Panel 6 - Fossils have rich stories to tell - Stitches catch up

I'm still sharing these little panels I made with Andy's new stamps,this one has a lot of texture on it.

Process Steps

1. Run the panel through a bubbles embossing folder.

2. Dribble and drip a watery wash of cobalt blue hue. Dry,

3. Repeat with a watery mix of cobalt blue, sap green and titan buff to get a murky watery effect.

4. Lightly and randomly stamp some text using coffee and black archival ink on the stamp at the same time, I used the Tech Trauma set.

5. Paint a layer of satin glaze varnish mixed with a little cobalt blue paint.

6. Mix titanium white, a little glamour dust, and a little water and dab onto the bubbles, spritz lightly with water and dry.

7. repeat again.

9. Flick some watery burnt umber over dab ab dry.

Stamp and cut the froglet and fern from the Fossils stamps and adhere to the background with the words.

I made up a journal with all the panels in for the trade show at Stitches in Birmingham this last weekend. I thought I would add the process steps to each panel so that it becomes an aide memoire of backgrounds and will be a great teaching aide.

 I love froglet and used him for the front cover.

I used designer papers for the inside covers and pages.

There are now 9 panels and recipes for backgrounds.

You can see the journal on the front of the desk, I had it out with some other samples when I was demonstrating. It was made using the fabulous Eileen Hull Passport die and the patterned paper  pages were glued together. It's turned out beautifully chunky and feels lovely in your hands.

I have been meaning for ages to join in the Mini Album Makers Challenge and am squeezing this one in at the last minute for their February challenge. There are always some incredibly beautiful and inspiring mini album projects from the fabulous team so do pop over and follow the blog to get regular updates in your blog reader.

I'll sort out some more Stitches photos for my next post.

hugs Brenda xxx

A trio of tags

Yes three tags today made all together when I was trying to get different styles all using Andy Skinner stamps and DecoArt media products. Three completely different colour ways and designs - one rusty/timeworn, one vintage and one pink and shabby.

As my blog is a place for me to keep a record not only of the projects I make but also the steps I take to create them this is now a long post - so be warned you either need a cuppa in your hand or just take a quick scroll through all the photos.

Vintage Tag

I didn't have vintage in my head when I started out on this one but I really like the look 0f it in the end.

Seal the tag with gesso.

Make two watery washes, raw umber and prussian blue, dip and splatter with water twice.

Add remnant rubs.

Stamp arch with coffee and black archival ink.

Use stormy sky DI through a stencil blast with a heat gun.

Replace stencil and stamp text with black archival through it.

Collect collage pieces and adhere to the tag, Give a light coat of white gesso or titanium white.

Add some raw umber and quinacridone gold around some of the edges of the collage pieces.

Distress the edges and ink with vintage photo DI.

Pink shabby tag.

Seal the tag with gesso.

Make three watery washes, quinacridone magenta, quinacridone red and raw umber, dip, drip and dry twice.

Stamp text and postmark with embossing ink and use bright white embossing powder.

Stap images over the top with black versafine.

Splatter with titanium white mixed with some water and carefully dry without overheating the embossing powder.

Sand the edges and blend with vintage photo DI, then spritz with water and dry.

Add a small collection of shabby elements and a dies ribbon bow to finish the look.

Pink and Andy Skinner products? You don't see that very often lol.

Rusty Tag

I've used some of the old Tim Holtz vintage photo distress embossing powder to create part of the rusty feel as well as a rusty painted embellishment and punched hearts ona rusty effect masterboard I had created with the decoart media paints.

Seal the tag with gesso.

Make three watery washes, viridian, burnt umber and titan buff, dip, drip and dry twice.

Dip and dry with titanium white wash twice.

Using an Andy stencil apply embossing ink and the distress embossing powder.

Stamp the arch image. text and some smaller number prints using coffee and black archival ink.

Add some embellishments that all look rusted in some way these were all taken from my rusty leftovers box.

And there we have it - a trio of three. Which is your favourite and which style do you like to work in?

Thanks for joining me along my new 2018 journey with Andy. I'm off to Stitches today to meet up with him and quite a few of the team and will take these and a few other bits I have been making as samples when I am demonstrating on the stand. I'm sure there will be a few photos posted on Facebook and hopefully I will be able to add some here when I get back.

hugs Brenda xxx

In the Deep Murky Depths - Journal panel

Just a quick post today with a journal panel made using the fabulous fossil fish that I love - new from Andy Skinner. I put this journal together last year using four panels made to cover the front and back inside and outside covers (see here, here, here and here). So now I want to start making pages/panels for it and am starting with this one.

