CVC Challenge February 2025 #3 - Romance and Friendship

Happy Valentine Day 

I am sneaking in a third project for the CVC February challenge which is a last frame and this one is made for my 6 year old grandson who wants to be an Astrologer. I picked out what are the nearest products I could to fit in with his story and this theme.

I began by taking these metal elements found in my supplies and used the shown products as a play time to give a rusty look to them. Cogs and gears to represent machinery, spectacles because he loves Harry Potter, a compass to help him look in the correct direction when looking for stars and planets with his telescope and propellor as he also has a love of aeroplanes. (I just couldn't fit his love of lego into this project but he's a genius with it).

For the background I used the gears embossing folder and swiped the rusty ginge embossing ink pad over to create a rusty look but as always with me everything changed as I played with different products in the process of creating the layers.

I can't honestly say what I did for each layer to end up with the design below but I had fun.

These are all the products I used and there must be at least another 4 layers on top of the rusty hinge that I started with. It certainly doesn't look like I expected it to but just experimenting always takes you down a different path and that's the excitement of it all.

Things came together well as I collected together elements to sit in the ledge at the bottom of the frame. and added words to bring it all together.

A couple of bulbs to light his way, clock gears and clock hands in the bottles represent time, time he spends creating things (he loves his arts and crafts), time he will spend gazing up at the night sky. (I already have a fabulous photo of him out one clear evening last week where he was looking for the alignment of the moon with Saturn, Venus, Jupiter and Mars). Spectacles to represent his love of the Harry Potter books, and hearts for Valentine's day.

I made up small labels to add to those bottles, bulbs and heart.

xx

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain -Faded Jeans,Stormy Sky

TH - Distres Spritz - Uncharted Mariner, Vintage Photo, Crackling Campfire

TH - Distress Inks - Faded Jeans, Rusty Hinge, Uncharted Mariner

TH - Collage Medium, Crackle Paste

TH Foundry Wax - Statue

TH Embossing folder - Blueprint and Gears

DecoArt Fluid Acrylics - Quinacridone Gold, Prussian Blue Hue

All & Create Rub-ons - Acid Blends, Wanderlust Passport

Quick Valentine cards

 Inspired by Tim Holtz

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

These are some simple Valentines cards to go with the frames I have been making for the grandchildren (plus one for hubby as well). I was inspired by the Tim Holtz Valentine Live and his beautiful cards. These are very different to his but the design is the same.

All of them were made with backgrounds cut from left over bits from other projects, splattered with white paint.

There's a banner of embossed vellum paper and then the stamped love token by Tim Holtz.

xx

https://www.instagram.com/p/DFi6iBeTzNj/?hl=en

Supplies

TH stamps - Mini Blueprints 2

TH Distress inks - no colours identified on the offcuts.

TH Punch -  hearts that went in the envelope.

CVC Challenge February 2025 #2 - Romance and Friendship

 The Colour Purple

My second frame for the CVC Challenge is for my grandaughter Maddison who is at 6th form college doing dance and musical theatre. She wants to be an actor and be in musical shows. She recently was on stage in Guildford, in a production of '6' as one of Henry the Eighth's wives - Catherine Parr. The whole show was electric with so much energy on stage from this group of youngsters and the wives were amazing. We were so proud of Maddison and her achievements, when it came to her solo and taking the lead she absolutely rose to it, and sang so incredibly well and belted out her singing whilst acting and dancing as well. We came away feeling ecstatic. 

This frame contains a lot of meaning and is representative of her whole theatre story. I included the glass star, of course I'm biased but that is what she is to us. A bottle of love, a key to her future in this world of musical theatre, flowers that we always give her after seeing one of her shows, a sparkly heart recognises the emotions we feel when watching her and the excitement it gives us, 14 because this is a valentine gift and a bottle of gems to represent the costumes and jewellery that she will wear so beautifully. 

Maddison has been having dance lessons since she was about 3 years old so here is a ballet dancer dancing to the music.

Anyway Maddison loves the colour purple. We have an embossed musical score background representing her singing abilities, this was dipped in a mix of spray stain and distress spritz, spritzed with water and dipped and sprayed until I was happy with it, once dry I blended distress ink round the edges.

The heart is for Valentines Day - the 14th February. It was painted with Purple mixed with Distress Spritz Villainous and the tim plaquette added.

The ballerina was stamped, cut round and supported with a small block of wood underneath.

Tucked in the little base of the frame a bottle of LOVE containing mauve gems and tiny seed beads, a resin flower, a token and a key.

Tucked in the other corner another small bottle coloured with alcohol ink and some little paper flowers.

The bottles were sealed with a coat of collage medium. I applied rub-ons around the frame just to distress it a little. 

