Tando Creative - Modeling Paste

It's texture paste week over on the Tando inspiration blog and I had fun creating a very grungy project.

To start I took one of the long Tando chipboard tags, gave it a coat of gesso and then a light coat of transparent iron oxide keeping it light and barely covering the whole of the tag.

To get some texture on the tag I took DecoArt modeling paste and mixed it with a little burnt umber media fluid acrylic and with a palette knife applied it through the long flourish stencil, turning it over to apply it at the bottom.

Next I took two different sizes of the grab bag circles and cut a little from each of them and gave them a coat of burnt umber. Before the tag dried I took the circles applied wet glue to the backs and and stuck them into the modeling paste....

.... then I added some texture sand paste around the edges of the circles and the tag itself then left it to fully dry.

Once dried I rubbed a candle over the texture paste parts and then stippled with dark grey, cobalt turquoise and cobalt blue and rubbed the colours off of the textured areas.

I repeated again this time adding in some transparent yellow iron oxide.

Next I focussed on the sand texture areas and the edges and stippled in burnt umber, burnt sienna and paynes grey followed by rust in a bottle - a coat of quinacridone gold spritzed with water and left to settle before drying.

I dribbled some watery TYIO through, dried it and repeated with cobalt turquoise to bring the patina colours back into play a little bit.

The seam binding ribbon took the paint washes beautifully.

The crown is a diecut and I glued two together to give it some dimension.

And finally I found a lost relative and painted a star to finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by today, my project can also be seen on the Tando blog. 

Products

Long Tags

Grab bag circles

Flourish Stencil

DecoArt 

Media Fluid Acrylics

Mediums

Mixed Media with France Papillon

I attended a workshop with France last Saturday at 'Let's Be Creative' and we spent a lovely morning using mini canvases to create this piece she called 'Intricate'. It included gold paint, weathered wood crackle, antiquing ........

and some lovely cambray fabric she brought over from Belgium (apparently it is original cotton bandage and you can only buy it there).

She loves rusty elements like I do and used a piece from a clothes peg.

We altered the little bottle by using media acrylics to 'rust' the lid and it has some tiny watch parts inside as well as a chit chat word adhered to a piece of wire to keep it upright.

This is how mine looked when I came home, I didn't quite get it finished ........

.....but I added a vintage photo as well as a rusty spring and a couple more washers from home to make it more personal to me.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope your week is going well.

hugs Brenda xxx

Dear Santa, I can explain ...

Hello from Santa

I made this stand up card as a sample for my demonstration session at Ministry of Mixology and I'm also using it for my project sample for Country View Crafts. Di at Tando Creative cut me the boards the exact size I wanted them and I'm hoping she will be able to make me some stands too.

I had decided to use decoart chalky finish for a change and for this technique I pulled out the brayer and had some fun layering the colours thickly so that I achieved alot of texture. Of course all the colours are opaque so we have to be careful where we brayer the colours as each one blocks out the one below, but by being careful and using less of the colours as we go we can achieve texture and colour. I finished this one with some subtle stippling using a natural sponge and then lightly brayered some white over the top.

I sanded the edges and inked them and dipped in some vintage photo DI before stamping with the chalky finish paints.

I brayered some white card with titanium white, titan buff, light grey and raw umber to achieve a light and slightly textured look for Santa's beard. This is the St Nick bigz die by Tim Holtz.

A shabby bow, stamped and cut out holly and some berries with a self generated sentiment and we're done.

I love the retro look to this card.

Thanks for popping in, how are your Christmas preparations going? We're still in the throws of decorating the bedrooms and have also done the dining room and changed it round as well, so I will get to Christmas preparations at some point!!!!

Take care and have a great week ahead.

hugs Brenda xxx

Products used -

DecoArt Chalky Finish paints

St Nick Bigx die

Seam Binding

.... the snowflakes fall .....

..... each one a gem .

This is my Tando DT sample for our theme of embossing this week, there have been some lovely projects with great ideas from my teamies. Di had kindly cut me some boards exactly the size I wanted to make stand up cards - you'll see some more coming up soon.

I prepared the greyboard with two coats of gesso and then stamped the snowflakes with versamark embossing ink and covered white embossing powder ......................

well I thought it was ordinary white embossing powder but it turned out I had picked up the sticky version instead ..... so my plan had to change!!!!

I decided to use gold foil on the snowflakes and had success with some of them but others didn't take much of the foil at all, but I didn't worry as I was seeing nice variations of the random touch - and I always look for the random interest in my work lol.

I then took a piece of blending foam and using the black side I blended over titan buff, raw umber and burnt umber decoart media acrylic paints, rubbing away at the snowflakes quickly with a piece of dry kitchen roll.

Inevitably some of areas of the snowflakes got covered whilst other bits still show some shine.

Next came some dips in brown .....

and splatters in white and of course drying them heated up the embossed snowflakes again so I rubbed more foil over them and got an even shinier coverage than I did before.

