That's Crafty!: Listen to the Waves by Laura Holland

It’s been an absolute pleasure to take part in this collaboration with the Relics and Artifacts team and it gave me the chance to use the Relics and Artifacts for the first time and it certainly won't be the last! They are so smooth and are a joy to paint.

First I assembled the shrine and then gave it a very quick coat of gesso. I then painted DecoArt Texture Sand on the back and sides of the shrine and when this was dry, I used Prima White Sand Paste through the Dinky Fossil stencil. The Prima Sand Paste is nice and thick and holds its shape really well, so was perfect for creating the fossils.

Next I painted the front panel of the shrine with an aquamarine shimmer paint (coming soon!) and when dry, I brushed on some Pentart Crackle Medium. Once the crackle glaze was dry, I painted on a medium to thick coat of an ivory acrylic paint and waited for the cracks to appear!

While waiting for the magic to happen, I painted the shells from the Relics and Artifacts Coquille set. I used black gesso on the largest shell, leaving the inside the natural resin colour and painted the outside edge and back black. I also painted one of the smaller shells with the black gesso and left the other 2 small shells natural. I gave the unpainted shells a coat of Prima Art Alchemy Paint Opal Magic in Violet-Green and the gessoed shells a coat of Pink-Blue. These paints are brilliant for getting a different effect when using the same colour but a different base colour. I then used a patina paint set from Pentart on another of the shells and one of the small icons.

Next I stamped Marina (who is from one of our 2 new stamp sets that will be launched very soon) onto stamping card with Memento Ink and then embossed her with clear gloss embossing powder. I coloured her in with a mixture of Distress Markers and shimmer paints and then cut her out. I cut the seahorse off from her hair and stamped and embossed him again and coloured him in with a mixture of two colours of shimmer paint.

I then moved onto the inside of the shrine. I painted this with the paints from the patina kit, graduating the colours as I moved down the shrine. I spritzed it with water and then blended the colours more. When this was dry, I stamped and embossed the fish and coloured them in with Posca pens. I then stamped and embossed some phrases from the Marina stamp set onto the front of the crackled shrine and then it was ready to add all my elements.

I glued some Prima Art Stones to the bottom of the shrine and added a large pearl to the center of one of the shells. Another two of the shells were glued to the bottom corners of the front of the shrine and the patinated shell and icon were glued to the top. Next I glued Marina to the largest shell and popped her in place in the shrine. The seahorses were added to the front and for the finishing touch, I added some netting to the front of the shrine.