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain -  Seedless Preserves

TH - Distres Spritz -  Villainous Potion

TH Distress Ink - Villainous Potion

TH - Metal Plaquettes, Gumdrop Hearts, star

Ranger Archival Ink - Hydrangea

Ranger Alcohol Pearl - Villainous

DecoArt Metallics - Purple Pearl

Visible Image stamps - Born to Perform

All and Create Rub-ons - Stainy Rainy

Seedheads Panel -

Poppy Seedhead with collage 

I found a small wooden panel and decided to use chalk paints for the background and include the lovely Alison Bomber's stamps. Her love of nature and using plants and seedhead images reflects my own, so I totally resonate with her projects and ideas. So poppy seedheads it is!

Process steps

Paint a layer of london brick mixed with white and lace to tone the colour down a bit (I love mixing my own colours) and dry.

Rub some candle wax over the surface then paint with primitive, dry, rub and sand down to create some distressing.

Rub candle wax more heavily in chosen areas and paint a layer of lace and dry. Again rub and sand down.

Repeat last layer with snowflake sanding edges well to expose the wood.

Blend the edges and surface with walnut stain DO, splatter with water and pull droplets off with kitchen roll, repeat until happy with the effects.

Rub white areas with a damp cloth to lift DO and bring some brightness back to the panel.

Stamp Tim Holtz text onto surface using permanent black ink and heat dry.

Also using Tim's stamp add texture (circles) with embossing ink and use white embossing powder to create this layer.

Stamp and cut round poppies and grass. (I extended the stems of them to help make these fit to the panel size).

I started to design the panel and gather all the bits together and to achieve the look I wanted I did some mass stamping of ephemera and numbers. I'll make my next post about this and show what I used. (See also supplies listed below). 

As it's February and very near Valentine's Day I added some hearts.

The completed panel

xx

Supplies

Chalk paints - London Brick, Snowflake, Lace, Primitive,

TH DOs - Walnut Stain

TH DIs - Pumice Stone, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain

TH stamp - Ledger Script CMS241, Halftone & Rings CMS260, Paint by Number CMS483,

                   Ornate Trims CMS326, Curator CMS493

TH Small Talk

TH Heart Punch

Alison Bomber Stamps- Poppy Edition, Pressed Grasses Edition,

Miscellaneous - candle wax, real poppy seedheads (picked from a neighbour's garden, with permission lol), twine

CVC Challenge February 2025 #1 - Romance and Friendship

 PRETTY GRUNGE AND MORE

I thought I'd make all of my three grandchildren a Valentine gift, which would also be a bit of a keepsake. (Well it will be if they like them lol). So here are three small shadowboxes.

The heart was made using layers of Americana Decor chalk paints, metallics, PaperArtsy Fresco Finish and Distress Spritz. I just painted, sponged, waxed, rubbed and sanded it until I was happy with the results. 

Ella is the eldest and at university training to be a teacher, she is the pink girl. I found a background already made and distressed, cut it to size and attached it to the back of the inner white frame. I also found a piece of card embossed with Eileen Hull's lace folder and again in the pink tones. I cut strips to cover the inner frame, splattered with a mix of picked raspberry distress stain and worn lipstick Spritz mixed together and also with white acrylic paint. Once finished I rubbed the white paint over the raised areas of the texture to bring the pattern back to life.

I collected elements together to build the design, painted and rubbed down some metal bits and as I built the project and as I got further into it more pieces were gathered, altered/distressed and added.

Close-ups of the elements.

The distressed heart.

A shabby bow coloured with distress inks.

Snippets to create interest in the background.

The largest of the two bottles, both were painted with collage medium, left to dry and then painted with crackle paste I filled this one with pretty coloured beads, painted and distressed the cork and tied pink thread around it.

Three little flowers were tucked into the corner.

The smallest bottle was coloured up with alcohol pearl and a snippet cut down to fit. On top is a small pink eyelet.

Here is a small frame with a distressed metal button, an altered key and a glittery heart.

I also added a metal plaquette, small metal snowflake and beads, Ella's name and rub-ons to distress the frame.

xx

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain - Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar, Seedless

TH - Distres Spritz - Worn Lipstick, Villainous Potion

TH - Collage Medium, Crackle Paste

TH - Rock Candy Glitter

TH - Snippets

TH - Gumdrop Hearts

TH - Metal Plaquettes, Gumdrop Hearts,  

Ranger - Patina - Cinnabar, Rust

Ranger - Alcohol Pearl - Deception

Ranger Archival Ink - Hydrangea

Americana Chalky Finish - Innocence

All & Create Rub Ons - Acid Blends

Eileen Hull - Lace embossing folder