the processes which is the main thing.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Bottle shrine for CVC

Little houses seem to be all the rage at the moment so I thought I would make my own little bottle shrine for the Country View Crafts Project blog and to fit with the new Country View Challenge for January. 

 

 Once I started I was reminded of the fabulous make that Tracy sent me for my Secret Santa gift. 

Details can be found at the Country View Crafts Project blog.

Thanks for stopping by today.

hugs Brenda xxx

A new year challenge at CVC

This is my second post for today so if you missed my new year's greeting and project for the new challenge at A Vintage Journey please take a look Here.

Our new theme at Country View Challenges was chosen by me and is -

Be inspired by Bottles.

I created a table decoration for my New Year's Eve party.

 

Life began as an old glass Starbucks caramel syrup bottle and I gave it a coat of matte medium glue and when dry a coat of rustic DecoArt chalky finish paint.

I added die-cuts and Tim Holtz industrious sticker borders ......

.... and then a coat of DecoArt black gesso.

Over this I dabbed DecoArt media gold acrylic paint and because it was too bright I dripped over prussian blue, but I couldn't achieve the effects I wanted so I ended up dabbing over a coat of black.

To give me the metallic effects back over the top of the black paint I brushed over treasure gold and treasure pewter and the patterns and raised areas came back to life.

To add just a little more zest I used a fine paintbrush with the gold acrylic and dry brushed the stars and the 2016 die-cuts.

Knowing that I wanted to use this as my New Years Eve party table decoration I used Tim's snowflake rosette die with silver, gold and glitter card making double snowflakes to go back to back over BBQ sticks.

After I had added some gold Christmas twigs with baubles on and set it on the table ......

 ..... it reminded me of fireworks and looked lovely once the party arrived and we had the Christmas lights on and candles lit.

Thanks for joining me for a second time today and over 2015, I have really appreciated you visits, comments and continuing support. If you are wondering if I have a new years resolution? I have just one  --------  and that is to try and get over to your blogs more often than I have this year. I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. And to those of you who follow me by email - thank you for taking the time to pop in and see what I have been creating and making. I regularly look on Blogger stats to see my page views and am staggered that I get between 300 and 700 page-views a day. That just blows my mind.

Wishing you peace, joy and happiness for 2016.

hugs Brenda xxxx

A New Year Vintage Journey theme

Welcome to the start of 2016, I would like to begin by wishing you all a 

HAPPY NEW YEAR

and I hope it is filled with everything you would wish for yourself.

We have a new challenge theme at A Vintage Journey which is 

'Vintage Travel and Luggage' and all the details can be found over at the challenge blog.

For me one of the essential items that this lovely lady would pack for her journey would be a diary in which to note down where she visits and to collect small items and photos to stick in as a memento of her trip. I used the folded note book technique using one 12 x 12 sheet of Tim's paper to make the mini book and added some stamped items and small tags in pockets so there is plenty of room on which to write and stick. So let's have a quick look at what is inside as well.

Here is the book made up ......

... and the narrow tags to fit in the pockets. Simply dipped in distress inks and left blank for the writing part of the diary keeping experience.

I collected together a number of Tim's stamped images ...

... cut them out .....

... and arranged them in small collages .....

 .... so that photos and collected ephemera can be added to the pages.

I also used chit chat stickers and .....

... small talk stickers ....

.... to provide a feel of the excitement and atmosphere ......

.... that might be felt on the journey.

I added crinkled and dyed ribbon to tie it together and keep the insides safe.

All I need now is to decide when I will use this little diary as I think it will be perfect for one of our holidays, especially as I have a mini phone printer and can have instant photos when we are on our travels.

I hope you get to have a number of wonderful journeys this new year both those when you travel away from home but also those that are personal and part of your own growth as a human being particularly when you set out to achieve something new and succeed to the best of your ability.

