Make your own background

Make your own background is the theme at Countryview Challenges and today I am posting my second project created for the challenge.

Well this theme was easy as I mostly make my backgrounds anyway, but for this project I wanted to try something a little different....
It all started with a size 10 tag.

I gave it a coat of gesso and then played around with a mix of acrylic paints, - Antique Linen Distress, a bit of Peacock Feathers Distress and some Golden Paynes Grey (this particular brand has a blueish tone, which I rather like).

Next I did some stenciling with gesso and a couple of different stencils, - when that was dry I did further stenciling with Watering Can Archival ink, bringing in some further stencils.

It all got a bit busy, so by that point I decided to use the tag as the background to a vintage collage.

Here you can see some of the elements I collected and stamped to add to my collage.

And here you can see the finished collage. The lady is from the 7 Dots Studio Cool Country collection. As you can see I also added a die cut,  the word Authentic from the Tim Holtz Adventure Thinlits die set and the word love which comes from a Prima vintage trinkets collection.
Well when the tag was pretty much complete I decided I was going to make it part of a next page in my Techniques Journal. Earlier pages can be seen HERE,  HERE and HERE.
So I made the background to the page for that, using similar colours and a stencil to integrate the tag into the background.

I kept it much simpler as the tag would cover most of it anyway. I just added a few strips of tissue tape and an old book page to add a bit of interest in the corner that would not be covered.

I also did a tiny bit of background stamping with a text stamp.

Below finally you can see the tag on its background.

I die cut the word Journey from the same die set, placing it partly over the tag, to integrate the two elements together a bit more still and make it all part of a whole.

I pounced a bit of ink on the little Prima plaque still

And here is another little detail still, the bottle stamped from the Tim Holtz Mercantile stamp set and a little label tied to its neck with some twine.

Here finally you can see the whole piece in situe in my journal.

Well that's it and this is actually also my very last project as part of the Countryview Crafts Design Team. I have very much enjoyed being part of the team, but life is taking me in different directions so I felt it was time to move on.....

There are however still a couple of days left to join into the challenge, you can find all the details here

Thank you for your visit like always and I hope you enjoyed my little background experiment.

Butterfly Dreams

Hello all, thanks for dropping by. Today I finally have another page for my techniques journal to show. No step by step for most of these pages I'm sorry to say, as I am mostly just using this journal to play around with different techniques.

Above you can see the finished page, mostly put together with bits and pieces from my scrap box that never seems to get any emptier, - do you know that feeling?

Here you can see the background before I added the collage elements. Playing with different colour paints, my favourite stencil of the moment, one of Seth Apter's ones and some background stamping, using various IndigoBlu stamps.

The focal image was taken from one of the Tim Holtz Found relatives

Both sentiments were taken from a paper collection from Heartfelt Creations as far as I remember (like I said they were scraps from my box of "bits and pieces that might come in handy at some point")....

We don't normally think of boys having butterfly dreams I suppose, but I rather do like the dreamy look in his eyes, and after all, boys can have dreams too can't they?

Well, that's it for today, - just a bit of playing around, great for relaxation....

Thanks for your visit today and I hope you are having a good week.

Longing for Summer a piece for Calico

Hi everyone, thanks for dropping in. It's been a bit quiet here, and today again there is just a sneak peek.

I am sorry I have not been around much in blogland, but my day job is keeping me rather busy at the moment, so my apols for lack of comments......

Anyway, here is the preview of the piece that is on the Calico Blog today. If you have the time I would love it if you took a peep.

Thank you for being here just now and have a super week!

Watercolour fun

Hello all, just another sneak peek today, - sharing a project on the Shimmerz blog today again, a little watercolour painting, inspired by their new water colour paints and the weather here in Scotland....

This is just a little corner as you might have guessed, to see the rest, just click HERE. All a bit different from my usual stuff, but I had fun with it!!

Thanks for your visit!! Oh and welcome to new followers, so lovely to see you here!!

Artist Journey at AVJ

Hello lovely visitors, great to see you here! Today it is my turn to share a detailed step by step "Destination Inspiration" project over at A Vintage Journey. As you can find all of the details there, I'll just give you a little preview here.

Hope you'll take the time to hop over. I had great fun creating it and very much hope you'll like it....

Thanks for dropping in today like always and happy creating!!

What a Beautiful Day - a new website for Shimmerz...

Hello lovely friends and visitors, happy Saturday!
I have a project on the Shimmerz Blog today, using some wonderful new products, - hope you'll check them out!

Here's a preview, but there is a full step by step on the blog. You will find it by clicking HERE

Well, thanks for visiting like always and happy Valentines Day tomorrow. As it's my hubby's birthday too, we are celebrating with a long weekend in Ireland. See you when I am back! xxx

Waxing Lyrical

Hello everyone and welcome, lovely to have your dropping in today!  I am sharing a piece which I made for the latest Paper Artsy Challenge Use some Wax

I was totally inspired by some of the super samples and links Leandra shared in her post and this was just the perfect excuse to go and have a play. There are several descriptions on how to use wax techniques and create encaustic art included in Leandra's post, and there are of course many more all over the internet. My piece was inspired by some of the techniques Sanda Reynolds uses in one of her online workshops. Leandra links to Sanda's site too, and strangely just a few days earlier I had decided to do one of Sanda's workshops, so it all came together just perfectly for me.

The substrate I used was just watercolour paper, - not very clever, as really to do this properly you need something stronger, like chip board or wood, but hey ho, I had this piece prepped and gessoed, so I just went with it. I started with a base of texture and crackle paste put on with a palette knife. I made some marks in the wet paste and then when it was dry played to my hearts content with various colours of acrylic paint and oil pastels, mostly Caran d'Ache Neo Colour ll and Penthel and a few Sennelier metallic colours. It was great to dig out some long unused and forgotten supplies from my stash.

