Mystery Project–Part 2–Brown Heart

The first of the three hearts that I worked on was the brown one. This was for my friend who is an artist, and I thought she would appreciate a more grungey, earthy tone. This turned out to be an excellent choice for her as she told me she is working a lot with these colours at present!

I began by using the original back piece of the frame to trace the shape onto some corrugated cardboard to make the background of the altered heart.

I tore off some of the top layer of paper to expose the corrugations.

I rummaged through a lot of my mixed media supplies to find the right sort of mesh to overlay the bottom part, and eventually decided upon an old roll of scrim which I think was originally supposed to be used for plastering walls – I’ve had it for many years and can’t remember where it came from.

I cut off a length and stuck it down across the bottom of the frame, pulling it as tight as I could.

I then did a bit of experimenting with inks and paints to get the effect I wanted on the corrugated cardboard.

I used three shades of Distress Stains – Pumice Stone, Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain, creating a mottled effect. When this was dry, I added a little Treasure Gold gilding wax and a touch of Antique White Rub’n Buff to highlight the corrugations. The gold doesn’t really show up very well on the photo.

Here is the corrugated cardboard in place in the frame.

Turning it over to work on the back, I packed out the recess with more corrugated cardboard and secured it in place with masking tape.

I used the outside of the heart frame to trace the piece of cardboard for the back, and distressed the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I stuck this onto the back of the piece and signed and dated it.

Here are all the brown roses and single-piece flowers that I made for the brown heart. They have also been highlighted with some Treasure Gold gilding wax.

The brown leaves, together with a few of the flowers, ready to be stuck to the front of the frame.

After sticking down the mesh, I added a couple of lengths of different thickness of jute string and tied them in a bow. The overhang of the mesh and the excess string was trimmed off flush with the edge of the frame.

Time to add the flowers and leaves. Here is the finished result.

When she came over and I gave her the heart, she was intrigued by the various processes I’d used, and we had a short session up in my studio where I demonstrated first how the roses were constructed, and then showed her the gilding wax – she has achieved similar effects with dry brushing. It was very interesting comparing notes about how we have achieved similar results in other areas, by using different methods. She has only recently branched into mixed media art from more of a fine-art background and is exploring different materials. Quite an adventure and I am very excited about it, and can’t wait to see what else she is going to come up with! I was so pleased that I’d hit the right spot with her little heart, with the colour she would have chosen, and the different materials and textures.

Chutney Labels and a Great Meal Out

Today our friend took us out to lunch at the Cott Inn, Dartington. This is an old-fashioned Devon pub in a beautiful country setting, which offers first-class chef cooked meals. We were not disappointed!

Today was the day I was working towards, to complete the boxes for the Floral Mini-Albums I made earlier this year. Our friend’s copy of the album has now left its biscuit box home forever and is now proudly ensconced in its new box! She is delighted with it and I am so happy with her response.

I decided to give her another little gift – a pot of my home-made apple chutney from the Bramleys off our tree in the garden. It’s the first time I’ve made apple chutney and now it’s had time to mature, it’s turned out superb, though I say so myself!

Rather than just giving her a plain jar, I decided to make some labels for it and pretty it up a bit, going for a rustic look.

I used dies from two different sets to cut the two labels.

The larger tie-on label was cut from recycled book packaging from Amazon, and the smaller stick-on one was cut from 100 gsm copy paper. Both were distressed with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I drew a little apple on each label and coloured it with coloured pencils. I cut two circles of cream polycotton fabric from my stash for the lid, and tied on the larger label with jute string.

The outside of the lovely pub where we met for lunch.

Inside:

The food was quite delicious and beautifully served. My dish was described thus: “Free range Devon chicken breast, goats’ cheese, spinach and watercress mousse, prosciutto, crushed potato, spinach, red onion marmalade, bruised baby gem, chorizo cream sauce.” Wow!

This is my hubby’s beef and stilton pie. I love the way the mashed potato is served!

Our friend chose a fish dish.

I love the way the chef has chosen different plates to suit the varied dishes, and in particular I like the way the lines cut in the crispy fish skin are echoed by the lines on the rim of the dish, the metallic glaze of the dish also reflecting the silvery effect of the fish skin. Very artistic!

Our desserts.

The others had a scoop each of locally-made ice cream and I chose the lemon tarte which was accompanied by lemon sorbet in the shape of a lemon! Again, the perfect dish to set off this dessert.

