Wintry canvas for Shimmerz

Hello all and happy Sunday! One week to go until the big day.....
Today I am sharing a wintry canvas over on the Shimmerz blog. So only a sneak peek here I'm afraid to say....

If you want to see how I put it together, just click HERE. I am keeping my fingers crossed the link will actually take you to the Shimmerz blog, rather than some other site as seems to happen sometimes I am told.. Anyway, happy 4th of Advent and thanks for your visit like always.

xxxxx

Mixed Media Canvas for Shimmerz

Hello all and happy Sunday. Today it is a preview day here on my blog. To see the full project, please head over to Shimmerz

I love the colours of Autumn which are just starting here in the UK, - if you want to see more, just click HERE

Have a good week and thanks for dropping in!

xxx

Altered Canvas Board for Shimmerz

Hello all hope you are all happy and healthy and thanks for dropping by. I am sharing a canvas board today on the Shimmerz Blog.
Here is a little corner of it to hopefully tempt you to have a look at the full project.

Meanwhile, thanks so much for dropping by here and look after yourselves!

xxxxx

Textured heart canvas for Countryview Crafts.

Hello everyone, welcome to friends and followers alike, today I am sharing a project created for Countryview Crafts where the challenge theme this month is "Add Some Texture"

I love an open kind of theme like that, there are so many possibilities to add texture. For my second project this month I decided to alter this little canvas. I'll show you some step by step photos below:

I started with a gessoed canvas and added texture paste through a variety of stencils. The heart was created with a home made heart mask with a stencil layered over the top.

Next I added some random bits of book paper to add more texture to the background.

Time to add colour, I used a variety of paints, both Distress and Decoart Media Fluid Acrylics in warm autumnal colours. I also used some burnt umber brown paint to create some splats around the heart to emphasise it more (not sure that was such a brilliant idea, but hey ho, once it's on it too late).

Here is a close up of the heart, I spent quite some time getting the colour in the recessed bits, (I mixed a variety of red and brown paints to get the shade I was after) and applied it with a small brush. I then dry brushed the raised bits with white paint to bring them out a bit more.

Some random background stamping and strips of tissue tape added another layer of texture, or if not texture then at least some further interest, I also added some white splatters to lighten it all up a bit.

Some words created with the help of Tim Holtz chit chat and small talk stickers and a few doodles with a white pen finished it all off.

I'll leave you with a few close ups:

Adding shadows always helps to create more depth, I used a Stabilo All pencil for this

Some of my favourite words coming straight from the heart :o)

Some rather messy highlights with a white pen around the numbers, just to bring them out a bit more.

The finished piece all done. Hope you like it.

There is still plenty of time to play along with our challenge, so if you have not done so yet, I hope you'll decide to play along. Apart from having fun with playing with texture, you could also win a £20 voucher from our generous sponsor Countryview Crafts.

Hope to see you there!

Have a great weekend

xxxxx

Vintage canvas for Shimmerz

Hi everyone and thanks for dropping in.
Just a preview day today as my full project can be seen on the Shimmerz blog.

Hope you'll take the time to hop over to take a look, but before I sign off, remember, you can order Shimmerz products directly from the Shimmerz Paints Store. If you do, don't forget to mention my name (Astrid Maclean) in the «Instruction to Merchant/seller» part of your order form (just below your name and address). After clicking «add», you'll get a FREE product in the color of your choice. And for people from outside the US, Shimmerz do a really good deal on postage!

Well, have a creative week and thanks so much for visiting today!

Shabby fun for Mixed Media Monthly

Hello everyone and welcome to my little place in crafty blog land. Happy June to you all!!
This is my second project for today, - if you want to see the first one you can find it HERE

Over at Mixed Media Monthly it's celebration time this month as it's our one year anniversary. For the theme this month you can pick any of the themes from the previous year, how fun is that!

For my theme I chose the January theme (Something New To You) this is because the main product I used are from our wonderful sponsors this month, Maya Road who do the most amazing range including all sorts of wonderful embellishments, and I had never used their products before, so they were completely new to me....

 By entering our challenge you could win an awesome goodie bag of their products. You can find all the challenge details on the blog there

We have some new rules, so in order to be eligible, make sure to follow these:
1. You must use our challenge graphic in your challenge post.
2. You must comment on at least 3 design team members blogs
3. You may combine with up to 4 more challenges

As this is our celebration month, there are not only inspiration pieces from the team, but also many guest designers from the past year, so do hop over!!

On to my project: There is nothing I enjoy more than creating a mixed media project and altering a variety of embellishments to suit my colour theme and mood. So for this one I made an altered canvas. It started out looking like this:

Every single element on this canvas is from Maya Road, and as you will see along the way, I even landed up adding a few more.

After adhering all these different things to my canvas with gel medium, I added some texture with a stencil, some texture paste, sand paste and crackle paste and then covered it all with a think layer of gesso.

As you can probably see at this stage I had added some further embellishments from Maya Road including the  big flower on the top. I also added a few smaller ones from my stash and a die cut word..