Now I am lucky enough to own a Ranger Melt pot, so that made adding the wax pretty easy. There was even some wax still lurking in my project pan (honestly it must have been there for at least 5 years or so...). Anyway, everything was collaged using the melted wax. The eiffel tower above was the top layer of a scrap of a paper serviette.

The hearts (from a Finnabair stamp set) were stamped on tissue paper first, but in the end I decided they did not show up enough, so I stamped them again on scraps of paper, fussy cut them and then fused them onto my piece with another layer of wax.

The sentiment is from the same Finn stamp set, stamped on tissue and then fused. I love how the tissue just totally merges into the background with the help of the wax..

The text stamping in the background finally, was done right at the end on top of the wax, I used the Paper Artsy Hot Picks 1501 and Black Archival and used my heat gun to fuse it into the wax again. I was amazed how well that actually worked.
I had great fun with this and will definitely give it another go on a better substrate.... live and learn....

I'm going to add this to the Paper Artsy Challenge and also to the new challenge blog that was started recently by Linda Leadbetter and several others of the Curiosity Crew. It's called Creative Carte Blanche and the theme is anything goes as long as you use something you have not used before. Well I had never used oil pastels together with acrylic paint, so I hope that qualifies.

Thank you so much for visiting and see you next time.

3 different cards for 3 different friends...

Hello everyone and lovely to see you here.
Three of my friends have not been very well lately, so I thought it was high time to send them a card and let them know I am thinking of them....

I set myself the challenge to use similar stamps and colours, yet make 3 very different cards.
I'll take you through them briefly one by one.

This one is very much a mixed media card. The background was card, cover with gesso, strips of book paper and tissue tape, stencilling using one of Seth Apters super cool stencils and when everything was dry another thin layer of watered down gesso and then coloured with a mix of sprays and Distress inks and a bit of gelatos. As you can see I also added some background stamping with the Tim Holtz ledger stamp

The focal image (La Blanche) was stamped on tissue paper and when dry I sprinkled on some embossing powder, which when melted added some further subtle textures.

I finished it all with some hearts and sentiments etc.

The hearts and words are from a Finnabair set, stamped, fussy-cut and coloured with Distress Inks in Antique Linen, Scattered Straw and gelatos.

For card number 2 I created a background panel, stamped with Picket Fence Distress paint and the Tim Holz Distress Damask stamp and then inked with Antique Linen, Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso. Cut it into 3 strips and then mounted on white card.

The centre frame is a Sue Wilson die and matching stamp set (the background bit). The bee is another La Blanche stamp cut with one of the Sue Wilson dies in the set and then I added a crackle effect with an Indigo Blu crackle stamp.

To give it more of a shabby chic feel I added some flowers and leaves from my stash, coloured in matching colours and high lighted with Treasure Gold.

Finally a somewhat simpler textured card. The background was created in a similar way as card number 1, obviously using a different stencil. The focal image is the same too.

Well, that's it for today, thanks for your visit like always, happy crafting!

Bittersweet Love

Hello lovely visitors. Thanks for dropping in. Just a sneak peek day today I'm afraid to say....

It's my turn to share a project over on the Calico Craft Parts Blog, showing that Valentines doesn't have to always be the usual red and pink bed of roses.....

Like usual, if you want to see more, all you need to do is click here,

Meanwhile, have fun with your own Valentine's projects,

xxx

Industrial for A Vintage Journey

Hello all, lovely to see at least some of you here.... Sorry to start with this, but having lost about 200 followers since google started it's new policy regarding friends connect, I cannot help but wonder whether blogger is slowly on it's way out....
But enough of this negative talk, - I'm here today to share my latest project for A Vintage Journey:

The wonderful Tracey Evans is our challenge host this month and she chose Industrial as her theme. Do check out all the details about the challenge here
My project is part of a much larger one, a big fat techniques journal/minibook, that I started a while back, and today's project is the spine of said book.
It started with a large Prima tag that I altered with inks and sprays (mostly Rusty Hinge and Ground Espresso).

As you can see I also did some background stamping and stencilling, using a variety of stamps, - Paper Artsy ((HP1501) and Indigo Blu (Crackle Background).
Next I worked on the focal image using some Andy Skinner and Seth Apter stencils on a piece of Prima paper, previously altered with the same colours of ink.

Now Tracey wanted us to use some metal, so I started with a piece of  engraving board that I dry-embossed with various folders and then sanded down. The board was originally black, so before embossing it I coloured it with Alcohol Inks and some Quin. Gold Decoart Media paint. Love the effect and will definitely do this again.

I used Espresso, Mushroom and Silver Mixative AIs and then the paint dabbed on with my finger. Next I die cut various elements from it that I wanted to use as embellishments.

Here you can see some of them, in the end I did not use the tag, but added some other pieces.

Here you can see the tickets, layered behind the focal image with the stencilled gent.

And here finally you can see how the finished tag turned out.

Below are some details still:

Some Industrial Stickers corners, and Ideaology arrow and a grunge board label rusted with embossing powders and paint. Perhaps you can also see some of the faux stitching around the edges. I explain how to do that in a post here

A clock part and some other bits and pieces left over from previous projects.

Another couple of little tags cut from my original coloured engraving board.

And here finally the finished spine adhered to my book.

Well that's it for today, I hope you have enjoyed my project, - do check out the amazing projects my team mates have created, inspiration galore!! Hopefully you will decide to play along, we would love to see you!!!