Flower Collage Dandelion Seed Head

 Hand Drawn Flower displayed with collage

Workshop Country View Crafts 2023 Deconstruct - Reconstruct

I am playing catch up keeping a record here of the samples I created for my workshop last year.

This is Flower Collage 1, it is actually a Dandelion seed head (clock).

We started  by looking at photos of the Dandelion clock and carefully unpicked the structure of the flower drawing each piece of it individually.

I then sketched and inked up the picture....

... and made a distress ink background and drew it again and painted in the leaves using the distress inks.

Finally I created the collage around it and displayed it in a black paper art book.

I have several more of these to come as I made lots of samples to give the participants a variety of collages as inspiration for putting theirs together.

xxx

My first workshop this year at Country View Crafts

I had a fabulous workshop at Country View Crafts last weekend teaching techniques and sharing tips with a fabulous group of people who attended. This was the project - a shadowbox filled with textures, images and ideas.

I enjoyed putting this together as well as teaching the process steps and taking centre stage are two od the Tim Holtz Cottontail die cuts, created in a mixed media style.

Participants also put together a collage layer for a rusted frame to sit over using ephemera and papers ....

.... and I demonstrated quick and easy way to add watercolouring using decoart media fluid acrylic paints.

I love the entomology bugs which come as stamps and dies and these are fabulous for adding interest with the layers ......

.... including one hiding in the wildflower foliage.

The crackle background worked perfectly using a stencil with the decoart media crackle paste and then layers of watery acrylic paint washes.

I have a post over on the CVC project blog today that also shares these photos and also a video of the projects made on the day.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx

Supplies

DecoArt media fluid acrylics - quinacridone gold, paynes grey, raw umber, sap green and cobalt turquoise hue, green gold, cerulean blue, viridian, pyrrole red, titan buff, raw umber, titanium white, translucent white, cobalt teal, burnt umber, yellow oxide .
DecoArt mediums - media white gesso, media white crackle paste, decou-page sealer, texture sand paste, matte medium.
DecoArt - Glazing medium

Tim Holtz dies- Cottontails, Wildflower stems #1 and #2, mini 3d border

Tim Holtz - entomology stamps and dies

Happy Halloween

I have a post over on the Tando blog today sharing photos of a recent workshop I taught at Country View Crafts of a Halloween Triptych I originally made last year for the DecoArt Mixed Media blog.

If you would like to see how a fabulous group interpreted my boards please pop over here to the Tando Creative blog to see the results.

I hope today is full of treats and no tricks.

hugs Brenda xxx

Backward, turn backward,

Time, in your flight

make me a child again

just for to-night!

Elizabeth Akers Allen

New workshop for CVC

Double Trouble

I am calling the next workshop for Country View Crafts "Double Trouble" purely and simply because we will be making two projects this time round.

I love this frame as it is more understated than other projects I do, with less depth and layers but enough for it to still look interesting and I think this simplicity is a great contrast to the recesses and embellishments and allow them to pop out more.

Each of the recesses is made up in the same way but with different designs and embellishments.

The fall foliage thinlits create gorgeous leaves .....

.... that sit on the textured background beautifully.

This has a harvest feel to it as well as a thanksgiving one too.

The shrine is a fun make to finish off the day creating lots of texture .....

... adding Tim Holtz embellishments and die-cuts .......

... and creating a niche with elements that will be perfect for a Halloween display.

There are more details over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog and the workshop is available to book on the Country View Crafts website. Click on the highlighted words and you will be transported over to both places to find out more details.

I thought we were going to have a few warm days this week but today has started cloudy and considerably cooler than I thought, I hope the next few days will be better.

have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Weathered Beach huts for CVC

I am sharing some of the workshop photos from yesterday over on the Country View Crafts Project Blog today.

I loved creating the Weathered Beach huts with a brand new technique from me to achieve this very weathered and aged wood effect.

I always believe the best finish is in the detail and here we have faux rusty nail heads ....

.... roof details and door latches.

On the back are some maritime and beach elements.

Because we changed venue to CVC headquarters with Susan as host I made her this set of beach huts in the colours she wanted.

All the products are from Country View Crafts and all the mediums and paints are from the DecoArt Media line.

I hope you have enjoyed my 'show and tell' here, there are more workshop photos on the CVC Project blog.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

MIxology news and CVC workshop news.

