A bit of Grunge - work in progress

Well with the recent miserable weather I have been going a bit stir crazy with cabin fever.  How unkind to tempt us with the lovely weather a week or so ago, and now it is back to mid-winter.   It has been so dark as well which is not conducive for crafting.  (Added to which I treated myself to a dining table and chairs recently and just don't want to risk messing them up - lol!)

Anyway as I couldn't get outside and do the painting that I wanted to, I did some "tidy" painting indoors - well perhaps tidy isn't the word as my inner grunge seemed to appear and quite a different sort of crafting for me.

As mentioned in the title these are work in progress,    Had fun with the MDF, using crackle paint and distressing with oxides,  I also stamped some images, and the flowers were embossed and then coloured with alcohol pens.   Looking forward to doing some more effects on it as the mood takes me.

The second item is the start of my Art Journal.  I had been a bit scared of starting it - what do I do?   Well having watched a demo by John Lockwood, and purchased a couple of items, I decided to play with what I had seen demo'ed and went from there.  Basically I was playing with oxides a leaf media plate and some feather stamps.  The page on the right was the excess from the brayer.

I then got carried away and added some stencil effects and on the right hand page I also experimented with different embossing powders.   I shall add more to these  - ok they look a mess at the mo, but I am told that you just keep going until you are happy with the result.

So watch this space as they say .... I may share more as the develop.   At least it whiled away a miserable day.

More sunshine - more Paint Fusion

Yes the sun was out again yesterday, and so was the glitter paint.   The wall pot was in fact terracotta - yes this paint goes on anything!  It's a shame the photo doesn't do it justice but all those little flecks in the paint actually shine, red, green and gold in the sunshine!

The pot itself has an imprinted design on it, which I had painted before, and I had intended just to paint black around the top and bottom, but it proved a tad difficult, so the whole pot was painted wih the black glitter and then the details picked out in acrylic paint.

Next to b tackled was my clog - this too had been painted before, but was looking a tad tired, so the black with gold was applied to this.  (I am in love with this colour and have ordered more as I only had a small pot.    The leaves are indented into the moulding, so they were picked out first, and then some michaelmas daisies painted amongst the leaves.    A rose was painted on the front.

I felt it needed something on the toe - so painted some grape hyacinths and some rosebuds, and added a few dots.   I also added a few dots around the top of the plant holder bit.  (see first picture of clog)

Finally - a quick glimpse of one of the planted hanging basket, and wall planters in situ.

Sunshine and a bit of Paint Fusion!

How lovely to be able to sit in the sun and paint.   Having been good and done a lot of digging and weeding yesterday,  I rested the ol' bones today and sat and revamped my hanging baskets and a planter ready for the new plants I bought at the weekend.

side view

 The last time I painted these was 6 years ago - and as they had been out all winter, they were looking a bit "tired" and some of the paint had faded.   To start with I gave them a coat of black crystal glitter paint, which is a black paint with silver glitter in it  (I say silver, there are also flecks of blue in it; and they also make one which has gold, red and green glitter in it. which I have also used).

The paint is great suitable for outdoors, has a rust preventer in it, and can be used on almost any surface - plastic, brick, glass, ceramics, teracotta etc.  (Yes there may be a lot of make-overs to the pots in my garden.

I then used the new Sheena Douglass Paint Fusion paints, which have been are actually made by Pebeo, for the decoration,   Although the black paint is suitable for outside, I did give the "Fusion" painting a quick spray with Spray and Shine varnish, to help protect it - well it seemed to work pretty well for the past six years - lol!

The crystal glitter was also applied to the chains to prevent them rusting, and I quick coat was also applied to the brackets as they were looking a tad rusty.

Just for reference here are a couple of photos of what one of the baskets and a bracket looked like before I started you can see the fading of the paint over the past six years.  (ok this one was a slightly different colour last time, as I did them all different last time and this time I painted them all the same).

How rusty? looks a tad different now

Sorry I have been awol for a while ....... have been so busy.  Why does life get in the way of crafting - lol!   I have mostly doing mundane "house" things like taking delivery of a new table and chairs, and getting old stuff (and packaging to the tip!  gosh how much packaging!)   The grandchildren have also been on their school holiday so Nanny duties have been involved as well.    I have been working on a couple of projects which I will share in due course.

So anyway, today's offering is a little card created in Craft Artist.  

Unicorn Card

I had a some new stencils arrive as well as some Spectrum Noir Metallic Markers arrive.   Well I had to play didn't I?  .... and what better way to use them on a card.

I used the pens through the stencil for the unicorn.  (note you have to be quick and wash the stencil immediately, as the markers will work on plastic!)

I tried to print the sentiment on card having designed it in Craft Artist, but the printer didn't want to play (it really doesn't like thickish card), so I printed it out on paper and then edged it with one of the pens for faux matting and layering.

Superhero Birthday Card

One of my granddaughters has been doing a project at school on Superheroes.   She had to invent a hero; make a model of it, create a comic strip and on Superhero day dress up as her hero.    Her hero was Transformer Girl, who could transform into all sorts of animals.  Her model was her hero looking like a cat, and her costume was a cat.

Well when it came to her birthday card it had to be something along that theme.   So with the help of images from Craft Artist, here with have a "superhero" birthday card. 

She LOVED it!

I am sure I showed the model she made a while ago, but if not here it is again.

Lilac card

Just a simple stamped card using Dreamees Sparkle Ink pads, and a couple of stamps from Clarity.

A sentiment was then printed in Craft Artist and mounted on a piece of card which had also been coloured with the sparkle ink pads.

Playing with textures

Well this may look a bit "naff" but the object of the exercise was to play with some textures on something that didn't matter - i.e. a custard tin.  From base up I used Amsterdam Pumice Medium, Pearl Medium and Gel Medium and let them dry.

The original idea was to try and paint a "seaside" scene on the side of the tin  - well that didn't quite work, as the finished texture of the gel medium didn't really work ..... so out came the air dry clay and some cutters and moulds and I made daisies and leaves, which were painted with acrylics.

 Next it was time to tackle the plastic lid.   I used the new Izink Diamond Glitter paints - wow these are brilliant.  I used a green for the centre of the lid and a mix of blue and purple dabbed on to the rim.

It needed something else for the centre so the acrylics came out and I painted a paint fusion rose (ok in hindsight I should have painted a daisy to compliment the sides!)

Yes it looks a bit weird and not what I had originally planned, but was a good bit of Mixed Media play.  No doubt it will find a place in the Den to hold something!

A bevy of Easter cards

Second posting today .... trying to catch up

Just a quick selection of some of the Easter Cards I made - using a freebie background from a pal.  Kept them simple, but added  little sparkle after they were printed.

Also made a couple like this.

Messing about with textures and effects.

It's been a while since I blogged - so remedying that with two blog entries today!

I have been trying out some textures and effects in my little journal.   This was trying out effects with candle wax for a resist technique to get a peeled paint effect.  Was quite pleased with how many colours I could see when using a candle and overpainting. I also tried out a rust effect, by "sloshing" on quinacridone gold and then heating it to get a bubbled effect.