Here's What I Did:

I started this entire project by making my planks. First I brayered up several shades of Distress paints onto mixed media card in shades of brown giving a mix of shades in the finished card. Over this I then stamped with black Archival ink, the planks. This stamp I stamp several times filling the A4 painted card. I then cut each plank so I had individual planks, each plank was then distressed on each of the edges with a paper distresser tool (a real labour of love) as I had worked originally with white card, which was now exposed, I then coloured every distressed edge with a Ground Espresso Distress marker (another labour of love). I then stamped the Zombies onto stamping card, coloured them with blendable pencils and cut them out. I followed the veins in their eyes with a red Distress marker and added Glossy Accents to the eyes. I forgot that using a water based marker would bleed when mixed with the wetness of the Glossy Accents but I quite like the bleed effect that this achieved once the Glossy Accents were dry. I also stamped the Zombie hand but wanted to have a pair of hands so had to reverse the stamped image, this I achieved by stamping onto a small Gel Press and then stamping the gel press onto a piece of card and hey presto a reversed image.

Next was to create my signs. The Do Not Enter was stamped using Versamark so I could then add embossing powder which I heated to emboss as I wanted to start off with a pseudo enamel look that I could then rust up. This stamp doesn't stamp the words it stamps the surround so leaves the lettering as a negative space so I added colour after it was embossed with black Distress ink. I then rusted it up by first added Texture Sand Paste which when once dry coloured using DecoArt media fluid paints Quinacridone Gold and Paynes Grey and some black Distress crayon.

Now the final piece before I put it all together, the sentiment. I wanted the words to look pressed into the sign and this was achieved by cutting a piece of card to size and then adding several layers of embossing powder by covering each layer with Versamark and adding a layer of powder melting with a heatgun then repeat, I think I ended up doing 4 layers. I then prepared the stamp by inking it up with Versafine Clair ink (as it isn't fast drying) I then heated up the embossed card piece to soften it again and stamped with the inked stamp into the molten embossing powder. I left the stamp on until the embossing powder had cooled again. After peeling the stamp of I then gave it the same rust effect as I did on the sign. I did go into the depressed letters again using a Black Soot Distress marker to emphasise the text

Have a fabulous week and I'll see you all next Tuesday

Love

Amanda X