Monday 29 February 2016

Mixed Media Monday - A Trio of Canvases

Hello again, I hope you all had a good weekend!

I was off at a craft show on Saturday with a crafting buddy and one of my daughters who also loves to craft.  We all had a great time, and many crafting goodies were bought.  However this meant that I was really tired yesterday so didn't manage to create anything new for today...but I did get the frames painted for my canvases.

I painted them all with black gesso and then dry brushed Goldfinger paint onto them.  This morning my husband has managed to get them up on the wall...



Not the most brilliant of photos, and we have a very plain wall!!

Only a short one today, but I am already starting making some items that I will post about on Wednesday.

Have a lovely day,

Jane x

Friday 26 February 2016

Funtastic Friday - Love Canvas

Hello! 

I hope you have had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend.  I am going up to Farnborough in Hampshire tomorrow for the 'Make It' craft show, so am really looking forward to that, and my Monday post might be showing you what I bought!!

On to today and I have now created the third and final canvas for my trio.  Hopefully on Sunday I will get the frames done and they can go up on the wall, I will take a photo if it happens.

I will be entering this project into the following challenges...

* More Mixed Media Challenge - Red
* Mixed Media World Challenge - Love is in the air

I started my last canvas by thinking about the embellishments that I wanted on it.  As it was going to be 'love' I wanted hearts.  The other day I saw Fran Seiford from Stampendous on the HOCHANDA craft channel and she was using embossing powder on shapes with a hot plate.  I loved the effect and thought it could probably be done in the melt pot. 
I die cut a heart 5 times and glued the layers together before putting it on a piece of heat proof mat in the melt pot with a layer of clear ultra thick embossing powder...

 
I was concerned about the glue melting and the layers coming apart, they did slightly and the heart wasn't as flat as it had been to start with but I quite liked the effect.  I had also forgotten that the melt pot slopes slightly so had to prop one end up to level it out.  I ended up taking the mat away so that the heat could get straight to the shape as it wasn't melting evenly, and even though this got the melted powder on the pot it was fine to clean up.  Despite all this it was still good fun and I went on to add aged gold and glittery gold powder and some red chunky glitter.  After inking up a script stamp with black staz on I stamped into the molten powder as soon as it came out of the pot and removed it when it had cooled.  I was so busy trying not to burn myself or anything else that I didn't take any more photos in the pot but here are the embellishments made and cooled...
 


I then started on the canvas by sticking a sheet of IndigoBlu Grand Tour paper onto the canvas board.  After adding some watered down Goldfinger paint I then gilded the edges with gilding flakes...


I then used the same script stamp from earlier to stamp text onto areas of the canvas using brown staz on.  Texture was added using the 'Art Is' stencil from TCW and a heart stencil from Heidi Swapp using sparkle paste...


Using Word Blocks #1 by IndigoBlu I stamped with versamark and embossed with gold.  After die cutting it out, it was coloured using vintage photo and tea dye distress inks and then some more hearts stencilled onto 2 corners...


 
Once the main elements were attached I added copper micro beads, some red seed beads and gold gems.  Finally splattering some gold paint to add a finishing touch...
 




I hope you liked this final canvas, I will now need to find something else to do!!!

Have a good weekend,

Jane x

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Wonderful Wednesday - Mum Plaques

Hello!

I am having a break from my canvases today as I needed to get some plaques made for a local shop ready for Mother's Day.  I love making these wall hangings as I get to use my flower stamps and dies to make beautiful flowers.

I started by painting some paper mache icons with white gesso and then used some light paste through 2 stencils from Imagination crafts (blissful and lacy swirl)...


Once these had dried I painted them with Americana Décor paints and added some sparkle texture paste through TCW reverse chicken wire stencil, and then used some Pebeo gilding wax to highlight the texture...


I used Heartfelt Creations stamps and dies (Blazing Poppies and Delightful Daisies) to create the flowers and leaves for the plaques.  The sentiments were made using Anna Marie stamps and cut out with an oval die...






They were finished off with a spritz of gold ink spray.

I will be making the final of my trio of canvases on Thursday to show on here on Friday, so I will see you then.

