Acrylic Stack and Use a Quote

I have been playing with my first acrylic stack from That's Crafty for my AVJ sample this month. Our challenge is all about adding a quote and the lovely Jenny is our host and says -

"Take a quote ! Any quote ! Whether it be on a stamp, a sticker, handwritten or sourced from the internet and make it the focal point of your vintage; shabby; mixed media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk project."

Laura from That's Crafty very kindly sent us all a substrate to work with but I had already bought this stack and had started it for another challenge (and like you do - I changed my mind) and picked it up to finish it for this one.

So I began by stamping the girls and my quote on the top of the first layer of acrylic and on the second layer of acrylic I stamped the building - for both of them I used black stazon. You can still see the plastic protection on the underneath layers.

When these were dry I turned them over and painted the images only on the back. (Apologies for the photos - they were taken in a light tent but there was so much light that caused reflections that even manipulating them in PSE didn't work). This is the top side once painted - a note to remember - when painting on acrylic keep the colours more opaque, lighter in colour and thinner. I used media fluid acrylics some of which were opaque, some semi-translucent and some translucent so you can see through them.

Here's what it looked like on the underside - quite a mess but that's no problem as you can see by the photo above.

I laid this top piece over the second and decided to take the next step ........

 ..... which was to block the coloured paints with a layer of gesso so you can't see through the translucent ones.

For the second piece of acrylic I painted the buildings using a watery wash and that's how it continued for all the next steps, I painted on some watery translucent white paints to look a bit like clouds (you can't really see them here with a white background underneath) and gently heat dried it and then some dirty greeny brown colours at the bottom to ground the buildings.

 

For the third and last layer of the acrylics I just gently dabbled on some watery blue paints  in layers drying between each to give me a sky background.

I wanted to stamp the chipboard backing but I thought that might be a bit of overkill so I just dabbled on some watery brown paint.

This was a great lesson in perspective and layers .....

..... but I think I would approach it very differently next time in terms of the stamps I choose, it would benefit from images that are much more open - but then that's part of the making isn't it - learning what goes right and what you learn from what goes wrong?

Here's the stack put together straight as the layers were finished ......

.... and here after I had embellished it a bit using quinacridone gold to make all the added bits look a bit rusty and hanging in my hallway.  

I used DecoArt media acrylic paints, the paperboy set of stamps by Artistic Outpost and black stazon ink.

I hope we will see you over at the AVJ challenge during May (oh my gosh we are a third of the way through the year already) and thanks for stopping by here today.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

It's Flowers #1 at CVC

Ok so it's the first of May and we are moving rapidly through Spring and hopefully soon into Summer and to keep us all in the outdoor mood the lovely Monika has chosen 'Flower Power' as our challenge theme this month at Country View Challenges.
To begin with I thought about making my own flowers but do you know what? I suck at it so I thought I would go back to the beautiful distress oxides and make some journal panels to add to my eagerly awaited HeARTfelt journal die designed by the amazing Eileen Hull.

1. Cut 2 sets of panels from white card measuring 11 x 21.7 cms. Take the front covers for both journals and on the first apply worn lipstick and iced spruce through Tim's floral stencil. When finished spritz the inks on the stencil with water and apply to the second cover. Repeat this process to fill the spaces which will give you quite a random design. You'll notice that the design of the second cover is the reverse of the first one.

2. Take the stencil and apply the same two inks randomly to the underneath of it. spritz with water and apply to cover #1. Then wash the stencil lay it over #2 lining up the design, drop watery washes of the two oxides into it the stencil spaces, some of it will seep a little, dry it and then take a small detail paint brush and paint in some more wash detail to create a watercolouring look. I think you'll see the differences between the two in the photograph below.

3. Repeat the same steps with the back covers and you'll end up with two sets to make two journals - great as presents especially if you make simple notebook inserts rather than the fussy junk journal style ones.

So I'm waiting for my journal die to arrive and when it does I'll finish the two journals and hopefully at least one will be ready for my next Flower Power installment on the 11th May.

We hope we will see you playing along this month.

Don't forget -

Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.

The earliest written version is that of Dr Thomas Fuller in 1732. But the argument has never been settled. Does it refer to the month of May? Should we not leave off an item of winter clothing until June arrives, or does it refer to the 'may flower' on the hawthorn which blooms along the 200,000 miles of English hedgerow from late April?

English Stack Exchange

Well I 'cast a clout' a couple of weeks ago when we had a couple of days of glorious weather here in the UK but it didn't last for long especially as some areas had snow this week and we're due rain today for our Bank Holiday Monday, but hey ho it gives me more crafting time lol.

