A House of Months or a Calendar House

Hello everyone and lovely to have you visiting.
Today I have a calendar to share which I altered using some of the amazing Decoart products I recently received:

This is one of these fun calendars that you can use over and over again. I was delighted when I found one in my local supermarket. This is what it looked like then:

It's quite nice really, but I did not want a calendar that would look so Christmassy all year long, so decided it would be perfect for altering...

First I gave all different parts 3 coats of Gesso. After that I added some Texture Paste through a Tim Holtz stencil and then added some colour with 3 different colours of Media Misters: Primary Cyan, Turqoise Shimmer and White Shimmer. These sprays are permanent and really intense in colour. This is what the house looked like then:

A bit too dark and not quite what I was after, so when it was dry I added a coat of Translucent White Media Fluid Acrylic. This stuff is amazing as it gives good coverage, yet stays translucent, without having to add any other medium, - brilliant.

Getting much better, as you can see, I also added some Burnt Umber around the edges for a bit more definition. Next I decided I really wanted some crackle in places too. So out came the Crackle Glaze, added in different thicknesses to different parts of the house, - this to achieve different sized crackle. (It's best to dry it overnight, not with a heat gun).

Well, while the glaze was drying, I started on the blocks, first I gave them the same treatment with the sprays:

Then I toned them down with the translucent white again and finally finished them off with some stencilled numbers (Tim Holtz) and some background stamping.

 I decided to keep the little blocks for the months more plain, for contrast. So all I did was ink around them with some Coffee Archival and then adding the months (computer generated).

Back to the house. Once the crackle had done its stuff, I added some Antiquing Cream to highlight the cracks. I can tell already, this is going to be one of my all time favourite products. Here's what it looked like now:

And here with the other elements in place:

Here you can see that I highlighted the stenciled texture with Treasure Gold to bring it out a bit more still.

Now I could have left it like that, but me being me, I wanted to add some embellishments. A clock seemed appropriate. As it so happened I had a little clock charm in my stash. It was a rather boring bright sort of bronze colour, so of course I altered it.

Some Medium Grey fluid acrylic, followed my antiquing cream and treasure gold did the trick. This is what it looked like now, more fitting to my shabby chic house.

And here is how it all ended up together:

Tim Holtz greenery, sprayed with Bundled Sage and Iced Spruce, then dabbed lightly with some watered down White Shimmer Spray. Roses from my stash, again treated with the white shimmer and some of the white trancelucent paint and finally a little resin bird.

So there you have it, my altered calendar house.

I'm just in time still to add this to the Artist Trading Post Exchange challenge where the theme is Recycle for Christmas. Well, as this is going to be a gift for a friend, I have just about done the theme justice....

All of the products I used are available from Decoart, where you can also get loads of product information as well as videos.

Stop Press: If you see word verification when trying to comment here, please note it has nothing to do with me, I have it firmly turned off, but blogger seems to be playing up on some blogs, I keep getting WV on blogs that don't normally have it....

Thank you so much for dropping by here during this busy time of year and I really hope you will find some creative time too!