I created the background more or less following the steps I used for the back cover.

The fish were stamped with white gesso and they have a lovey textured look and feel to them.

Once I had the basic layers down and had the crackle glaze dry I rubbed over the fish and inner part of the page  with distress micro glaze as I wanted to add the black antiquing cream and prevent it from turning everything black. I think it worked a bit and certainly helped me wipe the antiquing cream off of the gessoed fish.

The painty layers merged beautifully to give that deep murky feel to the panel and you can see the crackles in the crackle glaze around the edges.

I finished off by stamping the bubbles by dipping a large eyelet into the paint and stamping with it.

So hopefully I will get to make more of these panels for this journal and get it filled up? Maybe???

I'm off to Stitches on Sunday, picking the lovely Suz up along the way and meeting up with Nikki and loads of other people over the three days. If you are coming please let me know and we can hopefully get to say hello.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tando Creative Mini Album - Ghostly Shadows

This is my project for the Tando Blog today where the theme is Anything Goes.
It has been a busy January and February with DT deadlines and this is one of the brand new Tando mini albums being released at Stitches next weekend.
If you look carefully you will see the ghostly shadows through the arched windows.

This is one very easy album to put together as the spine bends round and there's no gluing or adding pieces, it's all in one. There's no process steps today but those of you who know my work will recognise any paint techniques and the rest is all collage.
So with Andy Skinner stamps on every page - take a browse.

 All the arches were stamped onto tissue paper ........

 ..... then adhered over another of Andy's stamped creatures or skulls from a whole variety of his sets ......

........ the arches were cut out so that they look the same on every page.

I also used Andy'd Words Up and Numbers stamps for the added words - plus a computer generated one on the front cover.

Over the collaged pieces of paper on the backgrounds .....

..... I painted on a little black gesso and daubed some watery white gesso.

I stitched the pages through the album spine slots.

And I added some fabric for a tie which had been dipped in the paints I used for the covers.

 The pages were separate pieces of thin card connected together and folded into a concertina.

 Do pop over to the Tando blog for more ideas on how to use the fabulous Tando Creative products.

Thanks for stopping by again today - I am really appreciating all the comments you are leaving for me, thank you for taking the time to do so.

hugs Brenda xxx

A neutral shabby journal panel

I have a journal panel that fits inside one of the Eileen Hull journals I made last year - in fact it was an 'Andy' one which can be found HERE. You may remember it was the Thoughts and Theories one. Today's panel starts off the inside.

For this panel I created a collage tear up sheet using Andy's stamps and a Stampendous music score stamp.

The panel and sheet was dipped in some watery paints - burnt umber, raw umber, titanium white and titan buff and dried

I cut some small pieces from the collage sheet so they would create layers and inked the edges (they've been resized for the photo below) ....

.... I also die-cut some white cogs and stamped elements for the collage and embellishing.

I used the cogs for tucking inbetween the layers as I stuck them down.

I'm loving all the neutrals again at the moment - can you tell?????

Thanks for stopping by.
Have a fabulous weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Panel 5 - Palaeontological Discoveries

Here's another of the little panels for the Fossil Journal I'm making using the Stampendous Fossils set of stamps and the Illusionary Artists Tech Trauma set, both by Andy Skinner.

Process Steps

1. Stencil the bubble shapes by mixing sap green, titan buff and raw umber media acrylic paints.

2. Paint over a light layer of sating finish varnish mixed with cobalt blue hue paint.

3 Stamp some text with watering can archival ink and dry.

4. Stamp some texture with coffee archival using the same set of stamps. Rub it straight of to get a smudged look.

5. Dip the panel in watery titan buff.

6. When dry - repeat with cobalt blue and burnt umber mixed together. - dry.

7. Splatter some titanium white acrylic paint.

8. Stamp and adhere the fossil.

9. Repeat step 2.

It's only a week and a half before I'm off to Stitches CHSI in Birmingham where I will be doing a couple of demos for Andy and meeting up with lots of amazing friends and artists in the industry. It's fabulous to go and see the stands, new products and chat to people. So as you can guess it's busy, busy, busy here making samples both for Andy and Di at Tando Creative. I can't wait.

Enjoy your week - I hope you can find some creative time for yourself too.

hugs Brenda xxx