70 Cards

Two of my oldest friends are 70 in the next few days.   We started school together back when we were 5 !

One of them was a really close friend as she lived in the next road to us, and we walked to school together and played together outside of school..  However, our family moved when I was two-thirds of the way through my first year at secondary school.

We lost touch, but through Friends Reunited we made contact again a few years ago, and exchange Christmas Cards.

Well I couldn't let our big week go past without sending them a card - yes our birthdays are literally one day after another!  (and yes that means I am 70 next week too! - but more of that next week!

Quick Card

I almost forgot it was my husband's birthday, as have been so busy making cakes for family  big 0 birthdays celebration, and getting ready for visitors, so it had to be a quickie.  Image is from one of my Man's Point of View MCS cds.

More from my Pebeo Experimental Day

Firstly here is the picture I shared yesterday, but with an acetate butterfly added  Butterfly was stamped with Stazon, and the back of the acetate painted with red glass paint, and when dry over-painted with prisme rose.  It needed something behind the glass paint to give it some depth.

This next experiment was a piece of Pebeo canvas, embossed and then painted with pearl ceramic paint.  When dry the flowers were picked out with various mediums, vitrail glass paints, and Fantasy Prisme and Moon paints

Same canvas with another butterfly added

  This canvas had a very light coat of Pebeo Prisme colours painted over it a pearl colour to start with, and then a light brush of green across the top hanging flowers section.  The larger butterflies and dragonflies were then outlined with Pebeo relief liner.  When dry, the butterflies and dragonflies, were painted with various Prisme colours, with some glass paints dropped into them.  It actually looks better in real life, as the glass paints meld more into the Prisme.

Finally another experiment on acetate.   The acetate was embossed, and then painted with red Vitrail glass paint.   The ivy leaves were then painted with either green Vitrail or Prisme paints.  I also used some glitter medium on some of the leaves.  The Stems were then picked out with relief liner in gold.

I haven't decied what I will do with these experimental pieces, but the point of the exercise was just to see what effects I could achieve.

Cloud Clay Figure - Self Portrait?

We had a demonstration at Sugarcraft Club the other week on figure modelling.   Having purchased one of the books written by our demonstrator, I decided to try my hand at figure modelling a person in Cloud Clay.

Well this is the result!  She is a bit wobbly, and her legs went a bit funny with the weight and the heat of the day, although she does have a kebab stick through one leg and up to her head!  But not bad for a first effort, and she is supposed to be a funny old lady!   Making her in sugar would have been a lot easier, as you have to stick the pieces together with sugar glue, whereas Cloud Clay sticks to itself and often in places you don't want it to stick!

More practise needed - on a day that isn't so hot and humid, or else revert to making flowers in Cloud Clay, and leave the figure modelling to the sugar version !  

Experimenting with an abstract canvas

Experiment with Pebeo glass paints, ceramic paints and fantay paints

Out of my comfort zone again!  In my samples from Pebeo, I had a few glass paints (vitrail) - green, red and yellow; some ceramic paints - pearl, green and black, a bottle of lightening medium and a bottle of gliter medium.  I wanted to try and create something just using those colours - although I also added in some of the fantasy prisme paints from my stash.  (I did have some Prisme and Moon Fantasy paints in my samples, but they are mixed up with my stash now and can't remember which are which without having a mega sort out - lol!)

The Pebeo canvas was painted with yellow and green vitrail, and then I dipped a brush into lightening medium and painted some swirl through the paint - I think you can just about make out the lighter swirls.

I then painted on some red vitrail and black ceramic squiggles with the handles of the paint brush.  I also added some glitter medium on top of these - again with handle an then stropped som random splodges of the medium over the canvas.  (I have since remembered that I was going to drop some glitter flakes into the background - but I forgot - think I was too absorbed in what I was doing to remember - oh well another time!)

The little dots that look like "eyeballs" were created with white ceramic, with black ceramic dropped into them.

The splodges toward the top were created with one of my green Prisme paints, which I swirled with paintbrush handle and created the random shapes, they then had pearl ceramic dropped into them, then green vitrail and glitter medium.

The lower splodges were pearl Prisme with the green prisme dropped into them in a few places, but as you can see they didn't disperse in same manner.  The centre green splodges had red vitrail and glitter medium dropped into them.

The two middle splodges were green prisme with red vitrail and then glitter medium dropped into them - at last that's how I think I did them - must do a practise one to check!  just love the way they have dispersed!  I fancy a piece of jewellery with that effect!

Finally I went around the edge of the canvas with red vitrail mixed with glitter medium.

I have as work in progress an acetate butterfly that I have painted with vitrail and ceramic paints - if it looks ok when it is dry I may add it to the canvas.     ......Watch this space!

Thanks for popping by.

Sugar Rose

I mentioned in the earlier post today about my using a photo of an air-brush rose on a card.  Well this is the spray I made, before I "doctored" the photo in cutout studio in CAP2 to remove the background.

