12 Designers of Christmas : Day One: WELCOME!

HELLO!

It's December 1st...so that means.....drum roll...... the start of our 

HUGE,

 MASSIVE, 

GINORMOUS,

 12 Designers at Christmas blog extravaganza!

Right up until Christmas Eve, we will be featuring a fabulous project by a guest designer, or showcasing an exciting big Brand every single day! Yep, you read that right.. 

Every. Single. Day!

So, bookmark the blog and check back often, we have loads to share in the run up to Christmas 2014!

Right..best get on with it then.....

I've drawn the short straw (!!) and I'm up first! Now, I need you to be gentle with me today, this is the first time I've shared one of my 'people' with the world. Up until now they have been creations for my eyes only, but I thought I should get a grip and show you lot as well! Here is my Sprinkle Fairy...

 My background is a simple painty creation. I gessoed my cardboard base, then whilst it was still wet, smeared on some blue and green. More gesso stencilling, and printed on gesso dots for snowflakes. I used a Posca paint pen to draw on some flakes too!

Then, on to the figure. Sketched out roughly, then coloured with a mixture of Neocolours, paint and watercolour pencils. A little fineliner black pen to highlight a few details, and my Sprinkle fairy was born....

ASOI products used:

Gesso

Paint

Neocolour 2

Watercolour pencils

Fineliner pen

Posca pen

And now the exciting bit! As well as our 12 designers, we will be showcasing 12 brands this December too. We have a large prize box all ready and waiting, containing one product from EACH of those 12 showcased brands! To win this box of fabulousness, all you need to do is leave a comment on EACH of the blog posts of our 12 designers. My blog post today is the first, you'll need to comment on the post of each of the eleven designers that will be coming along every other day until the 23rd. The posts will be open for comments right until the end of the month, then a name will be randomly chosen and announced as the winner on 12th Night (6th January)

So.....we're up and running! Don't forget to check back tomorrow to see which big brand is being showcased!

Have a fabulous week!

Love, Trish

 xxxxxxxx

Stuffed Heart!

Hello!
You may have noticed the heart I created as a sample for the Colour Challenge....
(You didn't??? All the challenge details are HERE!)
Today I thought I would share how I created it!
Finished heart looks like this:

This is a nice and simple way of creating some unique home decor items!
Sketch out a shape on some fabric, then sew around your shape, leaving a gap for stuffing. Add your filling...

I had run out of wadding, so I used dried out baby wipes to stuff the heart! Waste not, want not and all that!
Sew up the gap once your shape is stuffed...

Now, I wanted to paint my stripes straight onto the heart, but as fabric is porous, the paint will bleed out slightly, leaving a blurred edge. I would recommend giving any home decor fabric piece a good coat of gesso before you paint on to it, that way you have a good surface on which to add your painty detail...

Once the gesso was dry, I painted on my stripes..

Yes they are wonky on purpose!
I thought it needed a few extra doodled details...

The embellishment is a chipboard circle, a button, a punched out heart and some dots!

A hole in the top bit is perfect for threading ribbon through, so your heart can be hung up!

I love making these, great for Christmas decorations too!
Have a lovely Thursday!
Trish xxxxxxx

Butterfly Doll

Hello!

When is an Art Doll not an Art Doll?..... um.... when it's a butterfly attached to a canvas on legs?!

My project today is a variation on a theme...yes it's a doll, but this one isn't a free standing piece by itself, it's an embellishment..

I'll show you how I made her...

The three main bits are made from clay. As I wanted holes through them, I poked a bit of wire through in the appropriate places! 

The clay then got painted and stamped a little...

The easiest way to get a detailed design on a curved surface is to use stamped tissue paper. I stamped everything, then made sure the ink was dry...

(I stamped two faces as I wasn't sure at this point which one I was going to use!)

The stamped images were then cut out and glued onto the clay using Mod Podge..

It's really useful having holes in the clay, as the wire can be pushed through again and rested on something whilst the Mod Podge dries!

Once the Mod Podge has dried, we can start to assemble the doll.

You'll need lots of craft wire for this! Cut two pieces, then thread both through the horizontal hole...

Make spirals at the ends of the wire (you can always fiddle about at the end and make these smaller or larger if you need to)

 Next, make a loop at one end of a long strand...

Thread on the large 'body'..

Thread on the 'head'

Tightly coil the remaining wire around and around the top of the head, both creating a design feature and securing the head and body of your doll...

I wrapped more wire around her neck...

Now, adding on the 'bead' at the bottom requires a bit of jewellery making technique... but really, just practice making loops and wrapping wire around things. We're not making jewellery, so it doesn't matter if it's not perfect!

Thread a bit of wire through the hole in the bead, and bend like so...

Make sure one 'tail' is a lot longer than the other at this point. Make a loop with the shorter tail, and join it onto the loop under the body...

Wrap both ends loads of times around the wire and the top of the bead. Messy is good!