Well if you saw my Face Book post last Wednesday you will already know my exciting news. The amazing Andy Skinner has asked me to be one of the teachers at Mixology in Coventry on the 19tyh and 20th November this year and I am still pinching myself as it's a dream come true. I will be sharing the day with the fabulous Mark Gould so that he and I will both do two half days each. Now I'm here to tell you that the booking is open for this retreat but I believe that sales are going really fast and if you wanted to come along you need to get in quick to see if there are any spaces left. (Click the Mixology link above).

I just got to get my head round a project and there are lots of ideas floating about, so that's good seeing as my mojo has been missing for a few weeks and half a day brings the potential down for me to overdo things too.

At the moment I am working on my Country View Crafts workshop project for July and on Saturday created this grungy, shabby crackle using DecoArt weathered wood medium with their chalk paints and media acrylics.

This is going to be a beach hut project so you can see it's pink, shabby with touches of vibrant colour but still weathered and vintagy. I'll let you see more when I've finished it.

Thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments you leave me.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Workshop photos

I had the most fabulous day on Saturday teaching my 'Journalling for Success' workshop for Country View Crafts and using the fabulous DecoArt media paints. I know when I get into a rut, have lost my mojo (like now) or just need an idea to point me in a new direction I have found my journal recipes so useful. It gets me going by getting something down on that blank page and after a few steps I have completely forgotten I have a recipe to follow and my muse takes me off to explore completely different avenues. These are my first pages using recipe 1 and recipe 2 ....

1a

2a

... and then second pages making new choices for each step which created these designs but still using the same recipes.

1b

2b

If you fancy taking a look at the photos from the day then please pop over to the Country View Crafts Project Blog.

Thanks for stopping by, I'm hoping to get back into some designing and making this week so there should be some new projects from me very soon.

have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

A Collection of 3 and CVC Workshop

Good morning from a bright and sunny Surrey - what a beautiful few days we have had - such a lovely change to the grey skies and rain.

Today I am sharing my reverse canvas here and doing a 'show and tell' at Country View Crafts project Blog of all the wonderful canvases made at my workshop on Saturday.

 This was a rework of a canvas I made last year but transposed to a different size and with some modifications.

 I still love making these flowers that Tim Holtz produced back in the Compendium of Curiosities Book 1. It's great to revisit some of these oldies which are still very effective.

And I love new discoveries too. Whilst playing with ways to create these butterflies I re-discovered another oldie but goody, the TH distress embossing powders. They are not made any more so if you want to grab some before they have all gone then pop over to the CVC shop where Susan is doing 10 for £20 - that's less than half of the original price.

If you would like to see the wonderful interpretations of my canvas then please pop over to the project blog post today they really are all beautiful.

I would also like to share this at Frilly and Funkie's latest challenge which is called 'Let's make it a Trio', where hopefully my collection of three butterflies will fit in well.

Have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Create a Scene for CVC

Welcome to December and today I thought I would share this winter shadow box for my DT contribution for Rachel's 'Create a Scene' theme, it was the project we made on the last workshop we held for the year back in early November.

I thoroughly enjoyed designing and teaching this box with all the techniques and 3d elements that are included.

If you look into the background you will see it is textured, crackled and glittered to create that wonderful icy look, even that beautiful regal stag was inked and covered with rock candy distress glitter to make him sparkle, albeit in a rather understated way.  Tim's sleigh die has been used to make a three dimensional carriage for the little collection of goodies inside and the snowflakes are also Tim's and they have been inked, given a coat of gesso and more distress glitter added to them.

You can see in the photo above that the frame has been layered and crackled and then distressed to give it an aged look. The bottle bruh trees have been sprayed, the trophy cup painted and filled with moss and a glittering star and a few other items added to build another little scene.

The stag's head was painted using decoart media fluid acrylic paints and some gesso added to create snow. He was mounted on a board which is a piece of greyboard die-cut and painted to look like a varnished piece of wood.

Now I would like it to snow over the Christmas holiday so that the grandchildren can have some fun on their toboggans and enjoy the winter as it should be enjoyed by youngsters. I know it's not so much fun for us oldies but I still feel the magic when the snow begins to fall, there is something so special when the world turns white.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Do pop over to the CVCC blog to see what other wonderful projects the team have come up with and have a great week.

hugs Brenda xxx