Visual Journey #17

Here is my next instalment of journal pages and I am so pleased I began recording my visual journey of experiments and learning for this year.

The pages were prepared with a light coat of gesso and left to dry.

I chose four DecoArt acrylic colours - medium grey value 6, cobalt turquoise hue, viridian and phthalo green-blue. My choices were guided by some new washi tape I bought at Ally Pally (it's strange where inspiration comes from sometimes). Using a baby wipe and a little water I covered the pages in layers of each colour rubbing them on and off again in places.

When dry I used an old credit card to scrape some titanium white over the pages. I dried them well with my heat gun.

I wanted to do some painting to be included in the background so I used some Tim stamps - classics #2 -with black archival ink .....

.... and then using a selection of small brushes I painted them in using acrylic paints.

The colours I chose were - DecoArt phthalo green-yellow, transparent red iron oxide, transparent yellow iron oxide, sap green and translucent white.

Next came the new and some old washi/tissue tapes ...

... and a small text stamp using black soot distress ink.

Finally I die-cut the Eiffel tower and fleur de lys from Tim's bigz die using core'dinations paper and sanded them down and added explore moments from Tim's journey thinlits dies.

I also edged the words and die-cuts with a black soot distress marker.

I love the collage style, the new mix of colours and the overall effects - hope you do too.

Please come and join me with your journal pages and your visual journey, I'm loving seeing what you are doing.

If you would also like to share everyones work on your blog then locate the code below and add it to your blog post.

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Enjoy the rest of the week.

hugs Brenda xxxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Copper patina star - DecoArt techniques - Board 1

As part of being a Helping Hand Artist I was lucky to receive a box of DecoArt products the other week and I have been having great fun experimenting with texture and metal techniques using some other products I have and mixing them together. I am focusing on building some samples for my next Country View Crafts workshop where I will teach some metal effects that I have devised and that can be used in both card making, mixed-media and altered art.

This is my first piece and I have used the Tim Holtz star to show off this particular effect.

The tarnished copper patina star uses media fluid acrylics and patina cream antiquing cream with Onxyite Treasure Gold.

The base it sits on is a Tando ATC on which I used a Andy Skinner rust technique I learnt on one of his workshops again using media fluid acrylics with a red metallic paint I have. Over it I stamped Andy's scratch stamp in media white gesso and gave it a coat of watery quinacridone gold, then when it was dry I sanded the edges back.

A close up of the crackle on the cabinet card which is a foamboard base, I used the white crackle paint and added some raw umber to age the edges and a watery wash over the top.

On the star you can see the glow of the copper and the fabulous green patina that can develop on it.

There will be a few more boards being shown here over the coming weeks as I want one for each of the six metal effects I have devised.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. This workshop will be up on Country View Crafts soon and if you can get to Flitwick in Bedfordshire fairly easily on the 6th June it would be lovely to see you.

hugs Brenda xxx

Visual Journey #16

I love happy accidents and that's what happened with todays journal pages. 

The pages were gessoed over and left to dry. I took weathered wood, antique linen and gathered twigs sprays with Tim's new typo and brick stencils to create the background. I sprayed through with the chosen colours and flipped the stencils to create other textures.

I noticed colours mixing and changing and when I looked at the full double spread I knew I wanted some spaces filled (mind you I think I over did it lol). So out came a thin paint brish, I sprayed the colours onto my craft mat and I began filling in some of the bricks and extending them beyond the stencil outline. I loved the effects so much you can see from the finished pages that I kept extending it more and more until the pages were almost full.

I had gathered a few collage pieces together including one of the found relatives and started altering and changing pieces as I was designing.

I had the film strip die-cut left over from another project and it seemed to fit in well here, so I added some of the small heritage photos cut from a TH paper stash.

The chit chat stickers were perfect for two reasons, one I was able to make up my own quote and secondly they reminded me of bricks, so they fitted in perfectly.

Wow I'm lovin' creating these pages and I've just worked out I have enough blank pages in the book to complete the whole year - yay.

Thanks for stopping by and a big thank you if you are leaving me comments. I know how time consuming it is and I really appreciate each and every one. Welcome also to new followers who have joined me recently, it's lovely to have you along on this creative and visual journey with me.

If you fancy linking to me then please add your journal pages below and if you would like to li k with each other and share your work around the world then please add the following piece of code to your blog.

get the InLinkz code

Take care, enjoy Friday and have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Kraft cards for Country View Crafts

I love using kraft card in my work and was so pleased to find some good quality and 'real' kraft coloured cards in Michaels last year. So taking the plunge I decided to create my designs straight on the card itself - - - - scary!!!!!

Taking a palette knife I daubed small amounts of gesso onto three cards.

Then using torn paper I masked off  areas and stamped through the gaps to get my random stamped sections.

Next came  torn strips of tissue/washi tapes........

....... and strips of stitched torn paper or stitched hessian ......

.... then stamped and inked images I found in my left over images box and watercoloured them with distress inks.

I finished them all with a stamped word and a single embellishment.

If you like to use kraft card somewhere in your projects then we would love to see them at Country View Challenges. There is a £20 voucher from Country View Crafts for the lucky winner.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxxx

Wedding card for CVC

Good morning everyone on this beautifully bright morning here in the south of England. It's a very quick pop in for me today as I have the most ultra quick wedding card for you over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog. Those of you who know me also know I don't usually do quick but this is one of those last minute cards where you gather some left over bits from your box and some gorgeous Tim things and eh voila, done in no time.

It looks as though I should be out in the garden, so I might just spend some time out there later.