Jane x

Monday 22 February 2016

Mixed Media Monday - 'Hope' Canvas

Hello all!

I hope this new week sees you all well.  I seem to suddenly be really busy with different things to be made, in-between taking children to parties and other things, but I did manage to get my second canvas made for my wall.  After planning to make another small one I decided to go for it and do the 12" x 12" one instead.

This canvas will be entered into the following challenges...

* Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - M is for mixed media
That's Crafty Challenge Blog - Circle It
* Sweet Stampin' - Glitter and Sparkle

I want all 3 of my canvases to be individual but also to blend together and look like a set, so I have kept certain elements the same for each but changed the words used and the theme of the embellishments.  This time I started by sticking a sheet of paper from the Vintage Memories collection by IndigoBlu onto a canvas using mod podge...


This paper was a much lighter colour than the previous canvas so I added prima bloom sprays (mostly to the open space), allowing some drips to add interest.  The colours used were antique gold, gold foil, worn leather and tea stain.  To frame the piece I then added gilding flakes around the edges with my flitterglu...


 Then it was one of my favourite parts, adding more texture!  I wanted to follow the shape of the pocket watch as a theme throughout the canvas so decided to use some of the circle stamps from 'Don't Forget to Fly' by Finnabair and a dot stencil by That Special Touch and Mini Well Rounded by TCW, with decadent oak and champagne sparkle texture paste...


 Whilst this was drying I chose 3 more words from the Word Block #1 stamp set by IndigoBlu.  I decided on Hope, Celebrate and Thanks and stamped each using versamark and heat embossed with gold powder.  They were cut out with a die and then coloured with vintage photo and tea dye inks (blotting the middle with water to lighten up the main word) and finally some extra stencilling added to the corners...


Finally once the words were stuck into place on the canvas I sorted out some clock related embellishments.  A chipboard clock and hands were embossed with aged gold powder by Stampendous and the rest were parts that were ready to be stuck on.  After sticking these on with glue gel I added micro beads (copper and bronze), glass beads (butter) and sparkly gems.  The very final touch was to add some splatters of Goldfinger paint across the whole canvas...






I set the hands of the chipboard clock at 11 O'clock as this was the time that I got married, then I noticed that the clock on the paper was the same time!!  Obviously this canvas was meant to be.

I will be making something different for my Wednesday post, but will probably make my third canvas for Friday, then it is just a case of painting the frames and getting them on the wall (that will probably be the most challenging part!).

Enjoy the start to your week,

Jane x


Friday 19 February 2016

Funtastic Friday - Beauty Canvas

Hello everyone!

It is a beautiful sunny but crisp day here at the moment, a real winter feel and I am feeling so much better!  As of yesterday I felt like my crafting mojo had come back with force so I must be recovered from the bug, hurrah!!

I decided to make a start on a trio of canvases that I want to make and frame to put up at home, so decided to start with one of the smaller 6" x 6" ones.  I had also recently received my order of some of the new IndigoBlu products that have just been released so they gave me some extra inspiration.

I am entering this canvas into the following challenges...

* Mixed Media Place Creative Gym - Coffee
* Rhedds Creative Creative - An Altered Art Challenge
* Altered Eclectics -  An Altered Art & Mixed Media Challenge

I don't really like coffee (I am a tea drinker!) but I do love the shades of browns that coffee brings and so I decided to use those colours as the inspirations for my canvas.

To start with I covered the canvas board with a piece of paper from the IndigoBlu European Grand Tour pad then added gilding flakes around the edges with flitterglu...


These papers already have a lot of detail and texture in them but I wanted even more so added some stamping with 'All Saints' using sepia Versafine and then added sparkle texture paste (decadent oak & champagne) through the TCW reverse chicken wire stencil (another of my very favourites as it is so useful with just about any project)...


Whilst that was drying I created the main focal point of the canvas.