Enjoy Your day.

hugs Brenda xxx

Eileen Hull HeARTfelt Journal When Rust and Nature Collide

How lovely it is to be back sharing another of the journals from the lovely Eileen Hull. If you missed my vintage mixed media one you can find it here. This one is still mixed media but more in the timeworn style I enjoy using.

The inspiration for this journal came about by sitting in the work room looking out over my back garden and thinking why don't I document the changes of the seasons in the garden and use this three sectioned journal to do it.  So the seeds were sown (pun intended lol).

I'm not sharing all the process steps with you today as I will be teaching this at Country View Crafts on the 11th May and at Let's Be Creative on the 24th May but suffice to say we will be covering some simple aging techniques using the DecorArt Media range of fluid acrylic paints and mediums .......

..... on several of the layering elements for the front cover.

Including this beautiful textured butterfly ......

.... and these very realistic looking bees.

I will go through how to paint and put the covers together ......

.... and making some crackle panels to create the background for the covers.

We will put all the elements together .....

.... and stain some seam binding ribbon for the ties.

The workshop time will be taken for making the journal and the decorative elements on the front cover, so there will not be enough time to make any inserts for it. If you sign up and attend either workshop and would like to bring papers the double pages need to be 81/2 inches across and 81/4 inches long with the 81/2 inch sided folded to make pages 41/4 x 81/4. We will have a long arm stapler ready to make your pages into signatures, or you could bring them ready sewn and we will have elastic ready for you to add your inserts when you have finished.

I have made three inserts for my one ......

... and will use them to record the changes in the garden over the the year. Insert 1 for Spring; insert 2 for Summer and insert 3 for Autumn and Winter combined.

Thank you Eileen for giving me this opportunity to create alongside your team and a huge thank you to the lovely Anne (Redanne) who sent me the journal covers to use. I should also say the journal die has a closure and a label to cut as well although I have not used them yet, I will cut some labels later to add to the three sections of the inserts.

You can find some of Anne's gorgeous journals HERE and HERE.

Susan at CVC has the journal die on pre-order at the most amazing price which you can find on her website so if you are interested I would get in quick so she can pack you one off as soon as it arrives, oh and I should tell you the price is fantastically affordable for this xl scoreboards die.

Thanks for taking some time out to stop by my blog today. If you have any questions please ask them in the comments section below or email me - the address is on the sidebar. I look forward to hopefully seeing some of you at my workshop if you can make it.

Have a wonderful weekend whatever you have planned.

hugs Brenda xxx

Watercolour powders and oxide butterflies

I have a card to share today over on the Country View Project Blog, in fact I did two very similar ones where I've matched up some left over watercolor powder backgrounds with stamped butterflies using the wonderful oxides again.

So I would love to see you over at CVC if you can make it.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

DecoArt DT project

Hi I am over on the DecoArt Mixed Media blog today with my latest project which is one of the etcetera tags sent me by my lovely friend Anne to play with. I would love it if you could pop over and see the tag in all it's glory and as you can see it's shabby vintage in style with a rusty collage.

Thanks for looking.

hugs Brenda xxx


Updated from DecoArt blog

Instructions :

Start with some DecoArt chalky finish paints and a brayer. Four layers drying between each one I began with Relic.

Repeat with Primitive...

then Restore...

and finally with Lace.

I wanted to keep some of the peeled paint look but also wanted it to be brighter and shabbier so I grabbed a 12 x 12 stencil, painted it with white tinting base...

and laid it over the tag rubbing it down with some kitchen towel...

so that when I pulled it away it revealed random mottled dots with a white fill in.

Look at the texture the white tinting base has to it just because it was sandwiched between the tag and the stencil.

Stamp into the spots using a text stamp, mine was an old one with French script on it. The two photos below show the technique and how it looked when I took the stencil away.

Start collecting together the ephemera and embellishments for this large tag. What I begin with isn’t always what I finish with...

Ink and alter them ready to use and layer up. I started with the metal pieces to make the attachment for the word band and these pieces were altered with Iced Espresso Metallic Lustre.

I put together the collage layer by layer...

layer two...

layer three with a grounding strip (where the feet will go) and brush the surface of all the papers with matte Decou-Page.

Give all these pieces a wash of tinting base to bring about overall cohesion.

Then add some Burnt Umber, Raw Umber and Quinacridone Gold around the edges to give a slight rust effect to it. Use the water spritzer and watery colours with a small brush adding and drying until you are happy with it.

To finish I added the film strip, metal number, focal photo and butterfly. Then add a button with some rusty wire in the hole at the top.