Another Fairy Door

You may recall back in September last year I made a fairy door.  Well my youngest granddaughter really fell in love with it, and wanted to take it home.  I promised to make her one, and at last I have got around to finishing it.

This is the door bought from the Works (see further down for the actual product).  I removed the hinges and latch.  I then used a stencil for the surround and applied Pebeo concrete paste.   This was then painted with a light grey and then various shades of grey, cream and green was applied with a sponge to create the stone effect.

The door had various brown distress inks applied to it with a little water, and then I sprinkled some UTE powder on it (Ultra Thick Embossing powder), which I heated to create the worn look.  Finally some more distress ink was applied over the embossing powder - actually I used Violet!  I then re-attached the hinges and latch.  (It remained in this state for a while - I think I actually posted a work in progress some weeks ago!)

Another View

Today I made the flowers and foliage.  I confess I had to look back at my original post last year to remember how I did them - oops!    The Flowers and larger leaves were die cut from Sheena's anemone set; the fern and smaller leaves were Sizzix dies.

I stamped the leaves with versamark and then embossed them (didn't do this last time - shame I didn't realise could have saved time!)  I then painted everything with various Pebeo Dyna paints.  Then having read last year's post, I applied a little Pebeo Mixtion Relief on the petals and leaves and drag it in to the centre with a paint brush.  When dry I applied silver and gold mirror foil.

I painted a few shells from my stash (they either came from The Works or The Range - I forget). Finally the flowers etc were assembled and some little gems applied to the Centres (Crafty Crocodiles).

Hopefully I have a happy granddaughter now and there will be no nagging (at least for a while until she sees something else I have created and want the same!)

the original door from The Works

A Cute House

Had fun today  (well sort of, as my arm was refusing to play nicely, so had to do most of the painting with my left hand!) painting one of the little Clever Cut houses I bought from Create and Craft.  No idea how I wanted to paint it.  Just went with the flow.  A bit of texture was added with stencils and Pebeo Sand Texture.

Clever Cut recommend building before painting, but I think next time I will paint as I am building it (making sure I avoid painting the "notches" as wet paint can make the MDF swell)  as it was a tad tricky to paint some bits.

another view

back view

Work in progress building the house

 I have another one to do for a friend, and he wants Tudor style - so watch this space.

Hand-painted T-shirts

It was inset day at school for the youngest granddaughters last week.   We started off with quiet "mindfulness" playing with them colouring in the new books I bought them ....... and then we got a bit messier.

I bought some plain white T-shirts from Craft Crocodiles the other week,  I got two of each size - one for me to paint and one for them to paint.

Here are their results:

11 year old's effort using metallic fabric paints and a stamp

8 year old's creation.  As you will see from following pictures
she did rather a lot.  Using metallic fabric paints for the square, and
fabric ink pads and stamps for the rest.

5 year old's creation - using stamps and fabric ink pads

Showing off their T-shirts

They really had great fun, and were so pleased with their efforts.  Now for me to come up with some designs for the second shirts.

Fairy Door - Yabadabadoo!

It really was to hot to do much today, so decided to finish painting my Fairy Door kit.

The door was created by using various decoart paints, and then applying some distress inks, immediately followed by Ultra thick embossing powder to get the rough look to it when heated

The surround was prepared with Pebeo sand texture paste, which I brushed on to get a rough rock finish.  This was painted with various Pebeo deco creme paints in greys, beige, and white, with a bit of green distress ink added.  Most was applied with a stencil brush in a random fashion, but I also used a dry baby white on my finger for some of the effects.

The hinges and door knocker were treated with Inka-Gold in Pewter, Bronze and Gold.

The Ferns were painted with a mixture of Pebeo green deco creme paint and some green distress inks.

The toadstool was also painted with the pebo creme paints and also some red brusho.  Finally it was given a coat of glossy accents (which might not have been such a good idea on this hot sunny day as that seemed to react with the paint underneath in the sun - oops!)

Apart from the red of the toadstool, the whole project was coated with an outdoor acrylic varnish.

It reminds me of the Flintstones - thus the Yabadabadoo in the title.

