Monday 24 March 2014

Monday Make's

Another Monday, another load of weekend washing and cleaning.
I would like to have a cleaning free Monday but in reality that's never gonna happen.
I always make sure the washing basket is empty on Friday, I even hound the girls for their school uniforms the minute they step through the door, so that by 5.30 pm it's washed and drying.
Yet by Monday, two days, the basket is full and that's no joke.

Anyhow, I did manage to make a canvas.
This one is PINK!

 I began with a blank 6x6 box canvass. I have some glitter texture paste which I'm not keen on, I'm using it underneath the paint layer put through a Tim Holtz Mask.  The paints I chose were Honey Dew, Orchid, Candy Floss and Sherbet (all Paperartsy), these were painted on the canvas and mixed by dry brushing the colours together. Then I mixed Squid Ink with water and sprayed it on the raised textured areas and then let it dribble down the canvas.

Mixing a little Orchid paint with clear texture paste gives a glossy appearance to the texture when it's dry, this was added  to the canvas while wet of course, treasure gold in White Fire and Onyxite was also added to the raised texture.

No melt pot butterfly's today, instead we have Tim Holtz bird cage die, and, a die cut branch which has has been sitting in a draw waiting to be called upon, both were embossed with copper, treasure gold was added to change the way it looks and dull the copper tone.

Flowers were made by spraying dylusions inks on plain card the flowers we're die cut, stamped with script, shaped with a ball tool and stuck down along with a few die cut leaves from card with was brayered with tinned peas and another green with slips my mind at the moment, it was stamped and shaped and stuck down.  A few beaded sprigs were added and a couple of tickets were trimmed down and added to the design.

At this point I remembered Hels Sheridan-Ink on my fingers, had a new Sunday Stampers Challenge
DREAM, which is one of the words on my canvass so I'm going to link it up, well I'll try.

TTFN


Wednesday 19 March 2014

Frame Art


Today I had a play day, all the washing, cleaning, hoovering etc all done, for now.

As I was hunting though my stash of altering stuff I came across a picture frame, I should have taken step by step photos but I forgot. Duh!

Anyhow, here is the finished article.
 
  I began by selecting three shades of paint Stone, Lake Wanaka and Space Cadet.
I then added texture by using up some old texture paste (pre grunge paste).

I painted the whole thing in the lightest shade and whilst still wetish (don't think that word exists but sounds good), added the next shade sparingly and finally the darkest shade just to add interest. 

A Kaisercraft stamp was stamped onto tissue paper with archival ink and applied to the frame using Mr Melt Pot and hot wax. Mental note don't hang in conservatory, it gets so, so, so hot in there, I don't really want my piece of art to melt. 

Trust me it would, I've actually banned the girls from having wax crayons as I found one melted into the carpet. Not good.

 

Using spray inks, tattered flowers die and old faithful script stamp, I created my fave flowers of the month, shaped them stuck them together. Made a couple more of those butterfly's with melted utee (another fave of mine his month) added a few other bits and pieces and stuck it all down. 

Tah Dah! 

Saturday 15 March 2014

Butterfly Box Canvas

This project was inspired by a few die cut butterfly's which had been treated to a trip into the good old melt pot. I LOVE my melt pot!!!!


 I began with a 5"x 5" box canvas, grunge paste was put through a mask to add texture in opposite corners and around the edges. Then painted all over with Honey Dew paint adding Zesty Zing on textured areas.

 

French Roast paint was then mixed with water in a mister bottle and sprayed onto the canvas over the textured zones and allowed to run.
Clear texture paste was mixed with a little Zesty Zing paint and put through another mask which when dry was glossy. Treasure gold in White Fire and Onyxite was added to highlight the texture.

A wooden frame was painted with  Chocolate Pudding paint then dipped in clear utee along with a few shop bought buds. 
Yellow colouring was added to utee and the die cut card butterfly's were dipped creating a stained glass/leaded window effect.
 Very cool.

White utee was then added to mixture to make a more solid  colour and a smaller frame was created from a mould made previously. (I made a lot of moulds for the melt pot very addictive).

