Hi Everyone

Welcome to my Thursday weekly post of Creativity.

This week I have been creating with another of That's Crafty! fabulous surfaces- a door hanger.
 Much as I like the design and purpose of this surface I thought I would show you how you can 'change it up' with a few simple cuts in the right places to create a small art panel. 

Taking the hanger I measured and marked out where I would 'cut' to create two separate panels.
I also rounded off the corners as you can see indicated in the photo below.

I then primed both panels with gesso. Taking the larger of the two panels I covered it with some 'lacey wide braid/ trim/ ribbon- not sure of its official name ?? It was destined for the bin after a recent sort out that is until I thought maybe I could use it to add some interesting texture in my art.....

It is adhered and sealed in place with matte medium.

I then played around a bit adding a little more texture using gesso and texture paste. 

Products Used:

That's Crafty! Surfaces : White/Greyboard Door Hanger Style 1 
That's Crafty! ATCoin
13Arts 'His and Hers Remastered' 12x12 Paper 'Wings of Freedom' designed by Olga Heldwein
White Cardstock
White Gesso
Ranger Texture Paste
DecoArt Matte Medium
Black Acrylic Paint - (you can use any brand you wish)
PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paint - Butter (you can use any colour and brand you wish)
Dina Wakley Acrylic Paint - Cheddar (you can use any colour and brand you wish)
Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Squeezed Lemonade , Rusty Hinge
That's Crafty! All Purpose Adhesive
AALL and Create Stencil #39 Lotsa Dotz by Autour de Mwa 
Texture/detail stamp -a good selection are available here 
Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs
Tim Holtz Mini Snips
Acrylic block
Palette knife
Pen Nibs 
Tim Holtz Quote Chip
Paper Trimmer
Ruler
Pencil
Paintbrush
Plastic frame
Eyelets
Latticed braid / Ribbon

I hope you have enjoyed your time here with me today and that maybe my creativity has offered some inspiration. 

Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Hello! I'm super excited today to be trying out a new camera, a very lovely birthday present so today you get two photos from me! 

I'd had this little, plain, brown note book hanging around my craft room for sometime so finally put it to good use, it's approximately 4 in x 6 in so perfect for a little bag or big pocket.

There are times when I don't want to take what I'm making too seriously and just want to try a looser style of working and I've also tried to keep it quite dreamy and childlike.

This second photo captures the sparkle, made using a liquid chrome pen, on the fairy boy's wings, something my old camera may not have shown so well.

I do hope you like it, thanks for looking and have a lovely day, Sam xx

Hi Everyone

For this weeks make I decided to start by throwing the colour around and just go with the flow using lots of Dina Wakley products old and new. 

Here's What I Did:

My art is created on an 8" x 8" That's Crafty! MDF panel that I began by giving it a light covering of white gesso. I then chose my Dina Wakley paint colours and applied them to the MDF a couple of colours at a time squeezing a little paint out and then smearing it and splattering it around using a small palette knife. I left each couple of layers I scraped around time to dry before adding further layers as I didn't want to blend the paints together to much. I kept doing this until I was happy with the results.

I then brayered on some white paint on the left hand side and then laid the wallpaper stencil over and removed the paint through the stencil, you can see it slightly on the photo but it got a bit lost to be honest. I then stencilled through the Circle Faces stencil using a Black Scribble Stick softening the pencil by dampening my finger on a baby wipe and rubbing through the stencil. I then roughly scribbled circles around them all still using the Scribble Stick but also went around again with the Magenta Scribble Stick. To add some interest an texture to my scribbled circle I added a selection of torn strips of washi tapes. 

Next was to prepare the Persona chipboard shapes, I gave them faces using a couple of faces that feature on the washi tapes I then, using Dina's paints match the shapes to match the colour of the faces. The paint treatment I gave them was similar to how I prepared the panel. I added a little stamped writing to them to add further interest. 

Hello Everyone

My Guest project this week is a bright, colourful tag, inspired by the lovely Spring weather we are experiencing at the moment.

Throughout the book, for both sides, I featured some Wildflowers.

I normally reach for script stamps from That's Crafty! Texture Collections but the 13Arts Script stamp brings a different energy, a boldness to it.

I wanted to bring attention to the Script stamp. For some areas, I only partially inked up the stamp, wanting a grungy effect and in other areas, you can see, it is second generation stamping. 

This is the second circle on the ATCoins set with more of the words from that same set formed into a sentiment.

A peek at the pages. You can see clearly the addition of the Walnut Ink and more of the Lustre Aubergine and Blackberry on the pages. 

When we make our own books, the possibilities are endless!

Another photo!

Another example of forming the stamped words into a sentiment

Hey everyone!

Do you ever wonder who those people were, the ones that have ended up adorning our art journal pages, cards and collages?  It always makes me a little sad to contemplate them - it must be the end of the line for that particular family, for their photos to be found in antique shops, but no-one to tell their stories anymore.  So we should invent new stories for them - and this Rusty Old Geezer just caught my attention, I thought he looked like he would know all about cogs and gears and mechanical stuff, so that's what he's ended up doing here: Meet Archie Starkadder - fringe inventor and partial to the odd pint of pale ale.