Gelliplate printing

I went to an open day at Clarity Stamps on Saturday with my daughter, and came home with loads of inspiration and ideas to try out (as well as giving the credit card a slight bashing - well more than slight actually!)  However, after a really rotten week, of computers failing to proceed, (thankfully we did sort it) and also buying a new laptop, which arrived with a busted screen, so had to be returned I felt I needed to treat myself! (Even Saturday started off by going pear-shaped in as much as my alarm didn't go off, and I only woke up five mins before my daughter arrived to pick me up! - oops!)

Well today it was so hot, I didn't want to do much, so I had a little play with my new inks, and an idea using the mini gelliplates that Sam Crowe demonstrated.

I tweaked her demo as my first attempts came out rather too dark for the effect I wanted, as I was using my new stamp pads which were rather "juicy".    I put a little colour from the stamps on my mat, and "dipped" the gelliplate into it and stamped onto an ATC size card.   The example on the right was a straight stamp, and the card on the left was using the same colours but with a slight spritzing of water, before picking up the colour with the gelliplate.

I then got some of my new stamps out to create a scene - really pleased with the one on the right, as I managed to get a "white space" from the gelli print, which has really created a great snowy landscape, and even looks like a stone wall at the bottom.

Experimenting - what will it be?

Well it was like this .... we had a family birthday party a couple of weeks ago, and there was this packaging from a frozen dessert heading for the bin ....   well I couldn't resist could I?   (Particularly as I had watched a demo using bits of polystyrene being upcycled a couple of days after I had thrown all my packaging out of the garage!  duh - a crafter should know you never throw anything out!)

I didn't know where I was going with this when I started it.  I used some Powertex Stone Art to begin, and then added bits of material, twine, Powertex balls and sand.  Made some Powertex Clay and made daisies and leaves etc etc.

I sprayed it with loads of different Bister colours

No it isn't a cabbage as somebody thought - that is the plastic I was working on to protect the table!

 I then applied some pigments and varnish to "paint" it.  Was it finished?  Well I thought it was - I thought it would make a sort of window.

a view of the sides

I still wasn't quite sure about the finished result - and wondered if I could put something in the middle.  One granddaughter suggested a Troll House.

I decided to have a play - I had an empty paste jar in my stash!  so I made a little house, and then starting with a cone of paper, which I gradually cut down to size I created the base of a Norwegian Gnome.  The paper cone was covered with hessian and I made a little head and nose from Powertex clay, and put a hat one it.  The beard was made from cotton wool.

Troll house and Gnome partially completed

With finished house and gnome

I then went over the house and gnome again with pigments and varnish to brighten it up.

another view (as you can see the original "square" has been turned on its side!

With apologies for the photos, but it was so difficult to photograph

Fabric Stamping

the T-towel is actual more white in colour!

I had fun yesterday afternoon.  My daughter came round for a bit of crafting.    We decided to try out some new stamps and inks.  The make is Threaders by Crafter's Companion.

We have used the wooden blocks and fabric paints before, but these are rubber stamps and ink pads.  As you can see we had a lot of fun - no pattern just both randomly stamping on a t-towel.  (You may note that a few Clarity stamps also crept into the design - well you have to experiment don't you?  Can you spot them?  We also used a couple of wooden block stamps with the inks)

The stamps in the set are flowers, leaves, butterflies, dragonflies, bees, feathers etc.  We didn't use all of them!   The great thing is that you have a lot of filled in shapes, and then detail stamps to stamp over them.   I particularly like the feathers and the little birds for infilling: however. my daughter was hooked on the honeycomb and bee stamps, as well as what we described as sprigs of lavender!  (She got quite crafty with those, inking up the stem in blue and then adding the purple lavender flowers!)

When I watched the demo on tv, they actually were more methodical and drew out a patchwork outline with dissolvable pen, and then just stamped in the squares.

We just did stamping, but you could use the designs for free motion machine embroidery, or even hand embroidery afterwards.   Another idea would be to stamp on the end of a silk scarf.  (My daughter will probably be using her embroidery machine!)

I just thought the grandchildren would like creating things with them, and I have got some pencil cases for them to decorate, and have also bought some cheap t-shirts, which I am hoping to play with for them.

another view - more realistic colour, as the T-towel had been sort of tie-dyed
with some left over fabric paint.  (note to self iron it before you stamp - lol!)

As mentioned the T-towel wasn't completely white to start with, as I had followed a hint using left over fabric paint, which I had added to a bucket of water and scrunched up the T-towel and left it to soak!