I'll leave you with this quote that I wish for everyone -

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” 

― Neil Gaiman

huge hugs Brenda xxxx

Workshop Layered Cards 2 and MIA

Welcome to Bumblebees and Butterflies and thank you for stopping by today. It has been such a busy festive season at home with preparations, visits to family and friends and a wonderful family gathering that I have not had any time to make and blog so I am sharing some cards I designed for a recent workshop at the Art of Craft in Farnborough. I have three versions using a Vintasia die that provides fabulous layers and using some foam pads created great dimension too.

This first card was my original sample made from a paper pad called Tres Chic and quite shabby in colours and patterns.

With some paper distressing, inking edges and layering up you can create what I would call a shabby vintage design.

For the next samples I wanted to show the class that you can use the same design and with a couple of tweaks in layout, colours, patterns and embellishments the effect can be quite different.

On this one I also painted some of the edges with gesso which helped to create a more shabby chic look.

For the last one I wanted to show how the effects could be more vintage in style ...

..... so I stuck to mostly neutrals - browns and creams and just added a little vintage orange in the flowers.

I shall be back Friday with some new year designs for both A Vintage Journey and Country View Crafts so I must leave you and get on with getting them done.

I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and festive season with time to share with friends and family and maybe even some crafty time too.

Take care.

hugs Brenda xxxx

Create a scene for CVC 2 - Trees

At Ally Pally earlier in the year I bought some mdf Christmas pieces including these trees from Anna Marie Designs. Together they create a lovely Christmas tree scene, perfect for my second DT sample for the current Country View Crafts Challenge - create a scene.

I painted the trees with decoart fluid acrylic paints in various shades of green and added some thin crackle glaze on the tips of the branches, but it must have been too thin as the crackle is so fine it can't be seen lol. (We live and learn don't we?). I lightly sponged some white over the top and when it was dry I added some sparkly embossing powder down the edges. Before I added them to the base I painted and altered some wooden and metal snowflakes for embellishments.

 The base was given a coat of dark green paint and then a coat of Americana crackle medium. When it was dry I painted with decoart lace chalk paint and the beautiful crackles appeared. It didn't take long before it was dry and I could glue on some bells, cones, berries and natural materials with a couple of altered wooden shapes.

Although I didn't finish embellishing the trees at the back I did make sure it was all painted and some of the base embellishments added to it.

To finish it off I added a Tim Holtz Christmas flash card.

I hope you are enjoying the challenge at Country View Crafts and maybe you have entered something - don't forget there is a £20 voucher for the winner each month.

Only one more week to go and it will be Christmas Eve which is where our family Christmas begins. We all get together with a few close friends and have a meal together and share a Christmas Eve mini present. Everyone comes to us Christmas Eve and Christmas day and then to my son and daughter in law's for Boxing day, I just love this special time together.

Happy Holidays as our American friends say.

hugs Brenda xxx

Secret Santa for AVJ

Gosh I can't believe it is a year since the wonderfully talented Creative Guides did a Secret Santa gift exchange and here we are again. This year my 'picked out of the hat' recipient is the lovely Alison (Butterfly) and I had several ideas of things to make but in the end decided on a canvas board on which I hope I have included some of her favourite things - grungy vintage embellishments, texture and the colours blue and brown together. Mmmm do I know her well enough?

I made notes on this post as I was designing and making and you can probably see from the way they are random and with no cohesion to them how my mind works.

On the chipboard heart I used my rusted paint technique using gesso, sand paste and rusty brown media fluid acrylic paints and when dry I applied a layer of transparent crackle glaze and when that layer was dry I rubbed in a little broken china distress ink. You can just see the tinted blue veins. The letter B was ine of my finds in a bits box and the perfect colour. It looks to me as if I used Tim's rusted enamel technique.

The stars were die-cut using greyboard, lightly painted with white gesso so that not all of the surface is covered and when dry ground espresso distress ink is rubbed over. When the ink has soaked into the exposed chipboard I used a babywipe to take some of the ink off the gessoed areas. When that was dry I pushed each star into the faded jeans distress ink pad and lightly dabbed off some of the ink wit a babywipe. Later I again covered these with a layer of transparent crackle paste, inked them and flicked them over with white gesso. 

