Time Flies

Hi guys!  I've been playing with various media to make this Time Flies canvas.

I started off by making my weathered wood panel by swiping Distress Ink minis from top to bottom.

Then scoring it every half inch before stamping with the Peeled Paint background stamp from Darkroom Door.  I painted my canvas with black gesso and adhered the panel to the canvas.

Added a few buttons, paper flowers, bandage fabric scrap and some moulded items from my stash, and painted those black.  

Once everything was dry I sprayed Dylusions White Linen over it and when that had dried, rubbed on some Viva Decor Inka Gold in Lava Red, Jade and Gold.

The Inka Gold adds a lovely antique metallic look to the painted flowers.

Using the Julie Nutting Mixed Media Doll Wings stamp as a template, I cut out a pair of wings from black card and painted them with Finnabair Art Alchemy Acrylic Paint - Opal Magic Rose-Gold.  You see the gold in one light, and the pale rose colour in another.  The clock is from Tim Holtz Curiosities, sponged with Antique Linen.

I hope time isn't flying too quickly for you this summer!

Enjoy your weekend.

Shirley x

Poppy Parade

Hi folks, and happy weekend :)  Shirley here with a little stamped creation for you.  I stamped two large outline poppies and one small outline poppy from the Donna Downey Poppies set using Versafine Onyx Black, masking as I went along.  I left the masks on while I stamped the background (Darkroom Door Background Stamp - Peeled Paint) using, appropriately enough, Peeled Paint Distress Ink.

After removing the masks, I painted the petals with Festive Berries and Barn Door Distress Inks, then added Walnut Stain Distress Stickles to the poppy stamens.  Once everything was dry, I sponged a bit of Fired Brick Distress Ink to the centres of the flowers to deepen the colour.

I wanted to jazz up the background, so I covered the poppies with the masks again and stamped the text from Dina Wakley's Textures set.

Then I decided that the gaps between the text needed to be filled in so I used the dot stamp from the Textures set.

Here's another version that I made first, but in a slightly different way.  I stamped the solid poppy images in Distress Ink, blasted with a heat gun, then stamped and gold-embossed the line images.    The embossing powder still managed to stick to the petal area but I deliberately left it, to give it a grungy look.  I was using mixed media paper (porous, similar to watercolour paper) and the embossing soaked into the paper, so I ironed it all off.  Then I watercoloured the background with Distress Inks and stamped the text.

So there you have it, two 6x6 inch stamped and watercolored panels, which can either be trimmed to fit a card front, or mounted and framed.

See you next time!

Shirley

Absolutely Ridiculous....

Hello!
Do you ever see a stamp (or anything else for that matter) , and think that it could have been made just for you? I did..... and of course I had to have it!!
This stamp by Darkroom Door is just so 'me' it's silly.....

It had to take centre stage really, so all I did was place it (stamped tissue/Mod Podge method!) in the niche of a back to front canvas.
The canvas was covered with book pages to disguise the metal clip things, then i smeared on white, pink , yellow and orange paint. Little bit of stencilling...

A little bit of stamping....

And a whole lot of FABULOUS text!

This is now hanging on the wall of my studio... and I keep finding myself looking at it, nodding sagely and declaring 'I quite agree' on a regular basis!

Have a good week everyone!
Trish xxx

ASOI product used:
White Gesso
Dina Wakely paint
Darkroom Door stamp

12 Brands of Christmas *Brand 6* Darkroom Door

I feel a bit smug at posting on the 12th the next brand which is Darkroom Door. Smug not only because it's the 12th day of our 12 Designers and 12 brands marathon but I just adore these little birds from a set called 'Carved Birds' and my attempt at giving them the festive touch.

Look out for another brilliant Designer tomorrow.

Jaine x

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

'To Be Happy' Shrine : A Tutorial

Hello!
Me again, back with another tutorial! I've gone for another 3D assemblage type affair today, a shrine. Here is the finished piece...

No pre cut shrine kits used, all done from scratch which means you can make them any size and shape you want! Easy too, really! I'll show you......
Firstly, you need to decide on a shape and size for your shrine. I knew I wanted a house with a pointy roof, so that bit was easy, but I wasn't sure about size. The size can depend on various things, maybe you have something specific you want to put in the niche, so obviously you need to create something that will be big enough for your chosen object. I knew I wanted to use a specific set of wings behind the roof, so that was the detail I needed to take account of. I roughly stamped out the wings, and sketched out a shape to fit...

Once you have a shape, you can trace it onto chipboard and cut out....

Next we need to cut the pieces for the niche. The back part is easy as it is exactly the same as the hole the the front part, so simply draw around the hole onto more chipboard. The sides will depend on how deep you want your niche. I chose a 2cm deep niche, so cut my sides accordingly...

As you can see, the sides are the length of each side of the back, and all 2cm wide. Next, tape the niche together with masking tape....

You could use sellotape if you have no masking tape! At this point, when you fold up the sides, you can see the box like niche appearing!

Tape up the corners so the box stays in shape...

Now, at this point I should say that you are not to worry about gaps, sturdiness or neatness! We will be covering the whole thing inside and out with gel medium and book pages, which will cover up and gaps or unsightly tape. Gel medium dries rock solid, so will give added strength to your niche. The only thing you need to do at this point is trim away any difference in height of your sides!
The general idea is that the pieces will look like this...

Again, don't worry if the niche looks too small! The book pages will add extra width to the chipboard, and you can add as many layers of pages as you need if the gaps are still in evidence!
 So, cover with book pages....

Decorating the inside of a box is tricky at the best of times, and trying to decorate once the box is attached to the front piece will just make things harder! Decorate the niche at this point....
I painted everything with Lime Dina Wakley paint, then added a touch of Sky over the top to give a gentle turquoise look in places. I then added a cut out figure with a magic wand and a star behind her head. As you do....

 I then put it behind the front piece to see how it looked, and decided it needed a pop of colour. Red to be precise! I made the border by painting some copy paper...

And then doodling a border pattern...

This can then be cut out and glued into the niche. Copy paper is way more flexible than card stock, so I always use the thinner base if I'm wanting to glue it into tricky places!
The finished niche can then be attached to the front...

This is done very simply by glueing on more book pages across the join. Two or three layers for a strong bond!
The shrine stand is made from a small wooden candlestick, and one of my new favourite things...a Prima Mechanicals Pendant!

These were thoroughly gessoed (is that a word?) and then had more Lime and Sky paint added!
Glue everything together, and you have....

Your shrine!
The Prima pendant adds a fabulous shape to the stand...

The candlestick was splatted with black paint, then had red cord wrapped around it for that colour pop!

The front of the house was simply decorated using a circle stamp, and a house number. The butterfly wings were stamped onto red painted card before cutting out....

All stamps are Darkroom Door.
In the end, I added some red moss into my niche....

I liked the way it spilled out, creating more depth.
So, another tutorial, and I hope it has given you a few ideas....go make a niche!!!
Love Trish xxxxx