Heart Hanging

It is time for the next challenge at Frilly and Funkie.  This time Suzz, who is our hostess, is calling it Knock om Wood and here is what she has to say about it:

For this challenge you need to dig through your crafty stash and look for some type of wood to incorporate into your art. This can be any kind of wooden object like a wood spool, a wood button, a mini ruler or even a branch. Create a vintage or shabby chic project that incorporates some type of wood content.

I knew I had some wooden buttons from The Funkie Junkie Boutique in my stash so I decided to use them in my project and to take my colour palette from them.

The first step was to cut a heart from corrugated cardboard and punch two holes at the top where I could add a hanger.  Your heart can be hand cut by making a paper template first, tracing around it on the cardboard and then cutting it out.  Fortunately I am spoiled rotten because my husband has a laser cutter so I just got him to cut a 9" heart for me.

Next I stripped the top layer off the cardboard to expose the corrugations but leaving a strip to add some patterned paper.  Once I had the corrugations exposed, I dry brushed them with some white Gesso.

I inked the corrugations with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and then added a hanger of jute through the holes.  I think next time I would make the holes a bit smaller because I had to do some serious knotting and run the jute around the top to keep the ends from sliding through the holes.

A combination of Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs Distress Ink was used to dye some lace and some seam binding.  The seam binding was crumpled up, dried like that and then formed into a loopy bow.

I used some Vintage Photo DI to ink a couple from the Paper Dolls pack, cut them down and adhered them just above the strip I left on the cardboard.  The lace was added next under the strip.  I tore some floral patterned paper from the St. Tropez paper pad inked the edges with Vintage Photo DI and added it on the strip.  Next I added three inked hearts made from old book paper that came in a little bag of goodies from The Funkie Junkie Boutique - a lovely surprise Linda tucks in each order.

Next I added the buttons and the bow along with a paper rose that I also inked with Vintage Photo DI.

Finally I inked a quote chip with More Vintage Photo DI and added it above the lace.

There you have it - a heart hanging in vintage tones with lots of fun elements, including some pretty cool wooden buttons.

Edit:  I thought my buttons were made from wood because they sure look like wood and are as hard as wood but when I was creating the links at the bottom of this post, I noticed that the description says they are Carved Coconut Shell buttons so I hope Suzz will forgive me.  I did look up coconut palms to see if the trees are considered to be wood and was happy to discover that they are and are considered a hardwood substitute in some countries - the six separations of coconut "wood".

I hope you will join us for this challenge.  It runs until 11:55 pm on Tuesday, March 27th and one randomly chosen winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to The Funkie Junkie Boutique while the Design Team will choose their top picks and the overall top pick will be invited to be a Guest Designer at a future date.

Metallics for Stamps and Stencils

It is the start of a new challenge at Stamps and Stencils and this time, our hostess Rachel is calling it Metallics.  She describes the challenge this way:

This month I would like you to make a piece involving metallics in some way - it could be metallic paints, rusted metal techniques, actual bits of metal, metal foil ....the possibilities are endless - also please use stamps and/or stencils. Have fun!

I decided to make a wall hanging for my inspiration.

I started my wall hanging by cutting 3 pieces of chipboard (my stash) into 4" x 4" squares and drilled some holes in them.  Two of the squares have holes in all four corners and the third one has holes in the top two corners as it will be the bottom panel of the hanging.

I glued a square of burlap (my stash) to one of the panels with four holes.

I added some stenciling on the other two panels using Molding Paste (Golden) through Harlequin and Bubble stencils (Tim Holtz).

All three panels were given a coat of White Gesso (Liquitex).

I painted the panels with some Lake Wanaka Fresco Finish Paint (Paper Artsy).

Next I added some spray inks to the panels - Tarnished Brass, Tumbles Glass and Chipped Sapphire Distress Spray Stain (Tim Holtz) as well as Olive Copper Starburst and Buccaneer Blue Moon Shadow Mist (Lindy's).

I thought the panels could use a little more metallics so I sponged on some Copper and Sun-up Blue Pearlescent Acrylic Ink (FW - Daler Rowney).

I added some randon stamping using a script stamp (Recollections) and Jet Black Archival Ink (Ranger).

To embellish my panels I started by hand cutting cutting some chipboard hearts.

Using an embossing folder (Tim Holtz) I embossed some paper backed metal foil tape.  The tape was then adhered to each heart piece and the excess trimmed away.

The hearts were given a coat of Coffee Bean Acrylic Paint (DecoArt) and some of the paint on the raised surfaces was wiped off using a baby wipe.

Next I pounced on a mixture of Poppyfield, Gold Mixative and Copper Mixative Alcohol Ink and Blending Solution (Tim Holtz for Ranger).

I used the same alcohol ink combination to alter some buttons (Fancy Gap, Gears and a Medallion (Bead Landing).

A metal key, clock and arrow were altered by pouncing on some Pitch Black Alcohol Ink.

To assemble the hanging I mounted a heart on each panel and then added the copper metal bits next to the hearts on two panels.  The black metal pieces were added to each heart.

Finally some black cord (Dollarama) was used to tie each panel together and the top panel to a piece of branch that fell from a tree in my back yard.

I hope I have inspired you to join us for this Metallics challenge.