The big flower started out looking like this:

And after covering it with the gesso and pastes, it looked like this:

Because the flower itself is made from fabric, it adds super textures when covered with the other media.

Here is a close up of the other embellishments. The May Road tapes, fibers, lace and wood chip embellishments all add wonderful textural additions when they are cover with gesso.

The next stage was to add colour:

I decided to keep it in two tones, soft browns and blues which I achieved with a mix of fluid media acrylic paints, Lindy Stampgang Sprays and some Treasure Gold highlights.

Here are some close ups still:

A little shadow was added with some watered down black paint and a brush, to make the word pop a bit more.

Love how the twine, lace and chipboard all work together with the paste and colour to give almost a ceramic effect.

My favourite bit is definitely the large flower..........using a heat gun while drying the pastes added some lovely little additional bubbles.

Well, there you have it. Hope you like my little altered canvas. Do hop over to the Mixed Media Monthly challenge blog to see what my team mates created, like usual there is a huge variety of styles and projects to inspire you to take out your mixed media supplies, so do come and play along!

Have a wonderful creative month and thank you for visiting like always!

Time Flies when you are having fun....

Hello everyone and lovely to see you here today.
Time Flies is the theme the lovely Chris has chosen for the latest challenge over at A Vintage Journey

Well, time certainly does seem to fly and most certainly when you are having fun and I had loads of fun when altering this canvas.

I started with an 8 by 8" prepped canvas and began by adding some texture through Tim's Latticework Stencil, still one of my favourites, though some of the new ones are stunning too!

I used Wendi Vecchi's Texture Paste, now this is actually white, but obviously I had not cleaned my stencil well enough... oops. Ah well, as neutral were going to be my colour scheme, I decided not to worry.
I made sure some of the texture would also go over the sides:

For some further interest I added some strips of Tissue Tape and some scraps of a paper serviette.

Next I added some (further) colour with the help of Antique Linen Distress Paint and Vintage Photo and Walnut stain Distress Inks using the new mini ink pads.

Now for the embellishments, I decided to use the Weathered Clock and Layered Wings dies, taking the theme literally (and not very originally...)

I cut all pieces from Grunge Paper and then the clock again from a piece of Prima paper from the Time Traveler's Collection. (That seemed suitable, but I loved the paper anyway...)

I layered the wings up and then gave them a coat of Tarnished Brass Distress Paint. As it looked a bit too browny for my liking and I wanted a more shimmery effect I also added a coat of Decoart Dazzling Metallics in Luminous Gold. This gives a lovely golden glow, hard to see from the photo.

After cutting the clock from Grunge Paper I gave it a coat of Picket Fence Distress Crackle paint and when that had done it crackling magic, rubbed over some Walnut Stain Distress Stain to seem into the cracks and rubbed Walnut Stain Distress Ink around the edges.

I glued the centre bit of the paper clock onto the grunge paper one for strength and then covered that in Clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint, to fit in with the rest of the clock.
Time to put it all together: As you can see from the main photo, I layered the wongs behind the assembled clock and then made a flower cluster using the Tattered Florals die, I used SU Vanilla card a lovely gift from my friend Jennie of Live the Dream, I also followed one of her amazing flower tutorials.

Some scuffed up letter tiles finished it all up.

Well, hope you like my altered canvas, I had great fun making it.

Mke sure you check out the new challenge at A Vintage Journey, you are going to love all the amazing inspiration from my teamies, they have totally out done themselves again and fingers crossed you fill find a moment to play along. You could be in with a change to be one of our winners!!
Enjoy the rest of the month and see you next time, - stay inky!!!

Fly Free altered canvas

Happy Wednesday everyone and lovely to see you here. Today I am sharing a little canvas with you, created for Sin City Stamps

Today will be the last time for a while that I will be featuring these two beautiful stamp sets:

 Butterfly Love

and Journaling with Terri Sproul

I started with a little 6 x 6" canvas and covered it with random strips of paper

Next I painted it with two colours of acrylic paint, I used Distress Paints in Salty Ocean and Chipped Sapphire.

Then I knocked the colour back a bit by going over it with white acrylic paint mixed with Golden brand glazing liquid.

As you can see, I also added a bit more interest by painting some colour back through a couple of stencils, I used two of the new Tim Holtz tag stencils. I also did some background stamping with the journaling stamps and some white paint.

Now for the vocal image, - I created a background with Squeezed Lemonade, Salty Ocean and Chipped Sapphire Distress Inks and Stamped the largest of the Butterflies in Cobalt Blue Archival ink and then I cut it out.

Time to put it all together: I added a filigree piece and flower to the centre of the butterfly, die cut some letters (I used the new Spellbinders ones) to spell Fly Free. I then added some more background stamping with Cobalt Archival straight onto the canvas. I added a piece of butterfly trim and positioned it all on the canvas until I was happy with the composition.

The final touch was to add a bit of shading with a black charcoal pencil to make the letters pop a bit more.

Before I sign off: on the 12th of October we will have a fabulous blog hop, make sure you don't miss it!! There will be an awesome prize!!!

Well, hope you like my project, quick, easy and fun to do. Thank you for visiting and see you next time!