 I have always loved words.  When I was a child I wanted to be an author, I lost that urge!! But I did go on to do A Level English and debated hard between English and history for my degree subject (history won in the end) but I am still an avid reader and use words and quotes lots in my crafty work.  So when I saw the new IndigoBlu stamps designed by Mike Deakin (Word Blocks #1) I knew I had to have them!!  I decided that the two smaller canvases I am going to make will each have one word on and the large will have a few (not sure exactly how many yet!) and for this one I chose the word 'Beauty'...



 
I have used gold embossing powder, then tea dye and vintage photo distress ink, vintage photo and gold sprays.  Then to match the main canvas I added a tiny bit of stencilling.  The main word got a bit covered up at one point, but because it was distress ink I sprayed on a bit of water and blotted the ink away to lighten the area again.
 
Finally the project needed a few more 3D touches.  I chose flowers to go with the beauty theme (and it matched other pictures I already have up).  They started as plain white flowers but I added sprays to match them to the rest of the canvas...
 
 


After adding some flicks of Goldfinger paint the whole project was stuck together with glue gel and then I had to add my favourite embellishment ever, some bronze micro beads and a few gems...




I am going to alter a frame for this to go in as well, but ran out of time yesterday!
At the weekend I will start on the next canvas which I can hopefully show you on Monday.
Enjoy your weekend,

Jane x

Wednesday 17 February 2016

Wonderful Wednesday - Past Creations

Hello again,

I am really pleased this week as I was chosen by the Mixed Media World Challenge Blog as the winner for their December challenge!  If you have a moment do please pop over to their site via one of the links on the side, their design team produce some fantastic mixed media work that is great inspiration.

For that challenge I made a paper mache wall hanging in shades of grey, black and white with a fairy theme, so because I am still not feeling 100% at the moment and have not done any new crafting I thought I would instead share with you some previous wall hangings that I have made...




I am hoping that by the end of the week I will be feeling back to normal, if not I will have to go hunting through some more photos!

Jane x

Monday 15 February 2016

Mixed Media Monday - More Stampbord!

Hello all,

Just a quick post today as I have been feeling poorly over the weekend, just a virus but it meant I didn't feel like much crafting :(

As a quick crafty make I decided to create another notebook using some more of the stampbord on the cover as well.  I went for a simple sea themed design, mainly because we live about 2 minutes from the sea and the Isle of Wight is surrounded by it, but also I do like shades of blue.

I coloured the notebook covers using distress paint (tumbled glass and peacock feathers) then also sprayed them with some peacock feathers distress stain and tinsel spray by Heidi Swapp.  Using silver texture paste I stencilled on some shell designs to create a bit more texture. 
I wondered how the sprays would react on the stampbord so gave it a try and it created quite a good bubbly pattern where it sat on the surface until I blotted and dried it.  The stamps used for the pieces are from a sea set by IndigoBlu and the bubbles were stamped in silver encore ink and the sentiment with versamark then heat embossed in white.  I did a little bit of scraping back with the tools to create a bit of a border on the squares and a little bit of highlighting.  The edges were all coloured with a silver paint pen and some dots added to the cover with a white posca pen.  Here is the final piece, front and back...




I am feeling much better today so hopefully I will have a more detailed post for you on Wednesday!

Enjoy the rest of your day and the new week, Jane x

Friday 12 February 2016

Funtastic Friday - Stampbord Notebook

Hello and thank you for the lovely comments that are being left on my blog!  They are much appreciated.

Now, on Wednesday I said that I had something new to play with and I have been doing just that.  I received lots of lovely stampbord that I had ordered and have had a bit of a play. 
If you are unsure of what it is (and I only heard about it recently) it is a hard board surface covered in layers of finely compacted clay that provide a really smooth surface ideal for taking all sorts of mediums.  But the really cool thing is that you can also scratch back layers of the clay once you have coloured to create a really different sort of effect. 
There are some great projects and more info about it over at Projects4Crafters, which is a blog by Fiona who I saw demonstrating this product on the television, so please click on the link if you want to find out more.

I am going to enter the project that I made into the following challenges...

* Creative Carte Blanche - Anything Goes but include something you haven't done before
* Crafty Girls Creations - Challenge 14 Anything Goes
* Creative Artiste Challenge Blog - Anything Goes Mixed Media

So to begin here is a photo of the main items that I used...