I should have photographed my spiced carrot and sweet potato soup, too. The two pieces of ciabatta were cut diagonally and set on their ends in the most attractive way.

All very creative and extremely chefy! We will definitely be returning here.

It was raining when we arrived, but as we left, the sun was shining. What a lovely day we had.

Infusions Birthday Card for my Hubby

Panic stations! Suddenly remembered I hadn’t made a card for my hubby’s birthday at the end of this week, and I’ve got a very busy week ahead. I thought I’d better get my skates on.

My Infusions mini-album, that I have been working on for the past few weeks, has generated quite a few reject pages, and some perfectly good ones which I decided on balance not to include. These are still hanging around on my workdesk and will eventually find their way into my stash for future use, and I chose one today that I thought might make a nice card – it was one of the ones I made with Polyfilla through my own brick stencil, as I only needed one for the album.

I have a few tiny scraps left from my Infusions mask and spray 12 x 12 sheets that I made last year, most of which were used up on the Mamhead mini-album for the end-papers and cover. I have a few of the flowers and leaves left, and also a few of the Heartfelt Creations stamp/die cut combos I made some time ago, so rootling around in that little lot, I came up with enough materials to put together quite a nice card.

I began by looking out the pack of jute fibre I bought from Ebay ages ago. This is very fine and wasn’t quite what I wanted when it first arrived, but I thought with a bit of persuasion I could coil it up and make it do more what I wanted! Being a natural fibre, it absorbs ink pretty well, so I began by colouring a few strands, using Distress Stains in Walnut Stain and Vintage photo. I stuck the ends together with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive to make the whole thing a bit more manageable.

Once they were coloured, I wrapped them around the handle of a fat paintbrush and spritzed them with water. I held them there for a few minutes and gently dried them with my heat gun – a bit like setting hair!

When I pulled them off, they looked like this:

I was quite pleased that they had held their shape so well. All that was required was to tease them out a bit, ready for use.

I stuck the bundle onto the card with a little strip of masking tape.

I selected two of the Heartfelt Creations flowers which I’d already hand-embossed, and stuck them down onto the card with Pinflair gel glue, covering up the masking tape on the jute fibres.

I had cut a few leaf trails for the Mamhead album and I coloured these with two Distress stains, Forest Moss and Bundled Sage.

This gave a nice mottled effect which was a bit more natural-looking than a flat dark green.

I ended up needing another of the large ones, but this didn’t take long to do afterwards.

Assembling the piece.

I attached the leaf trails using soft matte gel medium, and added some Orange Peel Stickles (glitter glue) to the centres of the flowers. This was how it looked at this stage.

The Stickles and Pinflair glue take ages to dry, so I left the piece out overnight.

Next day it was dry, so I could complete the project. I folded a piece of white A4 card in half and inked the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink – the white card was far too stark and bright. I found the last of some mottled brown card that I had in my stash which I’ve been anxious to use up, and cut it to size to mat and layer. The cut edges were very white so I inked those with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

I also distressed the edges of the inside of the card with Antique Linen Distress Ink.

Time to use my wonderful new Tonic stamp platform for the sentiment inside! I tried it out the other day when I made my copper and sepia card. This time I used it side-to-side so I could put my card in. I did a few trial runs with scrap paper to make sure the stamps were correctly positioned.

The materials for stamping the sentiment. I used the Stampin’ Up “Memorable Moments” stamp set which is useful because you can mix and match the stamps. I used Pumice Stone Distress Ink, and as this is fairly pale, I stamped it three times. One of the great things about the stamp platform is the ability to stamp again in exactly the same place – very useful if you get an incomplete impression first time. I’ve never been that great at stamping, and I’m so glad I bought this new gadget!

I thought the inside of the card looked a bit bare, so I got out my bricks stencil and taped it in place, and used an Inkylicious Ink Duster and Antique Linen Distress Ink to create a bit of interest.

The finished result. The brickwork nicely echoes the theme of the front of the card.

The finished card.

The little strips forming a partial frame were in the box of scraps left from the Infusions 12 x 12 pages and I thought I might as well use them up! There’s not much left of that paper now. The Happy Birthday sentiment was in my stash – I think it was part of a pack of odds and ends I received as a gift from a friend some time ago.

A detail shot of the topper. My hubby loves his garden so I hope he will like this floral card. I don’t think it’s too girlie!

Phew! What a relief! Completed it in time!