Sunday 19 June 2011

Piano Time

Well, I have made a start. You can see the full picture in the side bar. This is 2 weeks of evenings on and off. It does stop me from nodding off in the evenings following a busy day at work. I don't think you can tell what it is yet though so watch this space for further up-dates on progress!

Flower Tin

 Good morning.

This tin is for the Crafty Cardmakers #48 challenge - Altered Food Container

The base container is a tin that had my favourite tea in. The unfortunate thing is that I used to buy this tea when I lived in France and you cannot get it here in the UK. My stocks are dwindling fast. So some people go on a Booze Cruise but it looks like I shall have to go on a Tea Tour!

Anyway, enough of that, and on to more important things.

Looking at the picture below, the side view.... The tin was already orange, yellow and red so I did not alter the tin itself. The lid was a lovely gold so I kept that too.

I stamped a piece of orangey/yellow card with a script stamp from Stamp addicts and covered the front and back sides of the tin.

The main card wrap was marbled with the same sort of colours. Two panels were cut and the eyelets added after carefully marking out their positions. Red and gold 3mm ribbon was used to lace up both joins (The tin is the same at the back as you can see for the front in the lower picture.) The ribbons were laced up tightly to hold the wrap in place.

For the top a Nestie was used to cut out a label shape to suit the size of the lid. This was bonded in place with Stick and Stay.

The flowers and leaves were cut out using my Cricut Create. The flowers were over stamped with a background stamp and aged with Distress ink. These were layered up and allowed to dry. Pinflair glue was used to bond the flowers and leaves in place and a crystal gem was used for each of the flower centres.

To butterflies were stamped onto Acetate with Black Stazon ink. The stamp was by Elusive Images (Now Chocolate Baroque). These were coloured with Promarkers, cut out and bonded in place on the lid with more Pinflair glue.

Sunday 12 June 2011

Bookmark

Good morning. Happy Sunday.

Here is my entry for the Crafty Catz #86 - Bookmarks challenge.

This bookmark is made on a mount board tag which has had a crackle background created prior to stamping the border using a stamp from Sheena Douglass Simply Sweet set of stamps. The stamp was embossed with gold and then the rose buds and leaves were added using acrylic paint.

The sentiment "Be the change you want to see in the world" is a stamp from Elusive Images (now Chocolate Baroque). This was also embossed with gold. Worn Lipstick and Tattered Rose Distress inks were used to give a bit of age and colour over the cream crackle.

The fibres for the end of the tag are some that I have had for ages and the little rose buds were part of a prize won on another challenge.

Thursday 9 June 2011

A Trio of Mini Canvases

Good morning.

I really like Sheena Douglass' Paint Fusion techniques. I cannot paint or draw to save my life but this allows me to make mini works of art which I love!

These were all done on mini canvases which measure approximately 2.5 x 3.5 inches. I love the way they come with their own little easels for ease of display.

The stamps used came from the Simply Sweet, Poppies and Berries sets.

Once the backgrounds had been set up using the crackle (for the Poppy and Berries) and vaseline (for the Bouquet) techniques I had to pack out the back of the canvas, with layers of mount board, to give a firm enough surface on which to stamp the images. These were stamped using Forest Green Stazon ink. The paints are acrylic and were applied using the Sheena method. Once the paint was dry, which doesn't take too long, Distress ink was applied around the edges to age the art and finally gold embossing powder was applied around the edges to frame the pictures..

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Path to the Castle

Good morning.

This is one of my favourite encaustic art pictures where I used the hotplate technique to create the sky. For this you melt your chosen waxes on a large hotplate and then swish the top of the glossy card through it, lifting it up at the end of the stroke, to give the beautifully streaky sky.

In this picture I just loved the way that all the colours melded together as you work down the picture to give an almost spring  or early summer like scene.

This picture was created on A5 size card and mounted into mount board ready for framing.

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Sleepy

Well here is the first entry for my new, non-paper crafting blog.

This gorgeous cross stitch picture was actually completed about 4 years ago. The reason I have added this here is because I have just started another one in the same series called Piano Time. This time the kitten is standing on the keyboard of a piano. Both are kits from DMC and I just love the way they are worked all in shades of brown.

I only started the new one on Sunday so I hope that by the end of the week there will be something I can show you.