It's a Creative World

Playing with media.

Last month I went to a Media weekend at Art From The Heart.  It was taught by Dyan

 

We arrived on the Friday evening to a pile of paper, textured, ribbed, watercolour, kraft etc. By the end of the weekend I'd made this:

It was a great opportunity to try out all sorts of media and decide what you liked using and what you didn't.  My favourites were the Dylusion Inks and golden acrylic paints. I found I preferred inktense sticks to artbars and pan pastels are so vibrant.

 It's amazing what you can do with stencils when you think outside the box.

We were all asked what our least favourite colour was and then given that colour to play with!

Mine was orange, but with a touch of pink and some gesso I actually found I liked it.

Here's a lemon and lime page:

This is my first attempt at Art Journalling:

A little twee maybe, but it says what I wanted to say.  I don't think it's finished yet.

It's great to dip in and out of and has helped keep my mojo flowing and is a great record of all the techniques we used and media we tried.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Lynne x

 

 

 

Faux Metal

I've taken another class with Andy Skinner, this time it was to turn a plain bisque box into a metallised box.

 

We used Decoart Americana acrylic paint and added Tando shapes and googly eyes. (Andy is well known for his use of googly eyes in his projects.)

 

The added elements were then painted black

We then used a seies of shades of paint and dry brushing to create a faux rust effect

 

The finished box

It really is amazing what you can create with paint.

Thanks for looking. Lynne x

Paint Workshop

A couple of weeks ago a friend contacted me to say she had a migraine and would I like to take her place on a furniture painting workshop. Feeling very guilty I picked up her beautifully sanded piece of furniture and promised to do my very best to paint it a beautiful colour.

This is how it started out, it is a beautiful antque sewing table with the original lining still in tact!

We started with a base coat of Emulsion, I used Farrow and Ball Old White No 4, it provided a really good base colour.

After the first coat we used hair dryers to get the first layer completely dry before applying the second base coat.

Then came the scary part putting a wash over the furniture. We mixed one part acrylic paint with one part water and used a sponge to apply the wash in large sweeping movements until it started to dry and was blended in to a softer colour.

Once the wash was dry we used a really fine sandpaper which gave this unusual denim effect.

I'm not sure if this colour is right for the table, unfortunately they didnt have the colours in the workshop that I would have chosen but I have learnt a really interesting technique and would definitely spend the extra to use the Farrow and Ball emulsion paint.

Debbie x

carving out your own crafty niche...

Hi there everyone, its alix here again :0)

Today I thought i'd share some of the online class by Julie Fei~Fan Balzer that i've been taking this month.  I am a big fan of online classes as you can take them as and when suits you, you don't have to travel or sit too long anywhere uncomfortable...and you can even do them in your p~j's...no~one need ever know!  Actually though, the best thing for me about an online course is generally the prompting to get out of a rut and try something with a bit less thinking and a bit more doing.  I'm terrible for spending hours contemplating what to create or make...and then running out of time or energy to do it...so sometimes a bit of organisation is what i need to get me going again.  And this course has kick started me again big time!

The course I'm taking is called Stamp Carving 101 and if you've been to my personal blog lately you'll have seen lots of evidence of it!

I'm not giving away any of Julie's secrets or hard work...but showing you an example of one of the lessons i followed pretty much to the letter.  This was the carving out a bracket frame lesson.  I drew mine freehand and transferred it to the rubber with the pencil transfer method.  Its an easy shape to carve out so a good one to get started on...and a very versatile stamp to have in your stash as its ideal to frame a small image or hold journalling, as well as to make swirly borders with.  Hence why i didn't chage the design! ;0)

 

When i had carved my stamp and printed it out with a Big and Juicy pad you can see how cute it it...but i wanted to play with my new stamp...and i wasn't in a *cute* mood today...i was feeling distinctly grungey and inspired by dirty walls and graffitti...so here is my stamp used in that way!!

Its not the prettiest journal page you'll ever see...not even the prettiest one by me...but i had 10 minutes and i was feeling direct and raw and this is what I came up with!

Sometimes you just have to carve out your own niche for the day, right? :0)

As always thanks for stopping by and I hope I've given you pause for thought...if nothing else do stop by Julie's blog and see what she's up to from time to time...she is awesome!

 

 

Mother's Day

Hello! It's my turn today and I thought I might share a quick, easy and effective idea for a last minute card! it's Mother's Day on Sunday in the UK (when did we stop calling it Mothering Sunday?!) and I know that as much as we like to be organised sometimes we just can't quite fit everything in! Anyway this idea is perfect for birthdays, inviations and even (whispers) Christmas cards!

I used a butterfly die cut but really most diecuts (prebought or cut yourself) would work! I cut my butterflies from Grunge Paper but I have used kraft card, heavyweight cardboard, cereal packets... it just needs to be a heavier weight than ordinary paper!

I painted my butterfly with Fresco Finish paints by PaperArtsy. When I say I painted I really used Cut and Dry foam and used a dabbing action - it creates a softer finish and there are no brush marks. I popped a little dab of Orchid paint on my craft mat and used the foam to coat the butterfly. Simple! Then I put a stencil or mask over the top and dabbed Moonlight paint over the top of that. I dried the butterfly with my heat gun and then sanded the butterfly to reveal the first paint layer in places and in others the underlying Grunge Paper. You may like to wipe the shape at this point with a dry cloth as it will be a little dusty!

I then cut out a sentiment printed from my computer on white card (you may have sentiments already printed or a stamp that you prefer to use!) I inked the edges of the butterfly and sentiment with a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Glue your sentiment in place carefully so that no glue seaps out - you don't need to be very precise here as the glue is only a temporary hold so be sparing! Using clear embossing ink, ink the whole shape, add clear embossing pwder and heat. I like to just give one layer of embossing powder because I prefer a grungy look but if you prefer a very shiny surface repeat this step two or three times. You can use UTEE here if you prefer. The simply glue the shape to the front of  a card and that's it! Once you get the hang of this you can whip up cards in less than 10 minutes!

I hope that you give this a try and I'd love to see what cards you make and how you create your own versions of this idea!

Gabrielle x

a little bit of She Art...

Hi everyone, its Alix here!

Just for fun i thought i'd share a few paintings i've done following on from Christy Tomlinson's She Art painting class which i took last year.  If you haven't taken this class i highly recommend it...you can see all the info on it here :0)

Now, i am no painter...and i can't draw for toffee...mmmm toffee...but i can do this style of mixed media artwork...and so can you!!  Christy is so sweet and takes you through baby steps with lots of video tutorials...its as easy as painting by numbers when you know how.  i'm slowly working through my friends immortalising them one at a time...

here is my friend Pippa...who is a real painter :0)

notice how the background is painted and then the girl is paper pieced over the background using scrapping scraps...and then painted over to help her meld into the artwork...

 

notice how there are lots of details...some are doodling...and some are rubons...both are super cute :0)

and notice how there are dimensional elements too...like these pearls...all in all the idea is to use all sorts of media...can you spot the stamping on this girl's legs?  

...and don't forget you can have *he* art too...this one is me and his Nibs ;0)

you can even have religious icons if you're so inclined!!  please forgive me...this is my first ever *face*...i know its far, far from perfect...but i sort of like her! :0)

so what are you waiting for...get out your scraps and some paints...you've got nothing to lose...if you don't like it...you can just paint over it!!  *genius*

Crackle effects

At the moment I have a thing about adding texture to my scrapping and card making.

There are lots of crackle effect mediums on the market and I have three of them, so decided to do a comparison.

For this one I used PaperArtsy Crackle Glaze:

 

For this one I used Crackle Accents:

 

 

For this one I used Distress Crackle Paint in antique linen:

The left hand tag was painted and left to dry. I'd read that if you heat it you get bigger cracks, I tried this with the right hnad tag and there are bigger cracks.  I like the crazed pottery type effect you get with the distress crackle paint.

Here are all the samples side by side:

I shall keep these tags for reference, so I can check out which effect will suit my project best.

 

Thanks for looking.  Do have a play with your stash and see what you can make.

 

Lynne x

 

Pumpkins & Poppies {What a mix}

Firstly I would like to tell ALL the DT that we have at the moment (old and new) How wonderful & Inspiring you all are. I have loved every one of your posts and there are quite a few of you (see links in side bar) You ALL have been different, Inspiring & fun. Myself & Debbie are so thankful you can all join us & hope you still stay around well into the next year 2012 & beyond :) So a HUGE Thankyou to you all & I hope you enjoy working on & looking at the Blog as much as we do :)

I have been really busy the past couple of weeks and my post has caught up with me fast :o I've not had much time to craft (i'm sure we all get this sometimes) But from now on I will be at home a lot more so will have no excuses now :) Anyway I thought I would show you two of my last couple of projects .... At Halloween I painted Pumpkins in Acrylic paint(masking with tape if needed), Then varnished them & also wrapped one in Black net....these Pumpkins are still going strong too :) 

 Then I Blinged my Poppy using Red Stickles...i was thinking is this a little disrespectful but i did pay for it so the money is going to the charity and I kept it red, Everyone admired it so People were thinking about it so i'm sure it's ok.

 

Hope you like, Sorry it's a little out of date but keep this post in mind for next year perhaps  :)

Jayne

NEW DT PART 2

Here are the last of our new DT members and links to their beautiful blogs.

Doda- Doda's Creations

 

 

Alix- A Good Life

Kerry-  Socks and Scrapbooks

Ifa- Loving Life

Erika-  Snappy Crafts

Laura - bubbaboobits

 

 

Weekend Workout 19 - LACE

 Hiya Claireliz here with this weekend's workout.

The challenge is to use some lace.

I love using lace on all kinds of projects, mini books, scrapbook pages, altered items & sewing projects. I decided for this challenge to create something from fabric, so I had a go at making a brooch, but it was larger than planned so I changed into into a fascinator. First I took a strip of lace & hand stitched running stitch along one edge & ruffled it around so it started to form a circle...

 

keep on stitching until you end up with a flower shape like this...

 

I did the same again with a strip of navy blue net which I folded in half lengthways...

 

& with a cream strip of net which was also folded in half lengthways...

 

The cream net is the largest piece so I took a circle of felt & stitched it to the back of the cream net flower...

 

Then I added the next 2 layers, one at a time with just a few stitches to catch them into place (with the felt on what would be the underside of the fascinator) so that it looks like this...

 

I then stitched in a few glass pearl beads...

 

On the underside where the felt is I stitched 2 hair grips...

and taadaa...

 

This was my first attempt at making fascinators & I suspect I may be making more, infact thinking about it this will co-ordinate with my outfit for my friends wedding next week. 

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Dolly here with a little snippet of lace too.

One of the things I love to use lace on is a heritage page or project and I have a heritage page to share which seems to show what I mean.

 
 
The page is of my husband's grandmother and great grandmother and actually his great grandfather too as he is in the photo that the little girl is holding up.

The strip of lace just softened the page a little and added to a heritage feel.

You know me - I like to do things digitally too, and digital lace adds feeling just like real lace.

I wanted a really soft shabby chic feel to this page and the lace helped create that.

 
and finally, an example of using some lovely cotton lace to make something pretty and feminine and just a whole lot of fun.

 

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Hello, Eleanor here. Like Dolly, I too have used my lace on a notebook, only mine is somewhat tattier.

It's a music notebook, as any musicians may guess by the title :) for my notes about songs, lyrics, and piano pieces, and details of sheet music I want to buy.      I think I will even use Kel's excellent tutorial for 'tipping in' extra pages, using manuscript paper so that I can jot down a tune, or even compose one, lol.

Anyway, here it is, chipboard covers, modpodge base, half of a vintage lace-trimmed hankie on the right, and strips of cotton lace on the left, chippie letters and metal charms. All sponged lightly over with white gesso, and finally, when dry, sprayed with a mist of watered copper acrylic ink.

a closer look:

xx