Happy Easter

Just popping in today to wish you all a 

HAPPY EASTER

and to share some photos of my little easter display I like to do each year for the dining room.

I love the images we collect for this time of the year and the gorgeous soft palette of colours.

Don't you love the hare, I think he is just magnificent and did you catch my Craft Stamper make? What about the cute duck with his folded paper hat and Mrs Bird with her fabulous blue hat and basket of eggs.

For Christians like myself this is another very special time of year in the calendar.

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act. 

Mahatma Gandhi

Enjoy the weekend whatever you have planned.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Spring Easter card with oxides

I'm happy to be over at the Country View projects blog with an Easter card today and if you'd like to pop over you will find all the details and more photos of the process steps to see how it all came together.

I have listed the products so you can see what I used.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tim Holtz® - Distress Oxide Ink Pad - Broken China Ranger - Tim Holtz® - Distress Oxide Ink Pad - Iced Spruce Broken China Distress Ink Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pad - Hickory Smoke Tim Holtz distress ink pad - Ground Espresso Tim Holtz Distress ink pad - Pumice Stone Tim Holtz Distress ink - Scattered straw Tim Holtz Stamps - Papillon Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous - Bird feather Archival ink pad - Coffee Ranger Archival ink pad - Jet black Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 7PK - Stitched Ovals By Tim Holtz Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 21PK - Small Tattered Florals By Tim Holtz Tim Holtz stamps - Hashtags American seam binding - White

InLinkz.com

Canvas Board - Industrial - DecoArt Media Team

I am sharing a small DecoArt Mixed Media Team project with you today that went live on their blog in February. I have added the whole tutorial because I like to keep my creations all in one place.

Take a canvas board which is 5 x 7 ins in size.

Take a palette knife and mix DecoArt modeling paste and white gesso together in about a 50:50 mix and then randomly and thinly spread it over the surface leaving some of the canvas board exposed and leave it to dry.

Add some textured stencilling using modeling paste.

One of my favourite ways of laying down colour is to mix watery washes and adding a little on the canvas, spritzing with water, letting it drip and then drying it before adding another layer and repeating the process until you are happy with it.

I chose two colours that look good together (phthalo turquoise and raw sienna) and would blend to create tonal contrasting colours. As well as spritzing and drying I also rubbed some of the colours around the edge of the canvas with my finger.

I searched out some metal and wood pieces to put together for a 3D collage and adhered them with decoart crackle paint which gave me some texture around the pieces when it dried. I didn't risk the large bulb staying in place without extra help so I glued that piece on with matte medium.

Next came a careful coat of black gesso to unify all the pieces and give me a surface to take the acrylic paints.

I also dry brushed everything with the most tiniest amount of white gesso to give me some contrasts and highlights .....

.... and began adding patina colours starting with the same colours I had used on the background.
Firstly the phthalo turquoise ......

.... I dabbed and spritzed some of the colours into the background as well to build up the conformity of the same colours - here I used the raw sienna.

I also mixed the two with some titan buff to get that lovely patina green colour.

Now to get more of the industrial feel by adding 'rust' with burnt sienna and transparent red iron oxide.

Transparent yellow iron oxide ....

.... and quinacridone gold.

Finish off with a coffee archival ink pad rubbed extremely lightly over the stenciled areas to just highlight them with a rusty feel.

You can see how it highlights the texture paste quite nicely.

This went into the Packhouse back in March and sold really quickly so I will be using this style again to create more.

Thanks for stopping by and sorry if you already saw this on the DecoArt blog but thank you for looking.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

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