Things with wings #2

This is my second contribution to the Country View Challenges Design Team inspiration posts for this months challenge - Things With Wings. The background is one I made earlier in the week and posted up for my first Technique Tuesday post and I'm actually using the sample from that to create this card.

First I experimented with sponging more card and stamping butterflies on it but it didn't give me the elegance I wanted so I went searching in my cupboard and found some translucent papers. I took a butterfly from Tim's Watercolour stamp set and stamped the butterfly on both using quinacridone violet DecoArt media acrylic paint (the same as had been used in the background) and then cut them both out.

I mounted the background on the darker of the two papers.

I found a small greeting stamp to add the sentiment and made this into a card. 

I need to get some more things added to the Pack House space and this will do very nicely.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Technique Tuesday #1 - Sponged stenciling - DecoArt media

ONE

I'm a technique addict and so many that I have used over the years are buried within projects and blog posts and often get lost and even forgotten so I am starting a series where I can label all my techniques together so that not only I but you also can get to them a bit quicker if we need to refresh ourselves what they are. I will be using mostly DecoArt products, particularly the media line paints and mediums.

Today I am beginning with a simple sponged paint and stencil technique.

First sponge some colours onto card blending them a little as you dab each colour on.

I used quinacridone red, quinacridone violet, dioxazine purple and titan buff.

When dry, lay the stencil over and blend titanium white and titan buff over the stencil making it a random coverage and not too thick a coat so that some of the colour underneath blends through ..........

 ........... so that when you remove it the coloured pattern is revealed and some of the channels from the stencilling have also been coloured.  I really love this effect.

This is a really simple way to create a background with a fabulous mottled effect that can now be stamped over, embellished in fact whatever you want. I tend to give mine a dirty glaze coverage to make it more aged and vintaged looking. (See a Technique Tuesday post coming up)

Another example can be seen on this post here.

I hope you enjoy this series and if you want to keep a track of them individually why not add them to a Pinterest Board - here's a graphic for you.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

All Squared Up

It's a new challenge at AVJ today and the lovely Tracy has chosen - 'All Squared Up' as the theme to get our teeth into. I have to admit to sitting thinking about this one for quite a while, I love all sorts of shape and form yet did you realise that there is a psychology behind shapes? Certain shapes make us feel a certain way. Shapes with rounded edges are softer and more approachable, while shapes with sharp lines and edges, depict strength and presence and sometimes anger.  How do shapes make you feel?  

 

Anyway when composing my project for today I chose a 23 x 23 cm shadow box to work with where the frame comprises of the outside and inside edges which look like two squares and an inner mount in it with a 12 x 12 cm aperture which gave me three squares to work with. I also decided that whatever I made to go inside the mount would also be cut into squares (4 x 4 cms) which would hopefully take my eye right through to the centre - but I also decided that these squares would have some rounded patterns so that the finished piece didn't make me feel as though I was purely conforming and ending up with a very formal design losing depth and interest in the piece as a whole. Circles, curves and handwritten text on the other hand would imply movement and interest, so that's where I was aiming.

Shadowbox

- paint the frame with phthalo turquoise, dry and paint a thin layer of weathered wood. When dry randomly scrape over some white crackle paste and leave to dry naturally. Paint over with titanium white and when dry then dribble through some watery yellow oxide paint.  

 

For the inner small squares I cut five 8 x 8 pieces of card so that I could play with different textures and designs but mostly complementary colours so I could cut them down and have plenty to choose from for the finished design.  

Square 1

I used a sponge stenciling technique so I could get some visual texture in there and then gave it a coat of my dirty glaze to age it a bit.  

Square 2

This was rusted enamel with some stamping again to create visual texture.  

 

Square 3

Similar to a mega crackle and used in my last Tag Friday post.

 

Square 4

This is a drip and spritz background and some stencilling that can be seen here. When I came to the end to put the larger square together you will see I omitted this one completely, it just didn't look right.

 

Square 5

I've called this Coarse Stucco. It uses texture sand paste to get the gorgeous coarse brick/rough cement texture.  

The three techniques that haven't got a link to them will be coming up as full tutorials soon. Keep your eyes peeled for Technique Tuesday posts. They'll be short and sweet but each one will hopefully spark you off for creating backgrounds and altering elements for yourself using the DecoArt products.

I really like the textures and colours and didn't want to take the next step but with the design in my head I knew I had to.