I took the notebook apart to be able to decorate properly and the stampbord pieces are 2" square and 1" square.

I wanted to dive straight in with the stampbord so started by decorating the bigger square...

 I inked up the board using meadow, stream and gold alcohol inks.  Then stamped and heat embossed parts of a border stamp from Bee Crafty.
 I used the finest blade in the set of scraper tools that I had got with my kit to scrape back some of the colour to add highlights to the design.  I could then have coloured those in another colour but I wanted the contrast between the black and the white.
Then I found a sentiment stamp from Cardio that fit perfectly in the square and used that with embossing powder again and added some more highlights.  The edges were then finished off with a gold gilding pen.

I then decorated the smaller square in the same way, using some small flower stamps from Cardio but just with archival black ink rather than embossing...

Once these were completed I decorated the notebook covers by coating them with mowed lawn distress ink straight from the pad.  I didn't use anything to cover the wood first as I quite liked the effect from the wood grain under the ink.  I then sprayed the covers with Prima Bloom gold foil ink.  Once I had dried these off with my heat tool I used a matt varnish to seal it as it is a notebook and will be handled.  After that I used the same stamp again to tie the cover in with the decoration...

 The notebook was then put back together again and glue gel used to make sure it all stuck firmly.  To create a similar effect to the stampbord I used a white posca pen to add some dot details and finished it all off with gold gilding pen around the edges...



I hope you enjoyed my first outing with stampbord, I think it may be making a few appearances especially in my mixed media pieces.  Tomorrow me, my daughter and her friend are going to have a go at playing with it to maybe make a necklace each (so there maybe a sneaky quick post at the weekend if it goes to plan!!). 

Thank you for reading and have a lovely weekend whatever you decide to do,

Jane x

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Wonderful Wednesday - Scrapbook Canvas

Hello and I hope your week is going well so far!

Today I am posting a project that is a bit more unusual for me.  Not due to the mediums used or the techniques but because I made it specifically to go on my own wall as a personal scrapbook canvas, something I don't normally do.

I had a photo of my children developed a while ago with the idea that I would do something with it, but creating my 'enjoy life' frame last week has galvanised me into action, especially as we have a large cream lounge wall that I have been meaning to put things on for nearly two years!!!

My starting point was the paper that I chose to put onto the 12" x 12" canvas.  As the photo is in black and white I was not confined to the colours I could choose so instead chose a paper that I liked and worked the colours around that.  The photo I mounted up with black and white card so that it would stand out, and I found some words and stuck a relevant one onto the photo...

Once the paper had been chosen I picked out some embellishments, including more words, and played with the layout that I wanted.  Once that had been mapped out I stuck the paper to the canvas using mod podge and where the paper overhung sanded off the edges.  I then picked out some gelatos that matched the paper colours and used them to colour the edges of the canvas and paper...

I decided that I wanted the paper to be toned down a bit so covered it with watered down white gesso.  Using the flourish stencil by Tim Holtz and some light paste (Finnabair) I added some texture around the edges of the canvas...

I marked with a pencil where the photo would be and then after painting some of the embellishments with white gesso, stuck them into place on the canvas.  I added a selection of white and purple paper flowers along with some foliage...

The inks I chose to use were spray distress stains (milled lavender, seedless preserves, tattered rose,
peeled paint, wild honey and picket fence), and I sprayed and dabbed with kitchen roll until I was happy with the outcome. 
 
Then I used cosmic shimmer gilding wax (blush and enchanted gold) to enhance the raised areas and flowers before adding some berry micro beads in 3D matt gel and chunky purple glitter.
 
I chose a selection of faux pearls and gems to add amongst the other embellishments and then stuck the photo to the canvas along with a couple more words.  Here is the finished canvas...
 



The canvas now needs to be placed in a frame, which I have already painted black with gold highlights, but I am waiting for it all to dry thoroughly first.
 
Hopefully this will be put up on my wall soon!  I will be back on Friday for some more fun, and I already know that I will have been playing with some new goodies that have just arrived!!
 
Until then, happy crafting, Jane x