Tando tiny mini album

There are some panels that come with the new flexible spined mini album and I've made one up and they are so cute. It is my contribution on the Tando Blog today.

I cut one piece from a canvas pad to make a wrap and adhered all three parts and left to dry and then just lightly distressed it with brown distress inks.

The pages were made with a hidden hinge spine and double, folded pages glued over them.

Once adhered into the album I made 2 panels using Andy Skinner stamps to finish off the look.

Make a hole in the spine and attach a piece of elastic for it to hold the booklet closed.

I simply added some numbers and a vintage photo to finish it off.

These are so quick to put together and would make a lovely little gift for someone.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wallpaper and dress forms for Country View Crafts

My turn again to share a project over the CVC blog and I had great fun creating an easel board using some of the newer products from Tim Holtz.

If you'd like to see the process steps and more photos please pop over to take a peak at how it all came together.

Updated from CVC

I thought I would make an easel card using the Tim Holtz wall paper and his inventor 3 set of stamps with the lovely dress forms. You could use the composition and ideas to make an ordinary card but I have gone with the faux encaustic again.

Cut some thin greyboard and adhere a piece of the wall paper onto it using decoupage and then seal it with the same product. You will see that decoupage is very versatile and can be used as a glue, a sealer between layers and as a finish (top layer like a varnish). Scrape a thin and random layer of decoart crackle paint over and leave to dry.

I stamped the dress forms using black archival and then took greyish blue and neutral grey Amsterdam inks to paint n some of the dress form bodies and frames.

I distressed the edges of the panel with a distressing tool and blended in ground espresso distress ink knowing it was likely to move and seep a bit with the layer of DecoArt clear modeling paste on top. 

I stamped the scissors onto matte silver card, cut them out and again blended the brown DI around them and then laid them into the top of the paste just very gently pushing them into it.

The next layer I painted the scissors with a little raw umber and yellow oxide to tarnish them a bit, added some words and the gave another coat of clear modeling paste and added half a snap fastener as an inclusion.

I coloured up a canvas board using cerulean blue, light grey, titan buff and titanium white with a wet wipe to blend the colours. I gessoed using a brayer to create some highlights and then gave it a 'dirty' wash using burnt umber, raw umber, cerulean blue and titan budd with some decou-page sealer and water. I'll have a mini tutorial in my next post at the end of the month to see this with photo steps, so keep an eye out for it.

Eh voila, I just needed to add a mount board easel and it's finished.

I love making these easel cards, they don't take much longer than making a card one but they certainly have more impact especially if you can hand it to a friend but even paying the extra postage is worth it for a special occasion.

Faux Encaustic - Inclusions

It's faux encaustic time again. I was really trying to add different types of inclusions into these layers - paper, natural elements, hand written and card.

Seal greyboard media board with white gesso and blend titan buff, titanium white, medium grey and burnt sienna media fluid acrylics with a sponge. Adhere some tissue wrap sealing it with decoupage sealer.

Layer on a thickish coat of the decoart clear modeling paste and lay in some inclusions. I went and grabbed some dry grass from the garden and some seeds which were too big so I used some dry tea leaves from a used teabag instead. I added a little more of the modeling paste and left it to dry.

I timed the drying process and this particular board took 7 hours plus to fully dry but the modeling paste was quite thick around the seeds of the grass.

For the next layer I etched a dandelion seed head with a pencil and pokey tool and covered it with ground espresso marker. When I rubbed the ink away some remained in the channels creating the drawing. I also used a sharpie pen to write in some words and a little asemic writing.

Then came the next layer of clear modeling paste applied with a palette knife.

To finish add remnant rubs, some small splatters of  titanium white paint, a significant word - mine was computer generated and the third and final layer of modeling paste.

Look how those lovely layers have built up with the modeling paste giving it a beautiful encaustic look and feel to it.

The dried grasses were very prominent at first but have now been encapsulated into the whole piece and even though the ephemera were the first pieces to be stuck down including the card flower it's leaves look as if they are much higher than the type keys - but they're not.

I hope you're enjoying the faux encaustic work as much as I am loving making it.

Enjoy making and creating your own special art.

Faux encaustic tile - shabby vintage

I told you you'd be seeing more of this faux encaustic technique from me, I am still bitten by the bug.

Seal the substrate with white gesso and adhere some random pieces of text paper. Seal them with decoupage otherwise they will soak up the paint which will be added later.

Scrape white gesso over creating both high and low texture. Heat dry.

 Add some acrylic colours using a wet wipe to create a third, two thirds areas. I decided I wanted a defined line so I laid over a piece of paper to mask off the bottom area. I used pyrrole red, titan buff and titanium white

Use cobalt teal hue, diarylide yellow, pyrrole red, titan buff and titanium white for the lower section.

It was here I decided the pink line was too obtrusive so I blended some titan buff and titanium white across it and slightly into the top and lower sections to remove it.

I also decided this is where I would introduce some 'vinategeness' (is that a word?) to it.

To do this and spritz it with water and with a fine paintbrush drop in some raw umber and burnt sienna acrylic paint. (I repeated this several times to get the effect I wanted drying with my heat tool between each layer).

Now it's time to layer the first coat of decoart clear modeling paste with a palette knife and drop in some dry used tea leaves. Leave it to dry.

Next I wanted to try to 'carve' into the dry modeling paste. I drew three stars with a pencil, etched the shapes with a pokey tool and then blended a dark brown distress pen over them and rubbed away the excess to leave the stars outlined with the ink.

My first try at these - they look too dark so I got a fine brush and titanium white paint and coloured them in. I'm not too unhappy with them - I'm having to embrace the learning processes and outcomes that can be experimented with another time. In fact after I had taken this photo I decided to play with watery blues and white.

I blended in some more of the colours and then did asemic writing using a white uni-ball pen which turned out not to be permanent.

Now layer the second coat of decoart clear modeling paste and here I added the pink butterfly, laying it into the surface of the wet texture and slightly covering it. I left it to dry overnight.

I really liked how this was progressing and didn't want to add too much more to it, so I did some more white asemic writing, white splatters of titanium white and a little more brown edging and I also glued the coloured chipboard dots on ....

..... before scraping over the last layer of clear modeling paste and fixing the other embellishments into it.

I love the little heart frame with just a touch of random colour on it and the stars have a fabulous aura round them from the distress ink bleeding when the modeling paste was added.

The background looks as though it has depth even where there is no pattern underneath it.

 And the flowers just fitted perfectly.

I decided to make this into an easel card to put in my shop space. First paint a canvas board and add some white gesso, paint over a slightly dirty wash.

Add some white remnant rubs.

 Adhere an easel to the back. (I used the Tim Holtz die and mount board).

Now it's being packaged up for selling.

Thanks for stopping by.