Bumblebees and Butterflies

Monday, 10 February 2025

Seedheads Panel -

Poppy Seedhead with collage

I found a small wooden panel and decided to use chalk paints for the background and include the lovely Alison Bomber's stamps. Her love of nature and using plants and seedhead images reflects my own, so I totally resonate with her projects and ideas. So poppy seedheads it is!

Process steps

Paint a layer of london brick mixed with white and lace to tone the colour down a bit (I love mixing my own colours) and dry.

Rub some candle wax over the surface then paint with primitive, dry, rub and sand down to create some distressing.

Rub candle wax more heavily in chosen areas and paint a layer of lace and dry. Again rub and sand down.

Repeat last layer with snowflake sanding edges well to expose the wood.

Blend the edges and surface with walnut stain DO, splatter with water and pull droplets off with kitchen roll, repeat until happy with the effects.

Rub white areas with a damp cloth to lift DO and bring some brightness back to the panel.

Stamp Tim Holtz text onto surface using permanent black ink and heat dry.

Also using Tim's stamp add texture (circles) with embossing ink and use white embossing powder to create this layer.

Stamp and cut round poppies and grass. (I extended the stems of them to help make these fit to the panel size).

I started to design the panel and gather all the bits together and to achieve the look I wanted I did some mass stamping of ephemera and numbers. I'll make my next post about this and show what I used. (See also supplies listed below).

As it's February and very near Valentine's Day I added some hearts.

The completed panel

Supplies

Chalk paints - London Brick, Snowflake, Lace, Primitive,

TH DOs - Walnut Stain

TH DIs - Pumice Stone, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain

TH stamp - Ledger Script CMS241, Halftone & Rings CMS260, Paint by Number CMS483,

Ornate Trims CMS326, Curator CMS493

TH Small Talk

TH Heart Punch

Alison Bomber Stamps- Poppy Edition, Pressed Grasses Edition,

Miscellaneous - candle wax, real poppy seedheads (picked from a neighbour's garden, with permission lol), twine

Saturday, 8 February 2025

CVC Challenge February 2025 #1 - Romance and Friendship

PRETTY GRUNGE AND MORE

I thought I'd make all of my three grandchildren a Valentine gift, which would also be a bit of a keepsake. (Well it will be if they like them lol). So here are three small shadowboxes.

The heart was made using layers of Americana Decor chalk paints, metallics, PaperArtsy Fresco Finish and Distress Spritz. I just painted, sponged, waxed, rubbed and sanded it until I was happy with the results.

Ella is the eldest and at university training to be a teacher, she is the pink girl. I found a background already made and distressed, cut it to size and attached it to the back of the inner white frame. I also found a piece of card embossed with Eileen Hull's lace folder and again in the pink tones. I cut strips to cover the inner frame, splattered with a mix of picked raspberry distress stain and worn lipstick Spritz mixed together and also with white acrylic paint. Once finished I rubbed the white paint over the raised areas of the texture to bring the pattern back to life.

I collected elements together to build the design, painted and rubbed down some metal bits and as I built the project and as I got further into it more pieces were gathered, altered/distressed and added.

Close-ups of the elements.

The distressed heart.

A shabby bow coloured with distress inks.

Snippets to create interest in the background.

The largest of the two bottles, both were painted with collage medium, left to dry and then painted with crackle paste I filled this one with pretty coloured beads, painted and distressed the cork and tied pink thread around it.

Three little flowers were tucked into the corner.

The smallest bottle was coloured up with alcohol pearl and a snippet cut down to fit. On top is a small pink eyelet.

Here is a small frame with a distressed metal button, an altered key and a glittery heart.

I also added a metal plaquette, small metal snowflake and beads, Ella's name and rub-ons to distress the frame.

Supplies

TH- Distress Spray Stain - Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar, Seedless

TH - Distres Spritz - Worn Lipstick, Villainous Potion

TH - Collage Medium, Crackle Paste

TH - Rock Candy Glitter

TH - Snippets

TH - Gumdrop Hearts

TH - Metal Plaquettes, Gumdrop Hearts,

Ranger - Patina - Cinnabar, Rust

Ranger - Alcohol Pearl - Deception

Ranger Archival Ink - Hydrangea

Americana Chalky Finish - Innocence

All & Create Rub Ons - Acid Blends

Eileen Hull - Lace embossing folder

Friday, 7 February 2025

Creating your own craft supplies

Collage Snippets

We buy so many craft tools, materials, supplies and equipment to enjoy designing, creating and making our arts and crafts. We become interested in what we are attracted to and begin learning about our chosen activities and we draw, cut, paint, sew, experiment, trial, evaluate, appraise and assess our results. We become designers, creators, inventors, craftsmen and women, artists and artisans. We focus on significant interests and activities that give us the most pleasure and we often engage with like minded people and can become fascinated and absorbed by what we do. I know that is what has happened to me over the years and I love being totally wrapped up in creating and hours can pass by without me noticing what else is going on around me. I get totally engrossed and lost in my thinking, research and experiments. When I've finished, nothing pleases me more than that feeling of being happy and satisfied with what I am holding in my hands.

Having said all that keeping up with all the new trends and products can be difficult as everything gets so expensive and we all love to try out new and different things which can cost a fortune. But there are many ways to help us achieve the looks and designs we are happy with without necessarily going for the most expensive all the time. So ...........

Imagine - you're at the point of pulling a design together and for me that often would mean adding a collage to a project to get the desired vintage/shabby/artistic feel that pleases me. BUT I have almost finished that pack of Tim Holtz snippets that I love to use and I haven't ordered a new one yet from Country View Crafts. What can I do as I desperately want to get it finished and not put it away to have to come back to? I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve - one is I have bought some sets of Tim Holtz stamps that will allow me to recreate some of his snippets for myself (see supplies below). The ones I stamped recently are just black permanent ink onto white card so they can be used on their own or can be coloured up to fit any project.

Brilliant - I create some backgrounds, stamp and cut ready to use. That helps tremendously but they are not always on the right colour background etc, they just don't fit the bill on this occasion. Hmmm ok my next port of call is go to a bag of snippets that I have called 'Household Snippets' and see if there is something there that will make me happier. I peruse through all the small pieces that have been cut from ....

Old Maps

Books

Stationery, particularly posted envelopes.

Packaging - this was the result of just two small boxes.

Other general household items ie new clothes tags, parking tickets, fruit boxes or nets.

They can't be classed as vintage (old books can!) but they are great fillers for when you need them.

What do you use to create little fillers like this?

Supplies

TH - Stampers Anonymous -Tidbits CMS488, Curator CMS493. Paint by Numbers CMS483, Correspondence CMS225, Ornate Trims CMS326

Monday, 3 February 2025

Incorporate your own sketches into a collage 3

Pen and Ink sketches on distress ink backgrounds with collage.

POTENTIAL

Following up two posts earlier in January (see links below) this is #3 in my pen and ink, flowers and seed heads, collages journal. It is dated 27/02/21.