The largest star has been bound with rusty wire and used to hang the 'altered' disc. The rosette has been die-cut using one of Tim's strip dies and inked with walnut stain. Note also the rusty Eiffel Tower and Paris postage stamp, these just appeared  in front of me when looking through one of my 'bits' boxes, they seemed a poignant reminder to me of how strong and courageous the people in Paris were as the recent awful terrorist bombings were unfolding, I couldn't help but add them to the canvas.

The background of the shrine is a piece of card on which I had applied layers of black texture paste through a stencil and applied layers and drips of fluid media acrylics. (Textured chippy paint).  The pediment was gessoed, dipped in faded jeans, broken china and gathered twigs distress inks before being given a coat of transparent crackle paste, When dry I sanded bits of the edges and blended in walnut stain.

To create the texture on the frame I covered it with tissue paper using matte medium allowing it to crinkle and left it to dry. I sanded the edges and painted with cobalt blue hue, phthalo blue, prussian blue and paynes grey. When that was dry I ribbed in some raw umber around the edges and finished with some dry brushing  using titanium white and titan buff and a coat of gloss varnish. The scalloped art part was given a coat of texture paste and whilst still wet pressed into the craft mat and lifted to create a veined look. When dry it was lightly painted with white gesso and again when dry was rubbed over with some faded jeans distress ink and then blended with vintage photo. I just kept adding more inks until I was happy with it and tied it with rusty wire.

The backing board is a piece of watercolour board which has been stamped with black archival and one of Tim's ledger stamps then DecoArt white crackle paste applied through the gothic stencil and left to crackle on it's own. Once fully dried I dipped in blue and brown distress inks. 

The metal pieces were painted with picket fence distress paint, left to dry slightly then rubbed over with my finger to remove the paint leaving it in the depressed letters. To grunge then up a bit I added prussian blue, acrylic, indigo treasure gold and some sail boat blue and espresso alcohol inks. I found a small rusted metal star and added it to a rusty disc, the number two was left over when I made my antique French number plates 

The arrow was painted with prussian blue, rubbed over some indigo and pewter treasure gold and then more raw umber and paynes grey paint added to it. The piece of film strip seemed to be the perfect layering piece for it. The girls are from Tim's found relatives, I cut them out, inked the edges and added a little broken china and faded jeans distress markers to bring them in more with the blue tones. 

You can also see a couple of my rusty wooden cogs made for an AVJ DI post ages ago, look at the photo below to see how I was able to add them to the layering.

By adding the scalloped art part to the centre of the shrine it meant that the ledge had a gap left either end, perfect for those cogs.

I hope I've given you an insight to the techniques and products used to make the canvas. At the time of drafting this post I am also wrapping this carefully to get it in the post to Alison - now I just hope she likes it.

As part of this fabulous gift exchange experience with the Creative Guides the amazing Tracy was unfortunate lucky enough (lol) to pull my name out of the hat and inside the well wrapped parcel that arrived in the post was this gorgeous Christmas shrine.

It is the most gorgeous little bit of altered art although I don't know that I can really call it that because Tracy made it all from scratch using wood for the base and Tim dies for the shrine. I just love all the additions and snowy effects, it really is beautiful Tracy, thank you so much, it has been displayed in my dining room since I received it a couple of weeks ago and will look wonderful with all my other Christmas décor when I get it out. To see Tracy's post pop over to her blog, I'm sure there will be more photos from her and probably a description of how she put it together.

Thanks for stopping by today to take a look at my secret santa presents and if you would like to see ALL of them on display then click here on A Vintage Journey to be transported over and see what amazing projects the team came up with. You will not be disappointed as I am the lucky one who has seen them already.

Enjoy the rest of the run up to Christmas and the wonderful atmosphere of the festive season.

hugs Brenda xxx