Magic of Three - Journal page

It's the beginning of the April challenge at A Vintage Journey; Annie is our lovely host this month and wants us to focus on using three of something on our projects. It is said that three is a magic number and adds more interest and power when using it and everything comes in threes right?

It seems ages since I created a journal page so I decided to get my large A4 black journal out and use some of the inspiration learnt from Seth Apter and added a collage (I seem to be so into these again at the moment). I also decided my collage would not contain lots of ephemera but use some of the diecuts I seem to be hoarding that didn't get used on past projects. But as always things change lol.

I began by brayering layers of chalky finish paints in lace, primitive and eternal.

Then black gesso, yes black to get the darker page back again and hoping there would be some lovely peeled paint like textures showing through. But it didn't quite work like I imagined, so I stamped over the page with the eternal and primitive chalky finish.

So now it was time to build the layers. Taking a piece of card and the chalky finish paints with burnt umber and raw umber media fluid acrylics I monoprinted some random mixes of colours over the surface. Then stamped with black archival ink. 

I repeated these two layers again only this time stamping with everlasting -

To start the collage I cut Seth Apter's pocket watch from a piece of card I had already created a rust and patina effect on .....

.... and then  using the same die I cut a vintage photo so that it fitted perfectly inside. Don't you love this old photo of the family of three?

Next to collect together the elements to for my collage. I tend to build a composition like a 'jigsaw' 

so I rifle through boxes and tubs and choose pieces to fit together that look right to me. Here's where I play at putting pieces together before I make my final decisions. (sorry about the photo but it was taken at night with an overhead light on).

As I refine and start building the layers some pieces get discarded and others are added in to create balance or dimension etc. Here's the top layers beginning to take shape ....

..... and the base layer.

I love how the photo fits exactly in the watch frame ........

.. and the stamping on the little tags adds interest to the composition.

This even smaller tag is hidden away in the pocket.

It seems to have taken me ages to get the photos and post done this time but I'm really happy with the page.

 And here are my  'threes' -

and

 I hope you'll pop over to AVJ to see all the amazing inspiration we have for you and I hope you have a fabulous weekend whatever you have planned.

hugs Brenda xxx

Update
The lovely Susi from Froebelsternchen has suggested I link this to Art Journal Journey for their Magical Mystery Tour theme - the magic is there and I'm always wandering into the mystery of heritage photos and people so I'm off to link up. Thanks for the suggestion Susi xxx

Distress Oxides stamping more pretty butterflies

You know how I love my butterflies so I was so pleased to find this little technique using distress oxides to create these quite realistic looking creatures. If you missed my first experiments a while ago you can find them here and the project I used these on is here.

Begin by dipping a piece of card and drying into distress oxides several times - I used worn lipstick and spiced marmalade. 

Punch or die-cut several so you have a stash of them when you've finished for other projects as well.

I have this little butterfly stamp that was free sometime ago on the Craft Stamper magazine, I love the markings it has on it and the clear veins.

I used the stamp with watering can archival ink and stamped over my punched butterfly as I wanted the detail to show up, but I was very disappointed with it. The contrast is much too harsh.

So I went back to my oxides and stamped using the same colours I had created the background with and the results were amazing. 

These lovely little creatures look so soft and delicate, perfect for a shabby project.

See you on Friday for the beginning of a new challenge at A Vintage Journey and my CG project.

hugs Brenda xxx

Late Mother's day easel card

I'm sharing a late Mother's Day easel card I made for the Packhouse. Unfortunately it didn't sell but I can easily remove the sentiment and add a birthday one lol. It's the same design as the one I made for a workshop here.

The gorgeous image in the centre is from the Graphics Fairy and how I created the layers can be found in the linked post above.

I was so happy playing with the new distress oxides again when I found a way to create these beautiful delicate butterflies. I am sharing a quick post on Wednesday to show you how I made them.

The colours of the flowers in the image and the butterflies blend perfectly.

I am really going to have to check out some of my friend Jennie's tutorials on how to make beautiful handmade flowers, her's are incredible but at the moment I have lots of these bought ones I need to use up first.