I also started playing with designs, but .......... uh oh ............. thats not working for me, too busy ........

 

So out came some more squares and I played with more neutral backgrounds. The first was using White, titan buff, yellow oxide and raw umber and brayered in layers and then dipped in white and beige at the end.  

For the second one I sealed the card with white tinting base and the just layered watery washes of titanium white, titan buff and raw umber adding a few splatters towards the end.

So I played with putting the squares together into more different designs ....

.... but you know what I did next ....... I cut them into 2 cm squares and took out the textured stencil ones and added more of the neutral ones ........ now I'm happier.

The day before I got to this point my gorgeous Alison Bomber stamps had arrived and I knew I needed to use them on this. I chose one that I knew I could add some embellishments with and hey presto the shadow box started to come together.

With some wildflower die-cuts and the quote with the natural additions all I had to do was rub some antiquing cream over the crackles on the frame and wipe it back and seal with ultra matte varnish and finish putting it all together.

I will have to admit that the composition didn't quite gel with me, I wanted to put something in the top right hand corner but after experimenting with a stamp, border and even cutting some little 1/2 cm squares of the bits that were left over, nothing worked for me - so embrace white space is all I'm saying .........

So what started as a series of painty, grungy squares turned out to be a very clean project for me and I really quite like it so who knows this may creep in from time to time.

 Products used are from the DecoArt Media range including the fluid acrylic paints and mediums.

 I hope you'll be able to pop over to the AVJ challenge blog to see the amazing samples from the Creative Guides again, oh they really are amazing and so varied.

 As for me as from today my calendar tells me it is 26 days and counting - that's till the boot comes off hopefully. Have a wonderful weekend whatever you have got planned.

 hugs Brenda xxx

Altered key hook

I've altered a little house shape board with a hook for hanging keys. It started life being plain white and is now more grungy.

I painted layers of relic, vintage and lace chalky finish paints and weathered wood crackle medium between the last two layers. Then I daubed watery washes of the same colours - drying between each layer. Edges sanded - ground espresso blended in and also over the surface then wiped partially away with a babywipe.

Sealed with ultra-matte varnish.

I really want to re-create this mottled look on a canvas now.

I just added a flat metal key and a quote chip for some embellishing.

This has gone into the Packhouse to be sold. I think it might be a bit too grungy (or expensive - see below *) for people but we'll see.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxxx

*I am finding that people are probably not aware of how much time it takes to make art or cards etc and although I do not expect to get enough back for the time I put into a project, I would like to cover the material costs sometimes. Still I promised to give myself a year to see what happens and I was warned by the staff when I first signed up that the people who do the best are those who have been there the longest. So onwards we go. 

Things with wings - Fairy Girls

It's the 1st of July and time for another challenge over at Country View Challenges. The theme is 'Things with Wings' and as I am in a very vintage mode at the moment I decided to use the paper dolls and make my own wings to add to these two cute girls.

Wings

Paint a piece of thin card with white tinting base to seal it.

Dip in watery washes of titan buff and medium grey v6.

Sponge over some white tinting base and gently shake some vintage glitter powder over it and heat set it.

Take the butterfly die-cuts, spritz them with water and with a tiny paint brush gently pull quinacridone gold and raw umber round the edges of the wings and drip the most tiniest amount in a couple of random places and heat dry.

Take your chosen vintage photo and add the wings. I also added a small amount of quin gold to the girls as well.

For the background
Stamp dictionary text onto brown card, create a collage over it and scrape some white tinting base over with a palette knife.

Paint over with ultra matte varnish or matte medium to seal it before then dribbling raw umber, quinacridone red and paynes grey around the edges of the collage pieces, spritzing with water and drying to create the aged look.

Gather together some embellishments, dip them, paint them and age them.

The shadowbox is made of light wood so I sanded it roughly all over and then gave it a coat of raw umber and titanium white antiquing cream, keeping them separate colours to put onto the wood and blended them on there so I got light and dark contrasts as well as the blended hues between. I used my finger to rub the colours onto the front of the frame and then used a wet paint brush to colour the outside. I took a damp babywipe and gently knocked it back a little and left it to fully dry. Then I sanded where I wanted to see some wear and tear and used a blending tool and ground espresso distress ink. To finish off I used a small piece of kitchen scourer sponge and using the scouring side I lightly rubbed some more of the white antiquing cream over the top to create a more shabby look. I realised as I was doing it I could quite as easily used the tinting base or titanium white media acrylic which would have been more permanent - but after it dried a light coat of matte medium sealed it beautifully.

Assemble.

I always try to ground people when they are standing upright so they don't look as though they are floating in mid air, today I used a quote chip for that purpose.

All paints and mediums are from the DecoArt Media range.

Thanks for stopping by and we look forward to seeing you enter a project over the next four weeks.

hugs Brenda xxx

Inspired by Dee - shabby dress form

Welcome to an AVJ Tag Friday post where we create a tag with no boundaries, it's just for fun. I was supposed to be in Boston for 10 days recently on holiday but my broken ankle curtailed that so I asked the lovely Di Oliver at Tando Creative if I could go along to the Dare2Create retreat in Coventry to catch up with everyone and give me some 'out of the house' time. Kindly she said yes and surprisingly a space opened up on Andy's workshop on the Saturday and I was able to jump in and take part. I also sat in on the lovely Dee Adams demonstration in the evening and came home so inspired I set to on Monday and this was the result.

Tag

- paint a coat of white gesso - dry

- paint with three chosen colours (quinacridone magenta, blue/green light, phthalo turquoise) and tinting base to keep it pale and shabby

- randomly apply weathered wood in a few areas and leave to dry

- give a random coat of white crackle paint around the edges and over the weathered wood areas. Leave to dry
- seal with matte varnish

- dribble a wash of prussian blue - dry
- repeat with a wash of transparent yellow iron oxide
- dabble on watery white, spritz and dry.

- take raw umber and titanium white antiquing cream and rub them together over the surface (I used 4 white to 1 brown),

 - leave for a minute or two and then rub back very lightly with a damp babywipe

- with a palette knife apply some white modelling paste again random areas around the edges and sprinkle with chunky embossing enamel and heat set, let it completely dry

- dribble through some quinacridone gold and raw umber to give it a worn rusted look

- stamp clouterie label on tissue paper, tear around it and adhere it to the background
- stamp some small text

- triple emboss a piece of card with frantage embossing enamels using chunky clear for the middle layer then stamp the dress form (using coffee archival ink) into it whilst it's hot, let it cool and cut it out

- stamp, emboss and alter other elements to build a collage

- stain some seam binding ribbon with quinacridone and raw umber watery paints

- and assemble

The label was heat embossed with gold onto brown card and a little bottle with some seed beads glued on.

The close up of the dress form shows some of the texture created by stamping into the molten embossing enamels.

I have some altered gems that look downright rusty and added them to give more of the timeworn effect and feel to it.

You can see the postmark stamped with embossing powder and given some watery washes of paint. The lace was just painted with the media acrylics to get the aged effects to it.

True to Dee's style the edges were textured with modeling paste and sprinkled with frantage aged gold embossing enamel and heated to get those lovely effects. This technique fits with her grungy style and this more shabby one. Thanks Dee for the inspiration.

All paints and mediums are from the DecoArt Media line.


Do pop over to A Vintage Journey to see who which of the Creative Guides have joined in with the fun today, there's always a fabulous collection to whet your appetite.

So my mojo seems to have returned and I'm fully inspired to get going on some more projects. I need to get on quickly to be able to catch up with myself though. I am now back in my workroom to create so I know that will help me as well having all my supplies around me.

To finish here's a couple of pics from last weekend.

 Andy in full flow - you can just see me on the table to the right.

Here we are - Susan, me and Sian. I met both of these lovely ladies on the day and because I wasn't expecting to take part they shared their supplies with me which enabled me to fully join in. Aren't crafting buddies just the best?

Of course it was fabulous to meet up with the gorgeous Tracy Weinzafel again - I was just sorry I couldn't do her class on the Sunday. I had arranged for Ken to come and pick me up, but we grabbed a coupe of minutes for this photo.

And here are the two that kept me going (Suz and Dee) with lots of laughs, lots of help and plenty of alcohol lol. (I was good actually as I didn't want to be drunk in charge of crutches!!!!!!). Suz very kindly gave me a lift to Coventry on the Friday too, it was lovely to spend more time with her. This is a photo of them both in Asda trying on sparkly dresses together - what are they like? They didn't buy them even though they were only £3 each.

Thanks for stopping by. I'm off out shopping tomorrow to help Ella spend her birthday money.

Have a great weekend whatever you have planned.

hugs Brenda xxx