Halloween - Tea Light Holder

My nephew and his girlfriend have just moved into their first house together, so I rescued some pieces of polystyrene. 

And as it's nearly the end of the month, I went for a Halloween theme.  This is the front with webs, skulls and spiders.

And the side with a skull and a web with spiders in.

I left the back pretty simple as you probably won't see much of it, but I did add gemstones in the eye sockets.

A mummy and a couple of skulls on the other side.

And as it's polystyren it's easy to cut into. I cut a hole in the top for a tea light to sit in.

Day 26 Tags - Over to the dark side

Day 26 of the #fabtag30day.

January Powertex Box

"We wish you bluebirds in the spring to give your 

heart a song to sing"

https://youtu.be/44vV98vpuQ0 - Click here to see all the contents of my box

** Your box might not be exactly the same, but you will have similar items**

I cut a 6 cm polystyrene ball in half as I wanted to fatten the bird up and make him more 3d.

I stuck one on each side of the wooden bird shape. 

Next I arranged some sort of platform for everything to sit on. I used part of the cardboard from the box as the base.

I painted the mdf birdhouses with blueberry pie acrylic paint.

I started to compile pieces to make a tag using other items from the box.

So as not to cover up all the background paper, I traced round and cut out the shape.

I placed the mdf bird shape in the cut out background space and put the cut out piece back on top of the bird shape.

I dismantled one of the paper flowers as I wanted to use it to try to represent feathers.

Next step was to cover everything with Powertex. I used the blue from the box and some bronze that I already had to paint the branch top left. The bird is covered in t-shirt fabric and I used a couple of pieces of hessian to create wings. You can easily use the paper decoration for this too.

I just wanted to show you how far the Powertex goes. I covered all of the above pieces liberally and I've still got half the bottle left.

And this is how I assembled everything together and coloured it up with the blue curacao and golden olive Secret Art Loft pigments.

I think they look very fitting outside in the garden in the middle of the bush.

I used the golden olive pigment on the body of the bird and on the flower feathers. I painted the leaves on the wallpaper background with blueberry pie acrylic paint.

This actually looks better in real life as the colours are more defined, but unfortunately, my camera doesn't appear to be a fan of blue!

I hope this has given you a bit of inspiration. Don't forget to show us what you make with the contents of your box and don't be shy in uploading them to the Powertex Studio FaceBook page. For further inspiration, visit the free online Powertex magazine here. 

All Powertex, Secret Art Loft products and subscription boxes can be found here.

Powertex tags

I had some Powertex left in my tray, so I grabbed three little tags to use it up.

I coloured the left one with bisters, the middle one with hi flow inks and the right one with acrylic paint.

Then I played with pigments and the Powerwax until I was happy with what I had, adding and removing colours as I went along.

Once I'd decided I was there, I left them a couple of hours to dry in the sun and then did some dry brushing over the top with the ivory Powertex.

Close ups of the dry brushing with the ivory Powertex. I think they came out pretty good and I have no preference over the different mediums I used, it just depends what effect you are going for.

Fossil Tag

Before I went away for my weekend at the garden party I prepped some fossils to play with when I got back. I used one of the huge TH style tags as a substrate. I first coated the tag in a layer of ivory Powertex and added all sorts to create some texture. I put it outside to dry, which didn't take long!

I sprayed it with yellow bister, took a bit off with a paper towel, then added some natural, which is brown and once dry sprayed on some red.

I used all different colours of pigments until I was happy with what I'd got.

And in a different light, just before it started to rain.

Really pleased with how it came out.

Steampunk / Gothic Fabric Book

I started off by sewing the pages in using upholstery fabric.

Found some images I wanted to use, printed them onto fabric, cut them out and mounted them onto a piece of fabric to then start to build on them.

Adding bits and bobs to create the page as and when I came across something.

Next I trapped lace trim between the pages and glued them together.

I glued lace on the inside pages.

And another of the inside pages covered in lace.

Inside pages covered in lace and lace trim between the pages. Book is now ready to be decorated.

So I started playing around with how I wanted the pages to look.

Close up of the flowers with the buttons sewn over the top.

Next set of pages. I decided to do some machine sewing in this book.

Close up of the metal embellishments. 

Next set of pages, again some elements have been sewn using the machine. 

This is a close up of the image which has been couched and the word has been machine stitched.

And the last two pages with buttons and more machine sewing.

Close up of some of the sewing and the buttons.

The silk rod has been machine sewn to hold it in place.

I decided to add some beads, chain and discs to the right hand page.

Close up of the metal embellishments. Cogs and clocks.

And the studs along the bottom.

I decided to change these two pages around and added a belt buckle and studs to the right image and organza fabric to both of them.

I added a skeleton skull to the right hand page.

This is the finished front cover.

Pages one and two, a bit more trim added to both pages to finish them off.

Pages three and four. Trim added to the left page and a black lace to the right. 

I think these two pages stayed pretty much the same.

Last two pages, seven and eight with a bit more trim added.

Back cover has just been decorated with a piece of navy lace and a doylie which I stained black. I wanted to keep the back pretty plain so the book lays down flat on a surface.

Front and back covers when opened out.

And finally a view from the top.

A huge thank you if you stayed with me all the way on this post, I know it was rather long, but it was a long process!!