I hope your week is going well. See you on Wednesday with the quick tutorial.

hugs Brenda xxx

Rusted butterflies and dragonfly.

It's the start of a new challenge today at Country View Challenges and the lovely Evelyn has chosen the theme of rust. I wanted to use the idea of rusty elements in a different way and having had such a fabulous response to my abstract art a few weeks ago I decided I would go in that direction to create the background.

I cut a piece of card 8 x 8 inches and brayered layers of cameo, primitive, lace and eternal chalky finish paints.

I then took a palette of titan buff, paynes grey, burnt umber, raw umber, prussian blue and yellow oxide media fluid acrylics and with a babywipe blended and very lightly dabbed on the colours in random areas.

Next came black gesso spread with a palette knife and spritzed with water to get some contrast into the background.

I wanted to be a bit more random with visual texture than just using a stencil so I took some kitchen cling film and daubed on white tinting base randomly adding some medium grey and burnt umber to it.

Some white crackle paint in random places but mostly round the edges and left to dry before colourising with some watery quinacridone gold paint. To give it just a little more interest I added the tiniest amount of text stamping.

The dragonfly was cut from some card I had been brayering off onto, run through the embossing folder .....

.....  and then coloured with layers of burnt umber, yellow oxide, paynes grey, tinting base and quinacridone gold - some of the paint was neat and some was watery washes. I dragged the coffee archival ink over before I glued him on.

I love how the veins show up more with the archival ink swiped over.

The small tag was randomly wiped with tinting base and dried and then dipped into walnut stain distress oxide and some left over quinacridone gold and raw umber watery paints. When dry it was stamped with the Tim Holtz butterflies which were also stamped again on cream card and the wings cut out and edged with black archival ink, bent on the thorax edge and adhered to the background images.

From the side you can see the wings fluttering giving additional dimension.

I had intended to add more collage pieces but when I got to this point I rather liked the simplicity, so it stayed as it was.

Here is the finished project. I made it to go inside a shadowbox. I'm very tempted to colour the frame but still not quite sure.

April????? Where did that come from???? Another year speeding past so quickly, but let's take time to watch the butterflies as they emerge.

Enjoy your weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

watercolour tag with oxides

It's Friday #5 for March and when that happens over at AVJ we have a Tag Friday post (there are usually about 5 of them a year so are something that's just a little bit special).

Of course we get to create whatever we like so I had to have a vintage playtime. 

Don't you think the background looks a bit like an old very distressed wall paper?

I cut my own tag from a piece of heavy watercolour paper and stamped it using picket fence distress paint.

I dipped it several times in iced spruce and walnut stain oxides, drying inbetween dips, until I was happy with the background and then just blended a little of each colour around the edges. I also wiped over with a damp baby wipe which helped bring the pattern back to life.

To create the collage I gathered some ephemera from the new Tim Holtz collector layers set and from previous collections of his as well as some small paper offcuts and also I took one of Tim's paper dolls (kindly sent by a lovely friend I caught up with in Birmingham last month). I bought some of the gorgeous quote chips with the ephemera and chose one of them too.

Here you can see more of that background poking through around the girls' feet and the fabulous dimensional word chip.

I wanted that shabby vintage feel to this project so I added a  dyed seam binding bow and just glued it to the top.

I have to say I was really quite please with the effects.

I had dyed a piece of lace and gathered a couple of other bits to use but in the end I opted to keep it less cluttered as I really wanted that background to show through.

I'm so happy to have had this vintage playtime and use the oxides again, they really do have a wonderful chalky finish to them. For more amazing inspiration do pop over to the AVJ challenge blog to see what all the other amazing Creative Guides have made - you are sure to find something you like.

Have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tim Holtz inspired background card #2

This is my second card using a Distress Oxide background made a little while ago for the challenge over at CVC. I made my first quite a feminine card that can be seen here and this one is definitely for a man and in my vintage collage style that I love to use. I just love the rusty patina colours.

If you have a moment please pop over to the CVC project blog to see more photos and to see how it came together.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx