RIP Tombstone

I had an upright mdf plaque from That's Crafty. I painted the front of the plaque with black powertex and added in small sand balls to create some texture. Then added the resin pieces and the three die cut letters. I dry brushed with white and silver.

I made some mini books by putting a piece of card around a square of corrugated cardboard.

I filled some small bottles up with beads and added a sticker and some string to some of them. I added some black to them and the paper flowers.

This is the base of the upright, I coloured a piece of cotton scrim with black spray  paint and glued it on.

Once dry, I placed the upright back in the slots and arranged the embellishments along the bottom.  

When I was happy with the placement I glued them down.

Close up of the dry brushing.

And finally I added gems to the eye sockets.

T-light Holder

I picked up some t-lighters fairly cheap.

I created a rust effect on all 4 sides and on the top. 

Added resin shapes to each of the sides.

Coloured with silver paints.

I went over the silver with silver treasure gold.

And I decided it was way too shiny.

So I went over some of the silver with charcoal matte wax to dull it down a bit.

 

MDF Mould Makes

 

I treated myself to four of the new release moulds from Finnabair (Prima Marketing) to play with.

I also bought some fast cast resin and OMGosh, this stuff is amazing.

20 minutes later and they are done - wow!

So I carried on and made some more.

I pulled out some different shapes of mdf and used black modelling paste to stencil onto them. I also added some crackle paste in various areas too.

Once dry I painted them all with a coat of black gesso.

I played with the resin pieces and other bits and bobs to build up compositions that I liked. I attached them with heavy gel medium and once dry painted everything with black powertex.

I used mica flakes on the wings.

Metallic lustres were used on this one.

I used green metallic foil to colour the queen of steam and the rest are coloured with a mix of metallic lustres and treasure golds.

For this one I just wanted a subtle blend of a few colours.  Metallic lustres used.

And finally I used a mix of metallic lustres and treasure golds.

Rusty Tag

This time last week I was on a 3 day workshop and one of the things we were asked to do was to take anything rusty we could find. Although I had a fabulous time, it wasn't what I expected and so I brought the bits back and a few more that Judith kindly let me use on the day, to do something like what I thought we'd be doing, but didn't!

I look a large mdf tag and laid bits and bobs out how I roughly wanted to place them.

To create some texture on the tag I used kitchen roll. Paint the mdf and then just lay a small piece of kitchen roll on and dab it with the end of the paintbrush until it's all covered. Then take another small piece and continue until you've covered the tag. You could also use fabric too, or a mix of both.

Whilst it was still tacky I started to place the pieces of rusty metal. 

Powertex also acts as a glue, so it's very easy to stick most things down.

Then I added all the washers, screws, nails and the clay skull.

I made sure everything had a good coat of the black Powertex. I also decided to add strands of Power Cotton to create even more texture and set it aside to dry.

This is how it looks this morning after spending a night in the airing cupboard.

Close up of the skull. All the metal is stuck on with Powertex.

Close up of the tag and now it's dried you can really see the Power cotton.

So onto the dry brushing. I used white to start with.

I got a bit brave and tried to record it. I have uploaded it, but please bear in mind, it's the first one I've done, and I had the camera in my left hand and was trying to dry brush one handed!!! 

Press the triangle in the photo above if you want a laugh. 

So this is what I ended up with after adding the white pigment.

Just in case the first one didn't work, I tried it again with another colour.

Again press the triangle for the video to play.

So this is where I kind of got to after I'd stopped videoing. If you didn't manage or want to watch it, I did another layer of dry brushing, but this time used the red pigment.

And to brighten it up a little, I used the bronze and rich gold pigments. You'll be pleased to know I didn't video this one!!

Close up - you can really see the single strands of Power Cotton now.

And here I Powertexed the tacks using the heads onto the forehead of the skull.

Another close up to show off the textures.

A closer close up of the tacks on the skull head.

And this is what it came out like, I'm rather pleased with it.

If you liked this step by step, why not leave me a comment and you can also let me know what you thought of my little videos. Be honest, I won't be offended, it was off the cuff and not planned at all. Next time I'll use a tripod so I have both hands free!

Rusty Elements

After the launch of the new Andy Skinner and Tando greyboard kits, they inspired me to make a couple of tags. I already have the industrial set and some mdf hearts and tags and this is what I came up with.

All products used were from the DecoArt range, including textured sand paste, media paints in paynes grey, dairylide yellow, cobalt teal and quinacridone gold.

I also used some metallic lustre in orange flicker over some of the sand paste to bring out the detail.

Love how the quin gold changes the colour of the colours underneath.

And for the second one I used white modelling paste with the fossil stencil.

I painted the whole tag with white tinting base, added a layer of patina antiquing cream and wiped back. Then added metallic lustre in orange flicker and copper kettle.

The heart was made in the same way as the tag above and I've added some rusty wire.

Close up of the sand paste with orange flicker metallic lustre.

Both tags, side by side.