Three flowers were made by spraying co-ordinating dylusions inks onto a piece of card, die cut using tattered flowers then stamped with script text. The flowers were shaped and layered onto the canvas along with a wooden ruler and lace trim. 
All the bits and pieces were stuck down with a glue gun. 
Hey Presto!

A New Adventure

My friend Rebecca and I have decided to attempt to set up some mixed media workshops.

We want to do it in the local area as we are so fed up with having to travel for two to three hours to get anywhere, we felt that there must be other craft minded people who would like to join us.

So far though, we seem to be going nowhere. Very disheartening.
We have tried the local kids craft club to hire  their "Party" room (the chairs, tables and bench seats are definitely not for adults to sit on). We could hire the downstairs on a Sunday, but this would cost twice as much for special openings and we would have to pay for a member of staff and extra for tea and coffee.

Then we thought of the local village hall, the cost of which was also eye watering.
As we sort of live in an area where two villages have merged over time we tried the other villiage hall, sad smiley face.

We are currently waiting for the local Methodist Church to come back to us, as they have various rooms of varying sizes which host many groups (rainbows, brownies, scouts, church groups, children's clubs and much more).

Anyhow, feeling brave one wet morning I rang a not so local craft shop that I knew had a craft room and arranged to go see the room. The lovely lady was accommodating and the outcome is that we can use their room and show some messy painty, inky, texturey type of technique's once a month on a Sunday.

As I like to be prepared and organised, I made a little something out of a card box.  (I used to work in accounts, I know, very sad and a bit of a control freak, I also helped out in the local first school which my daughters attended and you have to be  prepared to get through a class of thirty small people making various cards/art projects).
I was actually pleased with the outcome. I just hope I can guide the lovely peeps through it so they take home a finished project (the workshop is only two hours long).

This is a picture of what we're going to do.
 
 

The box and card topper was brayered with three co-ordinating paints, there is a little texture paste on there, stamping with paint/ink. There are die cut swirls and flowers, shaped with an embossing tool coloured with stamping and spray inks all of which has potential to be a little messy.
 
 
Just like being back at school.......
 






Monday 3 March 2014

March Journal Page

Well its Merry March.

 It doesn't seem that long ago since we were celebrating Christmas....
Anyhow, I'm all ahead of myself and have my March 2014 Art Journal page prepared ready for adding my thrilling antics. (Don't believe it, most entries consist of took the girls here, picked the girls up from there, etc, etc).

As previously, here is March 2014

And here is March 2013

Hope you like them. Pop over to Kate Crane at The Kathryn Wheel to see lots more super pages.

Hearts and Flowers

Hi, I'd like to share my Monday make.

I thought I would take advantage of having the dining room
 (aka craft room/hubby's working from home space) to myself.




Hubby has been away for the weekend, skiing with friends.
Although he tells me it was more like child minding.
It was also his birthday, the first birthday he hasn't been home since before we were married.
So, anyhow, back to my heart.
It's amazing what you can find whilst looking for something completely opposite to what you end up with. In my case, I was looking for a book from "The Works" shop (always seems to be closing down but never actually does). I spotted the heart in a box on the floor, scooped it up and paid for it.
I began by giving it a wash to remove any grease or grime, masking tape was put across one side as I wanted to see if crackle glaze worked directly on slate, it does, although it took a while to dry and I ended up assisting it with the heat gun.  Then Antarctic Paperartsy paint was sponged on top.
Sit back and watch the magic! It was distressed  even more with a sanding block.
Flowers were made with dictionary pages cut withTim Holtz Tattered Flowers die and sprayed with dylusions inks, dried and shaped.  The leaves were Stamped with paint and over stamped with black archival ink using script stamp then cut out, I also stamped a swirls onto the flowers before I shaped them.

I didn't intend to get the meltpot out, but I couldn't resist.
I gave all the flowers a coat of utee. LOL
A mini utee heart was added to the largest flower and a few other homemade utee buds/flowers were added.  It was all Stuck together with my trustee glue gun.


Ta Dah!
Hope You like it.