Going round in cirlces

It's a new challenge at A Vintage Journey and we are going round in circles for a change - actually I feel like this a lot of the time lol.

Here's a 5 x 7 canvas board with easel.

1. Seal the board with gesso and dry then take a stencil and swipe through some white modeling paste - I must have used the stencil before with distress ink as brown came through on the paste but I quite like how it looks, but with the layers I am going to add it won't stay like that for long.

2. Mix some fluid acrylics with water to make watery washes choosing the colours you want to use and then drip, spritz with water and dry layers till you are happy with the background.

3. Add some texture stamping, I wanted to keep mine light and mottled so I used a sponge with the brown and white paint to get those effects.

4.  Adhere some strips of patterned papers in a collage as a focal point ...........

5. ...... and scrape some gesso over with a palette knife.

6. Now take some small metal embellishments and give them a coat of gesso and also some small glass cabochons and adhere them to some of the papers you used in the strips sand cut round them. I also collected and inked some flowers.

7. Create a sentiment or quote to add some meaning to your work. My one was stamped inked lightly flicked with eater and dried then given a coat of ultra matte varnish.

8. Add a little stamping over the gessoed strips of paper and another scrape of gesso over the top.

9. A few flicks of paint ........

10. .... and glue everything on.

I add an easel to the back so that it can stand.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you will get a chance to hop over to the AVJ challenge blog and see some amazing inspiration from the team.

hugs Brenda xxx

Products used
DecoArt
Metallic Lustres - silver spark, fab fuchsia, iced espresso

DecoArt Mixed Media - White Gesso DecoArt white modeling paste Decoart-mixed-media-fluid-acrylic-1oz---quinacridone-red DecoArt Mixed Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Titanium White - See more at: http://www.countryviewcrafts.c DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic 1oz - Burnt Umber DecoArt Americana Decoupage Sealer/Glue Matte 4OZ DecoArt Media Enhancer - Ultra Matte Varnish

InLinkz.com

Craft Stamper February issue

A quick shout out today that if you have your Craft Stamper magazine - and I'm still waiting for mine to arrive - you will find me in there with a project I have called 

LOVE ANGEL

I'm only allowed a sneak peek for now but suffice to say if you want to see how I changed up Andy Skinner's Industrial Wings set to look completely different on an mdf heart with crackle and texture then do look to find it in the February issue of Craft Stamper which hits the shops on Friday 6th January. As ever I am so proud to belong to some amazing design teams and I'm really looking forward to rolling out some more mixed media projects in 2017.

Remember - 

The purpose of art is 

washing the dust of daily life off our souls. 

Pablo Picasso

I'm back at my desk and ready to create art, are you?

Have a wonderfully creative 2017.

hugs Brenda xxx


Update photo

Tag Friday at AVJ

Yay it's Tag Friday over at A Vintage Journey and time for the Creative Guides to have some time to create a tag that is totally their own without any constraints whatsoever and I have to say I really enjoyed getting out some new (to me) dies from Seth Apter and my box of left over backgrounds to create one with a grungy, timeworn feel to it.

I cut the tag from a a piece of card that I had obviously been experimenting on using both my treasured DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints and much loved distress inks. Later I added some stamping using one of Seth's background stamps.

Using more leftovers I die-cut shapes that would fit together to make up a design and several of those shapes I cut several times to create strong, rigid pieces that when layered together produced a fabulous 3d feel.

I built up the focal section and then layered it using foam squares to create height and more dimension.

I love it when rusty elements can be created from dies and scraps of card on which I have had fun practising techniques to create timeworn effects .....

..... and when those pieces fit together quite naturally without too much effort.

The focal word came from Tim's Big Chat stickers and the only deciding factor for my choice of the word was it's length - it just fits neatly into the frame.

So there we have it .......

..... a battered, weathered construction that has a bit of an assemblage feel to it.

Thanks for coming over to see what I have made for the Tag Friday line up and do pop over to AVJ to see the most amazing inspirational pieces from the rest of the team.

hugs Brenda xxx

Prancing deer

Here we go my last Christmas card of the year.

Tim's prancing deer with the shape echoed in the paper used for the background. I gave him a coat of aged gold embossing powder.

Tim's drippy edge die cut from card I had in my bits box which had been given a rust and patina finish to it.

A Tim sentiment and frame.....

.... and all the edges were finished with some of the aged gold frantage embossing.

It's Christmas Eve, we already have our guest arrived to spend a few days with us and we have 14 for pre-Christmas dinner tonight. I love Christmas.

Enjoy your Christmas Eve and any final preparations you have left to finish..

hugs Brenda xxx

Oh deer, deer, deer

Another of my panelled Christmas cards and patterned paper backgrounds.

A simple mini tree and deer die-cuts .....

........ a wooden embossed snowflake and a sentiment and look how the gold glows in the light.

Again I made a batch of two for putting in the post.

One more to come if I can find time tomorrow to post it lol.

The presents are wrapped, the food is in and everything is more or less ready - yay. Time to enjoy the festivities.

I hope all your preparations are finished too.

hugs Brenda xxx

A holly jolly Christmas

I said there would be a few more Christmas cards to come. They're all in the post now so I hope the recipients like them. This one is very mixed media in style and follows the theme of using up some of those precious designer papers we tend to stash away. Like the last one it also has a media board background panel painted, stamped with flitter glue and foils added. I also splattered it with white gesso to it a snowy feel.

As the background paper has some beautifully distressed brown holly on it, I followed the theme and added brown and white winter foliage .........

... with some red gems for berries .......

....... a cut out ornament from more patterned papers and a Tim framed sentiment.

Two people received one of these as I doubled up the design.

I have now just got to wrap some presents to put under the trees and get a bit of baking done and then I am ready for the weekend. Only 6 more sleeps to the big day!

Enjoy your week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Winter Green Holiday Knits

Just catching up with making some cards to get in the post and I followed a technique I used here on - an Artsy Christmas card - but this time I tinted the white modelling paste with sap green media fluid acrylic paint and used a green music background patterned paper. The stencil is from Tim's mini stencil set 19 and I used his holiday knit, garden greens and holiday greens thinlits as well.

I actually made four of these with different borders from the holiday knit set, but three are already in the post.

I'm still in production mode getting extras made which I need to send asap so you'll see a few more over the next few days.

Hope your preparations are going well.

hugs Brenda xxx

DecoArt products
White gesso
White modelling paste
Media fluid acrylic paint - sap green