Halloween giveaway winner

THANK YOU to everyone who entered my Halloween giveaway, I really enjoyed popping over to your blogs and seeing all those spooky, eerie and atmospheric creations, I even found some new blogs to follow too - bonus.

So I have used random org to select the winner and the winning number is .....

.... and this lucky number belongs to Monika at Mistletoe Home Decoration.

Congratulations Monika please email me your address and I'll then get your goodies in the post as soon as possible. My email address is on my sidebar. Thank you for joining in and having fun with me.

I have spare Christmas goodies too and I can see me getting another giveaway going soon, so keep your eyes peeled over the next couple of weeks. I just need a window of time to get it organised.

But thank you all for your visits, the lovely comments and time you spend on your visits, I really appreciate each and every one.

Have a great end to the week and a fabulous weekend. I'm off to see some bands at Swanage Blues Festival.

hugs Brenda xxx

Mosaic frame DecoArt DT project #2

Collector of Memories

This was my second piece for the DecoArt Mixed Media Design Team and this time I felt like going all pink and girly but with contrasting rusty elements. You may have seen it over the DecoArt Media blog but I like to keep a record of all my makes on here so I am sharing the full version.

I love collecting little embellishments whether they are made from glass, acrylic, metal, wood or card they enhance any project and add atmosphere and help tell the story behind it. I also like printers trays, collecting small items of vintage ephemera, curios and old collectibles that represent a moment in time in someone’s life. So I thought I would combine my love of these things and make a mosaic frame using small pieces gathered from all sorts of places, some of which are modern in that they are easy to buy on-line from those auction type sites etc, but given the rusting treatment they can all combine to look aged and timeworn found trinkets.

I also need to tell you that I am an intuitive artist and throughout this project (and most of the others I make) I instinctively changed course and added in more layers than I had perhaps intended. I have highlighted these to you and if you follow these process steps I am sure you will do the same. Enjoy and have fun.

Instructions:

Step 1.  Begin by cutting two of the mosaic frames and a back board the same size from mount board.

Step. 2 Cut another mosaic frame the same size from card and run through an embossing folder. I used the flourish as I could run it through twice once top and again on the bottom to create the embossed design.

Step 3. Use texture sand paste and a palette knife randomly around the edge of the frame and a little around the boxed areas. Heat dry or leave to dry naturally. Add some transparent crackle glaze randomly around the frame and also leave to dry naturally.

Step 4 Make up a mister of titan buff acrylic paint (I used 15 drops of paint in the Ranger mini mister) and another of quinacridone magenta (10 drops of paint) and use them with dabs of yellow iron oxide on a brush and a water spritzer to create mottled pastel colours over the frame and dry. At this point I could see my crackle glaze layers had been too thin in most places so I brushed on some more and again left it to dry. Repeat this colouring up in this step again as required.

Step 5.  Mix small amounts of the quinacridone magenta and yellow iron oxide separately on your mat with water and use a brush and a water spritzer to let the deeper colours mix and dribble through the crevices of the embossed design.

Step 6. Create a more vintage look by dipping small areas into a watery walnut stain distress ink wash on your craft mat, let it move around and dab away areas that need removing before drying with a heat gun. Use the inky wash on a small brush and add bits by hand if you need more control over it.

Step 7. Whilst you are waiting during drying times gather your metal embellishments and give them a thin coat of white gesso

Step 8. Next paint your metal pieces with raw umber and medium grey V6, blending in places. When dry give a few areas a coat of paynes grey and when that’s dry paint it all with quinacridone gold. I always end up ‘playing’ with the layers and here I added a little finger rubbed translucent white and then a wash of quinacridone gold over that.

Step 9. Add a pin prick mixes of quinacridone gold and raw umber together to just add some colour to the other embellishments and alter them. Rub in a little quinacridone gold and dribble some in the holes of this number plaque.

Step 10. Finish this monocle with some remnant rubs.

Step 11. Colour up the little bottle with a thicker wash of quinacridone gold and rub walnut stain distress ink into the cork stopper.