The rose and leaves are made from sugar flower paste, and airbrushed the rose with red, and the leaves (which had originally just been dusted) were airbrushed with red and green, which improved the depth and shading of the colour.

Really pleased with the airbrushing finish, although not too sure about the actual  "making" of the rose, as I am a tad out of practise, added to which it was such a rotten cold damp day yesterday the paste would not dry, so the petals didn't separate quite how I wanted them too - although it is supposed to be an old fashioned rose.  I ended up putting it in the airing cupboard overnight to dry!

Cards to Two Jackies

This week I discovered that a couple of crafty Facebook pals had birthdays that I didn't have written on the calendar, so it was a case of making two quick "e" cards to post on their timelines.  Thank goodness for CAP2  !

This first one uses some of my CAP digikits, together with an image from Sharon Duncan's Nouveau Style CD, which I have had for a few years.  As you can see it is very" Mackintosh".

The second one used a couple of background papers and a photo of a sugar rose and leaves I made yesterday, and which I had practised airbrushing on earlier this morning.  (more on the rose in the next post).

Simple Card

Just a quick simple birthday card.  The image was mounted on silver grey pearlised card stock.   I have been so busy icing cakes, and doing my mixed media experiments, haven't done much with Craft Artist lately.   Hope to remedy that soon.

Deep Wooden Picture Frame

The box was primed with white Gesso, and then painted with brown acrylic, but I didn't like the effect, so it was then sponged with metallic acrylic paint in blue and green.  I do love the effect of the metallic paints.

Silver relief was applied for the detail, and filled with Fantasy Moon Ebony and Onyx.  I then overfilled the leaves with Pebeo black Ceramic paint, and dropped a bit of Pebeo Glitter Medium into the flower.

Pebeo silver gilding wax was applied to the base of the box, but the inside and outside edges of the top frame were painted with Silver Liquid Lead, for a more precise finish.  The inside of the box back was also painted with silver Liquid Leaf.

I tried to aim for an "Art Deco" look.  Not sure what I shall put in this box frame - maybe some artificial flowers or butterflies, or maybe I will make some from sugar or Cloud Clay.  Again, I am quite pleased with my effort.

MDF Box

Well I have finished the work in progress today, although the photo doesn't really do it justice - it is almost impossible to catch the beautiful shine on it.

The box was painted with black Gesso, and then sponged with metallic acrylics in purple, copper and silver.

The flower was outlined with pale gold liner, and then filled with Pebeo Fantasy Prisme, violet, icy pink, and antique gold, Fantasy Moon in turquoise, and Vitrail Crimson; all dripped into each other and let them do their own thing.

Leaves were Prisme pearl green and leaf, the Pebeo Ceramic leaf green drawn through it with a cocktail stick.

The corner of the bottom of the box had Pebeo Empire Gold gilding wax rubbed on them, but the edge of the box and base were painted with gold Liquid Gold Leaf, as I wanted a more precise outline.

I am really pleased with the result.

July in the Den

I have managed a couple of afternoons in the Den for the first time this week, as I felt well enough to tackle some much overdue housework this week, which had been put on hold since I cracked a rib a few weeks ago.  We also had visitors on Tuesday, some Sheenie friends from Devon, who were holidaying in the area, and we spent a very pleasant afternoon in the garden.

Whilst they were here, they had a little play with my airbrush, and Ros was hooked, but then so was Tim, who is florist, and he wondered if you could airbrush carnations to save the faff of standing them in ink for a few days to colour them.  Well, I had a little play today, as one of my Marguerite flowers opened.   Result!

Airbrushed Marguerite

I have also been playing with my Pebeo goodies again - albeit I actually used some of the products I already had in my stash.

I decided to paint the reverse of the butterflies that I painted the other week.   Didn't quite turn out how I wanted, possibly because I was not using my favourite colours!  and the paints definitely had a mind of their own yesterday, and didn't go where I hooped they would go!    I intend to make a mobile out of them.

to recap - this was the first side:

Over the past two days, I have also played with a Martha Stewart glass painting kit.  I did do one a few months ago, but the little pots of paint that came with it didn't go very far.  So last week I topped up my stash with some bigger bottles.  Got a bargain as it happened.  My C & C membership had just been renewed, and I thought I would put the credit toward the glass paints, and lucky me discovered they were on super special offer as well.  Result!  I love it when a plan comes together, and gets better as well!

Glass painting study.

and finally, back to Pebeo again and a little work in progress - painted this box this afternoon, and started to enamel a flower.  The flower looks a bit "muddy" in this photo, but was in a just painted state when I took the photo.

Work in Progress

Actually it is good to take a photo, as I can see I need to do a bit more paint effect with the silver metallic paint to match the bottom of the box.  Might have to black gesso it again and start over with the sponging.