To finish off I diecut a snowflake painted it with gesso and ran it through the embossing folder and used pritt stick to foil it. I painted some Tando snowflakes with dazzling metallics champagne gold and punched a gold one too.

I had stamped some of the beautiful Winter quotes from the brilliant Alison Bomber's new collection of stamps and mounted this perfect one on gold card.

It really looks fabulous mounted again on some canvas type material daubed with white gesso and some rustic ribbon, string and a shabby bow at the bottom.

 So I layered up some snowflakes and added some champagne coloured gems.

You can see the stand I have added to support it, made very easily from 480 gm white card.

I've realised now it's all together and photographed I have been influenced by Alison's style too, I wonder if she would think so?

Well Christmas is well and truly fixed in my mind and I need to get some cards made. As I'm at the Ministry of Mixology retreat this weekend with Di, the inimitable Andy Skinner and Nikki Acton that will be my next job when I get home.

Do pop over to the Tando blog to see the other embossing creations this week and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Mini Marvels for AVJ

Welcome to my CG post for the November challenge at A Vintage Journey where the lovely Anne has chosen 'Mini Marvels' for the theme. To make sure I was creating within the right guidelines I re-read the challenge description which says - 

This month's challenge is to create something in miniature - it could be a little book, a tiny scene a small canvas, a wall hanging or even a box. It MUST be 4" or less in size and be created in your vintage; shabby; mixed media; art journalling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk style.

Well I didn't choose any of the descriptions above because I found some old Wendy Vecchi pocket watch pieces and thought these would be fun and because I'm having a huge clear out of my craft supplies and rearranging the space I have to work and store everything I thought I could also use up some pieces from the bits box before it all goes in the dustbin.

I took a three of the watch chipboards which are approximately 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches in size and well within the expected size and I did three of my DecoArt media paint techniques on the them -

rust, burnished gold and tarnished silver.

Then the three leftover offcuts for the backgrounds.

A drippy paint background with crackle paint over the top.

 Silver card that had been put through an embossing folder and to which I added gold paint, some gold rush metallic lustre and a carbon black watery wash.

Then a piece of card on which I had experimented with a silver and patina experiment which totally seemed to fit the bill.

I cut each piece to fit behind the pocket watch part and picked some focal embellishments which I thought would be great to make these into gift tags for men for Christmas gifts.

When I assembled them I added some other little bits to finish them off.

Thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments on my meagre posts whilst I have been out of action for a while, I'm still not back into the routine of commenting and getting projects made very ahead of time but I'm sure I'll get there.

I hope we'll see you entering your little projects into the AVJ challenge and please do pop over to see what the other Creatie Guides have created, they're amazing (as always).

huge hugs Brenda xxx

I daren't show you a photo of one of the bedrooms which has tubs piled high and excess furniture in it, nor my messy workroom, but here is the empty room which is going to be my second workroom and storage room, I've decided to have one messy space and one clean space and hubby has agreed to me using the two smallest bedrooms and by the time this post goes live, in less than 5 days time, I hope to have the storage furniture up and in place (well I should say he hopes to have completed it by then).

Halloween for Tando Creative

HI All

We are getting closer to All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Eve which is a celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October and is the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.

Of course activities include trick-or-treating, attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories and watching horror films. In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular, although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration. But whatever you believe and observe,

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

For my Tando DT sample today I am using a medium media board that I cut myself and have added a stand for it.

I love using Pinterest and found a great colour combination -

and collected together media paints that I thought would give me the range of colours I wanted.

I took the purple and black and mixed them on the card whilst painting it at the same time.

I then stamped the spider's webs with grey and interference gold mixed together and then brushed over a watery mix of burnt umber and grey together and dried it whilst dabbing with some kitchen roll to get that misty, eerie look. I also splattered a little with watery grey on its own.

I painted the frame with violet, purple, black and grey paints again mixing them on the substrate to give lots of colour variations through it.

I gave it a coat of clear crackle glaze and rubbed in white antiquing cream when it was dry.

I gathered a few Tando chipboard pieces and a metal skull to start the design.

The spider has a speckled body as I gave it a coat of texture sand paste, painted all over with black and then rubbed some of the purple and silver paint over the high spots and the tops of the legs and repeated with interference gold.

The bat was painted with black and burnt umber mixed and I stippled a little grey on him with a small stiff brush, I then gave him a couple of dirty washes using the black and brown paints and sanded around the edges of him and blended in brown DI and also some silver paint.

To assemble I adhered the background card to the media board and rubbed cosmic blue and fab fuchsia metallic lustres on the skull and chose some remnant rubs to use.

This is ta side view showing a simple stand to make the board stand up.

Thanks for stopping by and maybe you might like to see the project in more finished detail over on the Tando blog.

I hope your weekend is going well and that you get lots of treats and not tricks.

hugs Brenda xxx