Whatever you are doing have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Update copied from CVC

Hello everyone, it's Brenda here with a quick wedding card for you today. You know when you need a card really quickly and have nothing in your box that would do? Well this is one of those.

The photo is one of the Tim Holtz found relatives and I cut it down and rounded the corners so it would fit nicely on this 5 x 7 kraft card. 

The rose ephemera piece is also one of Tim's (well actually all of it is really!!).
The flowers ......

.... the sentiment and the backing paper  .....

.... and the trellis border ......

Don't you think the photo and the ephemera piece gives it a lovely vintage feel?

See the product list below and click on the ones you want to know more about - you will be transported to the CVC shop to see further details.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Destination Inspiration Route 2 for AVJ - A collection of three

If you haven't caught up with the new Destination Inspiration posts at A Vintage Journey I fully recommend them for ideas, techniques, and of course inspirational projects.

It's my turn to post today and I have a project that includes our four components for the month of April those being -

substrate - canvas

product - distress paints

colour - picket fence

technique - Tim's grunge paper flowers

This is a reverse canvas, mixed media style with lots os distress paints iuncluding picket fence and those fabulous grunge paper flowers that Tim shows us how to make in A Compendium of Curiosities 1.

I hope you will pop over to AVJ to see the full details of how I made this project, I would love to see you there.

Have a wonderful week and let's hope we some more of that gorgeous sunshine we saw over the weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Always my collections are made of different influences.

Jean Paul Gaultier


Update - copied over from AVJ

Distress Paint

Substrate - Canvas

Technique - Grungepaper flowers (Vol 1 of Tim's CC3C Book, page 65)

Colour  -  Picket Fence

I have chosen to reverse my canvas and work on the back of it as it is more like a shadowbox and I love the depth it creates.

My canvas is 25 x 30 cms and I cut a piece of prepared canvas material (to fit in the reverse side) on which to create my background. (I buy canvas pads to do this). 

Sand over the surface of the canvas mat with a sanding block to distress the background area. 

Apply distress paints to your craft mat – dried marigold, victorian velvet & evergreen bough and spritz with water. Also spritz your piece of canvas and dip it into the paints to create a marbled effect.  Heat dry. 

Take picket fence distress paint, apply it to your craft mat and again spritz with water, dip the canvas in to create some mottled patches and dry. Later you will see the lovely mottled effects that are created by starting with a base layer of the paints first.

Use light modelling paste and apply through a stencil to create a design. Leave to dry. 

Spritz with distress spays – tea dye, evergreen bough & tattered rose. Heat dry. You can see the mottled white showing through as the picket fence paint has acted as a resist. 

Place the stencil over the design again and dab picket fence distress paint over some of the texture paste pattern to bring it back to pure white again and leaving some with the colour absorbed. This gives another great mottled effect on the texture. 

Take the canvas and paint the wood that is showing with white gesso and then cover the edges with Tim’s tissue wrap. 

Layered Butterfly 

Die-cut and emboss Tim’s layered butterfly. Take your colour of choice from a set of oil pastels and colour all the embossed (raised) parts. (I even got into blending colours using a cotton bud). 

Dip it into a wash of dried marigold distress paint, blot and dry it and then spray with tea dye distress spray. When dry take the evergreen bough and spray a small amount onto your craft mat and spritze it quite heavily with water to get a more watery tone, then dip the wings into it and dry it. 

Finish by inking the edges lightly with walnut stain and then spraying with a gloss sealer to give the colours more pop and shine.

Cut two smaller butterflies from Tim's butterfly duo die and give them the same treatment, strange how the darker one looks so different in style.

Grungepaper Flowers 

I followed Tim’s instructions on P.65 of the CoC 1 to make the petals and then of course I followed my own route. 

When you have made up the flowers dip the petals in spritzed picket fence distress paint and dry. 

To get some colour on them I dipped them in both mustard seed and evergreen bough stains that had been spritzed with water and left them to dry. Next I dipped them in dried marigold distress paint – again spritzed with water on my craft mat. 

Then sand the edges and blend in walnut stain distress ink. 

Put the petal layers together with Tim brads or metal flowers with distress paints daubed over them. 

18. Dab picket fence distress paint onto a word band and gently wipe the paint off with your fingers leaving the colour to remain in the recessed letters. Dab the edges with potting soil archival ink pad.

19. Now start to assemble the canvas – dab picket fence distress paint over the tissue wrapped frame, spritz it and wipe some away from the words and adhere the background into the recess.

20. Gather some elements together to create some interest and dimension on the background collage and adhere these to the back. I added some shapes from die-cuts of the trellis frameworks die and I took a metal number 3 painted it with gesso and when dry gave it a thick coat of picket fence distress crackle paint. I don't think I made the gesso coat thick enough as the crackle began to flake away but I added some evergreen bough distress paint and then some gathered twigs distress stain, spritzed it with water and dried it off, then gave it two coats of thick clear embossing powder. This has sealed it and will now prevent the crackle paint coming off any more. I rather like the distressed fell to the finish.

21. I took a small wooden bird and a chipboard frame from my box, painted them with white gesso and blended tea dye and walnut stain distress ink over them and I also stamped some text onto them. 

The frame is going to help hold the flowers. (I wired it so the flowers can sit over it easily).

Some rafia .......

.....  the die-cut shapes .....

.... add some remnant rubs ..... 

.... and some wired paper to the flower collection.

.... and the reverse canvas has come together.

Look how neat the flowers sit over the corner raised up on the frame I added.

Well done if you've managed to read this far .....

.... I hope you have enjoyed seeing my interpretation of the four chosen components coming together.

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx