Craft Barn Challenge - Ferro and Terra

There is a challenger over at The Craft Barn and how could I know join in when we are playing with terra paste. One of my favourite products. I used it on this canvas panel and stamped into it. It's great fun, a bit messy but fun! I tend to spend way to much time on painting these kinda things, make sure I get it just right and to make sure the stamped image "pops" out enough. The roses and the butterfly have been dipped in clear UTEE, another fun and messy technique to try. Gives them a nice shiny porcelain-like finish.

Alter it monthly - March Theme - TIME

This month the theme over at ALTER IT MONTHLY is Time. A theme that has been done many times before and will be done many more times in the future, cause it's just timeless.
It's a particular favourite of mine and I have many ideas and thoughts on that theme but just not enough time to craft......

So I decided to make a clock, very fitting I thought. I used Terra texture paste for this and stamped into it. I dried it with a heatgun, quite closely so it bubbles up and gives an extra bit of texture and bumps. I then painted it quite roughly with Precious metal paints. I then rubbed over some silver Viva Gold paste, so I basically used all Viva products. I just love them, they are fab.

Come and join in this month's challenge with a chance of winning a great prize too!!!

Vintage Christmas Canvas.....

Inspiration for this frame came from a recent issue of one of the stampington publications. I just wanted to create a little frame with a vintage christmas feel and something with a bit of depth. So I used the back of a canvas and covered it with terra paste all over, when dry I painted it cream and then rubbed over some inka gold with my finger to bring out the texture.

The inside was lined with stripey paper and for a touch of colour I used a blue fabric for curtains and made little ties with ribbon. I played around with the frame a lot and re-arranged it a lot to see what looks good and what doesnt.

The bells were originally pink and I simply painted them with modern masters rust paint. If you havent tried yet, get some, its lots of fun making things rusty and old.

The presents are covered in music paper and dictionary paper and distressed with ink. Around the edge of the frame I used some old gold lace, very heavy stuff. I remember my parents used to use the same stuff for nutcrackers they used to make, so for me its associated with christmas already, I just had to add some. If you have a closer look at the frame there are many things to discover and I had fun putting it together.

I am entering this into the Gingersnap Creations Color Challenge - Vintage Hues.

Recycled Mini Canvases - For The Altered Element

Here is another little Recycle project I made for The Altered Element.

A while back I couldnt get enough of mini canvases and decorated a whole lot of them, but not all turn out the way you want, but I kept them nevertheless. And these came in handy for this project.

I used the back of one canvas and from another one I used just the wooden frame, glued on top. That makes a nice little deep frame, ideal to hold little bottles, ornaments or other small objects.

I textured the whole thing with Viva Decor Terra Paste and then painted it over in cream when it was dry. I then rubbed some greenish gold paste, also by Viva Decor, over the top, just using my fingers.

The bottle has been filled with sand from a recent holidays and the twigs and died brown leaves also came from my holiday.

As for the flowers I used Maya Road metal flowers and treated them with Crafty Notions Rusting Powder.

So if you ever have any little (or bigger) canvases lying around, put them to good use and make a deep frame. The texture paste hides the canvas and imperfections of the frames perfectly.

Happy crafting!

Mirror, Mirror on the wall......

Back from my holiday I would like to share with you my first ever Design Team project. I'm really excited to have been picked for the Altered Element Design Team and this month's theme is "Enchanted". My first project is a Fantasy Mirror......

I used the Twiddleybitz - Fantasy Shadow Frame for this and covered the whole frame in Terra texture paste by Viva Decor. Around a 2-3mm thick layer does the trick. I then used a script stamp and spritzed it with water using a Mini Mister and then pressed the stamp into the texture. I smoothed over some stamped bits to break up the text a bit.

When this had dried completely I painted the whole frame in a dark mulberry colour using Cut n Dry Foam. Any acrylic paint will do for this, just make sure the paint goes onto the script. When it had dried I worked over it using a light pink colour, picking up the higher points of the texture. And then I worked over with a white acrylic paint. To give it that pinky shimmer I sprayed the frame with Cosmic Shimmer Mists. A mix of plum twist and Lava red works really well. If you try this technique the best advice I can give you is to just play around. Try taking off some of the spray with kitchen roll or leave little puddles to dry. Just try it and have fun.

When the shimmer is all dry I picked up the highlights with white acrylic paint once more.

The roses have been created by stamping flowers onto pink paper, then cut out and made into cones. Each cone is then dipped into melted clear UTEE (with some added Flex) and sat inside the bigger cone until you have the finished rose. Just pop a bead into the centre whilst the UTEE is still hot.

I then added some curled memory wire to add a little playful touch. Any kind of coloured copper wire would work nicely here, just curl it round a pokey tool.

The butterflies are simply punched out, stamped onto with a random background stamp and also dipped into UTEE.

I hope you've enjoyed this little project and remember if you want to join in with this month's theme there is a £10 voucher for The Altered Element up for grabs. Check out the blog for details and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!!!

Pandora's Box

It's been a while since I've entered the challenge over on Tuesday Taggers, but this week we are decorating boxes and putting pretty handmade things inside too.
So I finally got my pot of terra texture paste out, I've had that sitting here for a while. I covered the whole box in it, about 2 mm thick. And the I stamped a script stamp and music stamp into it. Sometimes I just smoothed it back over and stamped again til I liked the result.
When that had dried I painted the whole thing in a dark blue, let it dry then worked over with a lighter blue and same again with a cream coloured paint. When all that was dry I sprayed over a bronze glimmer mist, esp into the deeper script and then I wiped it off. It left the light cream bits in a pinky kinda shimmer. The butterfly is simply diecut from black card and then dipped into UTEE in the meltpot.

Now as for the inside, I had some pretty pink card I cut up into pieces and attached to the insides, the LOVE writing is simply stamped in black archival.

The inside edges have been painted with a gold pen.

And then I just put some foam in so it can be used as a little jewellery box.

And on the inside you find a keyring.

Here is another technique I really wanted to try.... I inked up some glass slides with alcohol ink and then stamped onto them with archival ink. I then wiped off the archival ink and it takes off the alcohol ink underneath. It works well with dark or strong colours.

I had to learn the hard way that when you stamp writing it'll be backwards when you use the slide ink side in (which I like to do, as it's just a cleaner, neater look). But as I'm making art I just used the slide anyway and the writing is backwards. Haha!

I stamped some acript in staz on over the clean side of the glass and put it in the frame with some copper paper beind it. Done!