Faux Wood for Tando Creative

I have a post over at Tando Creative today where I have shown my weathered floorboards technique which you can see over there and here.

I definitely seem to be in pink mode at the moment as here's another shabby grugy project in a vintage rose colour.

When I began this project it was snowing outside and I chose the elements I wanted to use which included that heart so I decided to find a snowy palette with a touch of red. Here it is.

But there isn't a rich dark burgundy red in my media paints range so I had some fun with colour mixing to find the colours I would need to use.

Here is my colour mixing palette and by the time I had tried these all out I just went for it in my paint palette and added cadmium red hue, sap green, paynes grey, pyrrole red, and a little black. It's a little browner than I wanted but I'm happy with it as part of the background.

It would be lovely if you could join me over there and also see what ideas the other team members show us.

I hope you've had a great weekend and hopefully the snow has gone or is going wherever you are especially in the Uk.

Enjoy your week.

hug Brenda xxx



Update from Tando Blog

Faux Wood

Hi it's Brenda here with a project for faux wood week. I have created a faux weathered floorboards effect on card and then added it and some embellishments to one of my large media boards cut by Di.

Floorboards

Paint the card with the base colour of your choice. I mixed some cadmium red hue, sap green and paynes grey to create this rich burgundy colour.

Rub some candle wax in the direction of the boards you will finish with ie for me that's longways. 

Then paint over with titanium white, keep gently swiping the brush in the same direction and slowly some of the paint will be rubbed away by the brush and you can see where you laid down the heavy rubs of wax.

Gently heat and wipe with a dry paper towel (again in the same direction) to remove a little more of the paint.

Repeat the previous two steps using titan buff.

Mix a very small amount of your burgundy or chosen colour again and add some titanium white and a small spritz of water to create a pastel colour. Rub with the candle again and paint your mixed colour over it. You will start to see small patches showing through where the water and candle wax don't mix.

Repeat the drying process. You can see how you are building up the worn and weathered layers of paint. Each new layer exposes some of the individual layers underneath.

To make this look like shabby floorboards I dipped the card first in titanium white and dried it and then in some raw umber to give the top coat that grungy look.

To finish the effect, score lines to create the ‘boards’, distress the lines with a sanding block and rub in a brown distress ink. Adhere to the backing board and distress and ink the edges.

I have painted and altered each one of the embellishments using more of the DecoArt media fluid acrylics. The clock had a layer of dark paint, a layer of weathered wood crackle medium and then I finger painted some white crackle paste that has given me another weathered look.

The heart was painted, covered with clear crackle glaze with titan buff rubbed in when dry and the clock hand was painted with a mix of cadmium red and silver then rubbed in paynes grey and then had ground espresso distress ink blended over the whole piece,

The word label was a left over piece from a workshop. painted, distressed, a word added and sealed with decoupage.

Thanks for popping by to see my faux wooden floorboards.

hugs Brenda xxx

Supplies

Media board - 12 1/2 x 18 cms 

This size isn't on the website yet but ask Di if you would like some this size.

clock face

heart

clock hands

Treasured birthday at AVJ

AVJ is celebrating it's 4th birthday with a fabulous theme simply called 'Treasure'. I am hosting this milestone and have set the brief.

Treasure can be described as wealth or riches we store or accumulate, a collection of valuable, interesting or useful things, bits and pieces we highly value, articles that we hang onto that we’ve bought or found and might never be able to purchase again. What is in your crafty or artsy treasure trove - those items we squirrel away to keep for something special? Maybe some elegant embellishments, that hoard of ephemera or memorabilia found in a junk shop, a tin of old buttons, rusty keys or diamanté jewels, a paper pad you get out and stroke then put away again, some beautiful fabric or lace you can’t bear to part with. We invite you in this challenge to share a project that includes a part of your treasure trove, just let us know what it is so we can see it and comment on it and remember our focus styles and genres to work in (which can be seen under out blog banner) if you would like to be considered for being chosen as one of our top 3 Pinworthy mentions.

I have lots of crafty treasures, some of which get used occasionally but I have a slowly growing collection of old photographs (not of my family) that I pick up when I see them at car boot sales, antique fairs etc. I have scanned some of them onto the PC and printed out the images to use at times but I have never been brave enough to take one of the cabinet cards and actually mount it on a project so here goes.

I wanted to make a new visual journal using an old book and bought three of them for £1 each. I prepared a couple of them by painting the outside covers with gesso and added some texture.

I altered my chosen cabinet card - you can probably see which one I chose from my treasured collection above.

On the background I created lots of layers with gesso, texture paste, painty overlays and stamping before varnishing to help make the cover more sturdy before it gets thumbed and used when creating the new pages inside.

My collaged embellishments have all been altered in some way with paint and inks to age and distress them to fit the vintage appeal I was trying to establish.

They also got more distressing when I was adding the final details.

I will have the process steps for this project here on the 16th March so do keep a look out if you are interested in how this all came together.

I hope you will be able to pop over to the AVJ challenge blog to see some more fabulous samples to fit with our theme and maybe you will be able to join us.

I hope the snow hasn't hit you too hard, we've had a covering and I had to postpone a workshop I was supposed to be teaching yesterday, I expect it will all disappear very soon.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Unexpected Danger - Media Board

I am up on the Country View Project blog with a media board I made for Stitches using the new stamps from Andy Skinner, particularly the Spooks set from Illusionary Artists available on the CVC website.

This is the little fella and I have used DecoArt media acrylic paints and gesso. 

For those of you who follow me, the background was made using a similar set of steps as the King Spook hanging.

Stay safe and warm in this arctic cold weather we are having in the UK and especially those of you n Scotland as I believe you have a red warning for snow tomorrow.

Take care.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tando Creative Rust

This week the theme over at Tando Creative Blog is one of my most favourites 'RUST' so I just had to find time to share a project.

Having been at the Stitches Trade Show last weekend I thought I'd use a demo tag I had done on the stand. I had been demoing layered backgrounds and finished off with some crackle paste and one of Andy's new stamps.

I used a little of the stampendous chunky metallic EP on the arch window and experimented with some sand texture paste between the crackle.

Next came the fun bit with rusting it. I sealed the arch and brickwork with matte medium so I could wipe off any paints I didn't want on this area and then set about dabbing over raw umber, paynes grey and yellow oxide media acrylics. It looks a bit messy .....

.... but with rust in a bottle aka quinacridone gold I started adding washes and spritzes of water and was quite happy when I got to this point.

But there's always a but isn't there? There wasn't enough contrast for me, so I just spent a little time dabbling small amounts of the colours and spritzing with water again. I introduced a little prussian blue hue and I darkened the edges more. I also ran a little of the colours over the window and through the embossing. Then and only then was I feeling even happier. As I say to my students 'beauty is in the detail'.

To finish I raided a drawer where I keep lots of left over 'rusted' elements and chose some simple pieces to pull it all together.

And there it is looking nothing like it did at the beginning.

If you pop over to the Tando Blog you will see a whole range of rusty projects that have been posted this week from my gorgeous teamies and they are all brilliant. You'll also see a photo of this tag showing the beginning and end of the process.

I hope your weekend is going well and you are managing some creative time for yourself.

Take care.

hugs Brenda xxx

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