DecoArt Media Team project

Layered Arch Frame

I am very pleased to be one of the newest members of the DecoArt International Mixed Media Design Team.  This was my very first project created for the DecoArt media blog which was published on April 26th. Let me take you through how I designed and made this piece, but I'm warning a cuppa might be a good idea lol.

This is a Tando triple arch layered frame and in this kit the arched frame comes in three pieces.

Step 1. Glue the three pieces of the frame together and paint it with gesso to seal the chipboard and preventing it from getting too wet with the additional layers of paint that are going to be added to it.

Step. 2 With a piece of sponge blend some media acrylic paints over keeping them light in colour, I used Phthalo Blue, Translucent White and Titan Buff.

Step 3. Create a watery wash of Titan Buff on your craft mat and the do a process I call "dip and dry" several times until you have a mottled creamy effect.

Step 4.  Repeat the dip and dry process with a watery wash of Burnt Umber.

Step 5.  Repeat the dip and dry process with a watery wash of Translucent White

Step 6. Now you have created a translucent distress effect with the paints go over the surface with clear crackle glaze with an uneven coverage so you have some thick and some thinner areas of the medium.

You will see the cracks appear as it dries but make sure you leave it to dry thoroughly.

Step 7. Take Raw Umber Antiquing Cream and rub a little over the frame and wipe back straight away with a babywipe so that the cracks are enhanced but not the rest of the wood.

You can see how distinct the cracks have become.

Step 8. To create the last of the distressing, use a sanding block and sand areas around the edges and then blend in ground espresso or any brown distress ink. To get the really dark patches you need to sand back to the original chipboard and this then soaks up the ink making it look very dark. By doing this you can create a lot of dust you might need to consider wearing a mask, especially if you are asthmatic.

Step 9. Take the back of the frame and four of the spare arched pieces.

Step 10. Glue a layer of gesso over them and then adhere torn pieces of dictionary paper using matte medium and seal everything over the top, leave to dry.

Step 11. With a paintbrush, water spritzer and a piece of kitchen roll blend a darker tone of the colours you used on the frame and dry. I used Prussian Blue.

Step 12. Adhere small die-cuts and brayer white paint lightly over the whole background. Dry. Note I am doing the same with the four small side panels as I am to the frame background

Step 13. Stamp text with black archival ink. I used an old handwriting text stamp.

Step 14. Bring the warmer shades of blue that are on the frame by mixing phthalo blue, titan buff, translucent white and burnt umber to give it a more vintage feel.

Step 15. Lightly brayer the colour all over. 

Step 16. Daub a little white paint on top edge of pieces and spritz with water allow it to run down the pieces and through the die-cuts and heat dry. Repeat this until you are happy with the outcome. Also mix a little Hansa Yellow Light to the blue you had mixed before and daub and spritz with some of that too.

Step 17. Splatter some Titanium White and dry it. The do the same with some Burnt Umber. To get the Burnt Umber looking slightly faded once splattered leave for a few seconds so that it has started to dry then dab the excess of with dry kitchen roll.

Step 18. Mix a vintage glaze using two drips of Burnt Umber, one drip of Quinacridone Gold and a smaller drip of Paynes Grey to about a teaspoonful of Ultra Matte Varnish and mix together. Paint it sparingly over the pieces to achieve a more vintage look.

Step 19. Use a brown distress marker and draw and blend with your finger around the die-cuts to create some shadow effect.

Step 20. Distress the edges of the smaller pieces with a distressing tool or sanding block and blend in brown distress ink.

Step 21. Adhere the frame onto it's background, sand the edges and blend in brown distress ink.

Step 22.  Collect together ephemera and embellishments to add to the frames.
Some metal pieces.

An original vintage Charlotte doll, a glass knob and a mini number plaquette.

Two small vintage photos and square acrylic blocks.

 Step 23. Make the metal embellishments look old and rusty using a quick technique using the media fluid acrylic paints. a) - take a piece of dry kitchen roll and dab burnt sienna all over and heat dry it. Of course metal gets hot so we need to be very careful we do not burn ourselves. b) - for the next layer use burnt umber and dab it over randomly leaving some of the burnt sienna showing and dry. c) - repeat the random dabbing with paynes grey and heat dry. Following that use antiquing creams, lustres and archival ink to add more depth of colours and interest.

Step 24. Add some iced espresso metallic lustre to the base of the knob and the vintage glaze from earlier to the mini plaquette and charlotte doll. Also add a small random amount of coffee archival ink to the plaquette.

Step 25. Rub the coffee archival ink pad around the acrylic blocks to create a more vintage look.

Step 26. Adhere the elements onto the frames using matte medium.

Step 27. Glue mini hinges between the end pieces and onto the triptych frame to add the extra arches and make this a free standing arch layered frame.

Well if you have got this far give yourself a big pat on the back, I know it's photo heavy but I do like to layer my pieces and create lots of texture.
Thank you for taking a look at my first project for the DecoArt team maybe you will sit down and follow my process steps to create your own version don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions, the addy is on my side-bar.

I have added this tutorial to Snapguide and will add it to the sidebar for future reference.

Check out How to Create a Layered Art Frame by Brenda Brown on Snapguide.