Step 12. Also colour the sides of the glass dome and sides of the base with a little quinacridone wash to vintage it up and adhere a photo to the base. I love adding vintage photos as they are often the focus of the story behind the project.

Step 13. Rub a little translucent white acrylic paint over the typed token to make the word stand out.

Step 14. Add a sticker and epoxy overlay to the cash key.

Step15. Finish the frame but adding some dabs of watery qiunacridonr gold in the boxes, spritzing with water and heat drying and also adding some remnant rubs.

Step16. Cut a small easel die cut in mount board and adhere to the back of the frame to allow it to stand.

The full product list can be found on the DecoArt Mixed Media blog and those Country View Crafts sell are listed below.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Titan Buff DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Translucent White DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic Quinacrodone magentaww.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/decoart-mixed-medi DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Yellow Oxide DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic - Raw Umber DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Medium Grey Value 6 DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic - Paynes Grey DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Quinacridone Gold DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic - Burnt Sienna DecoArt Media Enhancer - Clear Crackle Glaze DecoArt Mixed Media - White Gesso DecoArt clear matte medium Sizzix Bigz Die - Mosaic By Tim Holtz Sizzix Damask and Regal Flourishes Embossing Folder Tim Holtz Distress ink pad - Walnut stain Ranger Inkssentials Mini Misters (3 pack) Ranger Inkssentials Mister Spray bottle Tim Holtz Bigz die - Small easel

InLinkz.com

A Vintage hessian textured Christmas card

Well it's my turn to do the last of the Destination Inspiration posts for this particular schedule over at A Vintage Journey. I had some fun creating a ..... ssssshhhhh - a Christmas card........

Using the travel bag contents -
 Product - Texture or Modelling Paste

Substrate - Fabric/Burlap

Colour - Autumnal / Fall colours - orange, brown, rust

Technique - Collage

It's all there and if you have time transport yourself over the the AVJ blog to see it all with photos, details and rust process steps.

Thanks for stopping by. I have made a start on my Christmas card box for this year - yay.

Have a fun and creative week.

hugs Brenda 

Spooky Skull for Halloween

It's a new challenge at Country View Crafts and Corrie is our host looking for all things spooky. I've had a play with Andy Skinner's skull stencil, various other stencils and lots of colour that got grunged up at the end.

I began with Andy's stencil and applied black modeling paste through it.

Then I began adding other stencilled textures around the skull.

Here you can see the four stencils I used. (Sorry it lost some definition somewhere)

The next step was to start adding colour and I used these seven over the next few steps

Spritzing with water and blending washes of colour in 'streaks' I put down the base layer.

You an see how I use the colours straight and also blend them on the craft mat to get the effects I want. 

Making sure the board was completely dry I then added some quinacridone gold to the edges, spritzing it with water and letting it run

Again having let that dry I mixed the colours into deeper shades and added more layers including the quinacridone around the edges again.

I love mixing he colours I am using to see what shades I get.

I added just water to the skull area and then dipped a fine paintbrush into titanium white then into the watery area also adding some medium grey. This highlighted the skull making it pop out more. I also coloured the teeth with a white posca pen.

Now to grungy it up by adding raw umber antiquing cream. The photo left below shows it after the antiquing cream had been brushed over and around the edged stencilled textures and on the right after I had let it dry then wiped it over with a damp babywipe to leave the brown in the recesses.

Some bakers twine dipped in the left over paints and a haunted token painted with prussian blue and quinacridone gold before a little orange metallic lustre rubbed and painted over it adds a little embellishment to it.

And the bats create a more eerie feel, they were die-cut in shiny black card using the mixed media Halloween thinlits.

A couple of Tim's Halloween remnant rubs and it's finished. It's not quite how I imagined it to be but I am still happy with the overall look.

I hope you will enter any of your Halloween projects into the challenge, it would be lovely to see you over there and wait till you see what is up for AVJ on the 7th, it's definitely the month of October lol.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at my make.

See you soon.

hugs Brenda xxx