Now for the wings! Stamp the Stampotique wings twice, once onto acetate, and once onto painted cardstock...

Cut out, bend the acetate then glue together....

Once the glue is dry, glue on the clay body...

Now the butterfly doll is finished, it can be attached to whatever you fancy!

I painted a canvas, stamped it with dots (Darkroom Door) and glued the doll to the front..

The doll gives a fabulous 3D look to your work..

I used painted spools as legs..

and added thick wire as a hanger. More thin craft wire was wrapped around to echo the wire elsewhere on the piece, and a cut out word added...

Phew...! Hope you like her!

Trish xxxx

Art Doll part 3 (only 3?!!)

Hello!
This is kind of a follow on project to the first Art Doll tutorial I shared this summer (THIS one!)
Todays Art Doll looks like this....

Oh yes...getting weirder..... :)
One of my step by step pictures for the first doll looked like this:

Which gave me an idea for a shape.....and todays doll was born!
My 'peculiar genius' doll is much smaller than the hanging doll of a few weeks ago, I wanted the face to fill the entire head part this time....

The shape is basically the same though, with the crown part included in the initial chipboard piece. As before, I painted the chipboard, stuck book pages to it, then added the face by gluing on stamped tissue. Doodled lines and painty dots to finish it off.
The body is also roughly the same shape as before...

Again, covered  with book pages and stamped tissue. This time, I stamped this fab dotty image by Stampotique onto the tissue to give the body a nice design. Painty dots and doodled lines again, then the body was finished off by the heart embellishment...

This is the smallest pendant from the Prima Mechanicals range, turned over, painted white with a punched out heart stuck to it!
Adding the head to the body requires a neck, of course! This neck will be visible, so I painted stripes on it....

No legs this time, I've used chipboard circles. I think they look a little wheel like....

I edged them with blue paint, and carried on with the dots/doodling theme! I always add a phrase or title to my work, this time I've added it to one of the 'wheels'....

The Art Doll is basically a flat item, so if we want it to stand up, we need to add things to the back! Even if you have no intention of ever making jewellery, I would thoroughly recommend large cube beads as a stash essential.... they are brilliant for jobs like this!

Apologies for the unsightly glue picture!!
So.... Art Doll part three!

Hope you like her!
See you soon,
Trish xxxxxx

Super Speedy Paint Backgrounds: A Tutorial

Hello!
After my last tutorial using ink to make a background, I thought that today I would go back to my 'go to' medium, paint! 99% of my backgrounds are made using paint, and I'm going to share a very quick and easy technique that will get you a fab background in a couple of minutes!
First up, the finished project.....

Right...the background! The main thing to remember is speed. Don't stop to think, just do it! We want a little blending/mixing going on, so no drying between colours with this one!
Get all your paint squeezed out onto a palette (or a bit of acetate!!), so you don't need to stop to change colour. Add your first with broad strokes of the brush..

My 'brush of choice' is a make up brush! A foundation brush to be precise. Love the feel of them, they're cheap as anything and the bristles don't fall out and stick to your work!
White is great to add in between colours to blend....

I don't stop to clean the brush either, just keep going! Pale purple next...

To stop it looking too 'blocky', add in more purple over the blue...

Plenty of white to bring the colours together! Up to now, I have used vertical strokes. Add in a few horizontal too...

I use less horizontal strokes when applying wet colour over wet colour because these tend to mix up the colours and make things a little too muddy for my taste. Up to you though! Now I add in my dark 'pop' colour...

Still wet over wet, and still not cleaned the brush as you can see! Less of the darker colour as it will obliterate everything otherwise. Colour needs to be a bit balanced though, so add a little more dark on the other edge of the piece...

I love the blue/white/purple scheme, but decided to add in a bit of pink for a change!

By now, the paint is starting to dry off, so you get nice texture as well as colour as the wet paint drags over the drier paint underneath..

That is the base layer finished...and should have taken about a minute and a half!

Now we need to add the details, so clean your brush and dry off the wet paint on the background!
This next set of pictures look very similar.... Each layer of detail is subtle, but it all adds up!
I stencilled a little through some sequin waste..

Next, print a few lines here and there..

Dots and circles...

Stamping...

And the final touch, sewing the background to a bit of black card! I also did some stitching over the paint to add more detail..

This is now very nearly done, just focal images/embellishments to add, and then text. Sometimes I add more to the painty details too, if I feel the end look is missing something! In this case I added red accents to tie in with the red hearts.
I created a flower look from some rather awesome Prima mechanicals pendants...

I covered the metal with gesso, then just flicked purple paint at them! The hearts are Fimo clay, painted red and with tiny blue dots added. Wire stems, with coils around them to make them a little more substantial! The deep pendants make wonderful 3D flowers..

Final touch, words cut from a book..

Phew...are you still with me?!!
I hope you have a go at the speedy painty backgrounds....great fun and a great base for any page!

Love Trish xxx