You can find a list of the products and supplies I used below and don't forget Susan at Country View Crafts stocks the DecoArt media range and has very competitive prices.

Have a great week

hugs Brenda xxx

Products used:

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Burnt Umber

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Prussian Blue Hue

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Phthalo Blue

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Translucent White

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Titan Buff

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Titanium White

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Hansa yellow Light

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Paynes Grey

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Gold

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Burnt Sienna

DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - Transparent Crackle Glaze

DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - Clear Matte Medium

DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - White Gesso
DecoArt Media Mediums and Specialty Products - Ultra Matte Varnish
DecoArt Media Antiquing Creams - English Red Oxide
DecoArt Media Antiquing Creams -Patina Green
DecoArt Media Antiquing Creams -Raw Umber

Other Supplies:

Tando Creative Triple Arch Layered Frame

Ground Espresso Distress Ink

Paint brushes
Brayer

Sanding block

Old dictionary paper

Water spritzer

Kitchen Roll

Babywipes
Metal embellishments for rusting
Other embellishments i.e. vintage photos, charlotte doll, glass knob, mini plaquette
Mini hinges

Be Fearless tag for CVC

Hi everyone, it's my turn to share a design on the Country View Crafts project blog and I have a masculine tag today. I would love it if you could pop over to take a look at the huge crackles that appeared on this one.

Thanks for stopping by today. Have you had a chance to join in the crackle challenge yet? Do pop over if you think it's something you would like to do and remember you could even use a crackle stamp it doesn't have to be a crackle medium.

Have a fabulous weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Journalling for Success #3 and #4

I had a wonderful day on Saturday at Pickwell Farm teaching a new workshop which was a follow up to one I did earlier in the year. This was the the last in the series exploring texture, colour and  how to meld napkin images seamlessly onto your pages using a mixed media style and also how to use white space to create a more open and less busy page.

These are the pages using napkin images where I tried to recreate the feel of the sea ....

... and here the pages that leave white space as part of the overall design which people said they had the most problem with.

Here are some of the pages created by the fabulous group, sadly I can't find the list I made to tell me which ones belonged to who but in attendance, Becky, Val, Corrine, David, Pam, Di and Helena such a shame that three cancelled at the last minute.

With apologies for the photo quality, they were all taken quickly on the phone and no time to lay them out and line them up nicely but I think you will agree they still did a magnificent job.

Thanks for stopping by. I will be back soon.

hugs Brenda xxx

Shabby crackle card and thrilling news

Well I'm only just under the wire getting this card made and ready for posting today and I needed some help pulling it out of the hat. I was bereft of ideas until I saw my friend Anne's gorgeous shabby album on her blog and I knew I wanted to go pink and pastelly (is that a word or have I just made that up?), so really into my shabby mood I decided to use some Wendy Vecchi embellishments and some very beautiful flowers from Anna Marie Designs. I also had seen the cards produced for the Frilly and Funkie Pastels and Pearls challenge and it strengthened my resolve to create a shabby card for this piece and enter it.

So I got to work.

The background card was in my off-cuts box left over I think from an infusions play session.

Add some stamping, I used a music score but it could easily be a text stamp .....

.... use a stencil and add DecoArt white texture paste and leave to dry naturally.

Take embellishments and have fun arranging them. Don't you just love the postmark disc and the little dove cote?

The crackles give texture and interest to the background and you can see a small white doily die cut shape (which is actually a wedding place marker from Hobby Craft) and a Tim Holtz stamped element tucked behind the beautiful shabby flowers.

Some printed hessian (left over from a Finnabair workshop I attended a few years ago), torn fabric to make a shabby ribbon bow, a couple of foliage die cuts (left from another project) in cream card, a tiny tag blended with antique linen and picked raspberry distress inks with a small pearl added and a word die-cut in brown card to make it stand out all added to the shabby appeal.

So I am off now to enter this into the Frilly and Funkie challenge and would like to thank the four frilly team members for their inspiration. This also fits with the Crackle challenge at Country View Crafts and is a reminder that you can enter a project up until the end of the month.

Before I go I have some more incredible and thrilling news to share with you. This year I have been so incredibly lucky and doors have been opening for me to do new and exciting things. The list includes being asked to join the amazing Andy Skinner on the DecoArt international design team and be part of a very talented group of people using the mixed media line of paints and mediums. Then Andy asked me to teach at Mixology this coming November, what an honour and again what a privilege to be involved teaching seventy participants at the retreat. At the same time I was asked by DecoArt if I would like to do a project for the Craft Stamper magazine for later in the year - but of course I would ..... another honour and compliment and having submitted my project the wonderful Trish Latimer has now asked if I would like to be on the Craft Stamper Design Team too. The badge is securely added to the side bar just so I can believe it as I have to keep pinching myself and checking I'm not dreaming......... Thank you Trish I am so pleased and proud to be joining more very talented artists from around the world and hope I can do you all justice in what I create.

Well after all of that I hope you have a great day and a wonderful weekend whatever you have planned - for me with additional responsibilities that means more crafting. Am I complaining of course not, I love it.

Thanks for sharing my creative journey with me.

hugs Brenda xxxx