Materials Used:

That's Crafty! Surfaces MDF ATC Chunkies
That's Crafty! White Gesso
That's Crafty! Texture Paste
That's Crafty! Texture Sand Paste
Ranger Archival Ink Pad: Sky Blue
Ranger Archival Ink Pad: Cornflower Blue
Ranger Archival Ink Pad: Orange Blossom
Ranger Archival Ink Pad: Sepia
PaperArtsy ESA10 - Seth Apter stamp set
Stencil Girl S304 'Discovery' stencil
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Paper Dolls: Ancestors
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic Paint: Burnt Sienna
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic Paint: Carbon Black
DecoArt Mdia Fluid Acrylic Paint: Cobalt Teal Hue
Metal embellishments of your choice - I used some gears and cogs and an old radiator key

Gotta say, I'm totally in love with these ATC chunkies - and think this project would make a nice alternative to a birthday card, it would be quite simple to personalise it with somebody's name, maybe hidden at the back. Next time I do one of these with some cogs and gears, I'm going to wait and glue the chunkie together until the end, so that the gears can be attached with a split pin through a wee hole and thus be movable - the perfect stress reliever to fiddle with at your desk!  But let's get started:

Once glued together, paint Chunkie with two thin coats of white gesso. When dry, run the Sky Blue ink pad over the surfaces, blend with tool of your choice and leave to dry thoroughly - you can use a heat gun, but watch those fingers ;)

From the Seth Apter stamp set, use the text stamp and stamp all over the Chunkie in Orange Blossom - obviously the stamp is smaller than the Chunkie, so stamp it partly, then turn a quarter around and stamp again on the next blank space. Continue until all surfaces are stamped, then dry thoroughly.

Next, use the tag stamp inked up in Cornflower Blue, stamp front and back, and partly on the other three sides. Dry, then use the round 'Gallons' stamp inked up in Sepia and stamp on the front - partly on the top, left hand side and bottom - don't try and fit in the whole stamp!  If there are any little spaces you think look a bit bare, dab up some bubble wrap with Sepia ink and lightly touch down.  Dry thoroughly between each stamp. Stamp the Gallons stamp partly on the sides in Sepia ink as well.  If you're a bit unsure about stamping patterns like these, practice on a piece of paper first - it's one of my favourite things to do with stamps, to make your own background papers like this, mixing colours that complement or contrast.


Next, use the Orange Blossom ink pad on the text stamp, and stamp onto the body of the paper doll - this will take a wee while to dry.  I'm sorry that I forgot to take a photie of Archie by himself in his enhanced suit, but you get the idea from the picture below:



Now for the radiator key - this is one of the easiest ways to produce a fake rust effect: using your fingertips, simply rub a bit of sand paste in irregular patches over the radiator key, and when dry, dab on some blotches of Carbon Black.  Once that's dry, dab Burnt Sienna all over, leaving some black colour peeping through. When dry, lightly touch the edges with some Cobalt paint - yeah, I know that rust doesn't usually go turquoise, but it's so puuuuurty!!

Once I'd decided which embellishments to use, I positioned them and then added the paper doll, but only gluing everything down once I was happy with the positions. I finished off by adding little accents of texture paste through the stencil and then, because I really like black and white check, used fine-tip Posca pens to make this pattern on the tab edges of the Chunkie.


Lastly, I glued on the grunged up radiator key - and Archie Starkadder is ready to go out into the world!

Well, that's if for this week - I hope you all have a lovely and relaxing weekend, and maybe even get to do some crafting!

Lotte x

Hello!

I have something rather different to share this week as a couple of weeks ago I challenged myself to have a go at drawing faces and this mixed media journal page is the result of my first experiment. It ended up with rather a retro feel as I think she's turned into a flower child from the 1960s!

Step by Step

For this I'm working in my largest size journal which is 23 x 33cm with thick paper and was found in a certain discount store. I had a practice run with sketching my face first and did this quite quickly in a lined notepad.


As I was reasonably happy with my sketch, I traced the basic shape to use on my journal page.


I transferred the traced image on to my journal page as my starting point and then began to decorate the surrounding area.

I tore pieces of vintage book page and added these to the corners and part of the right side, sticking on with matte medium. I then sponged Distress Oxide inks in pink, blue and yellow all around the edges. I coloured my image's face with Tattered Rose Distress Oxide using Spun Sugar on her cheeks.

The colours were a little pale so I topped them up with scribbled Distress Crayon in similar shades, spreading the colours with a damp finger - very messy but great fun! I left the page to dry thoroughly before the next step.

I took pne of the new round Dinky stencils and sponged the pattern on several times with Mermaid Lagoon Distress Oxide ink, followed by Picked Raspberry.

My next step was to create hair for my image which I did using a mix of pastel and chalk pencils with graphite tint pencils until I was happy with the effect. I then coloured the eyes and lips, the eyes being the most difficult and I'm still not sure about them!

I drew a flower on her cheek (this was to cover up a smudge I managed to get on her face - note to self, wash hands after working with pastel pencils!!!) and coloured this with pencils.

I felt the page needed more oomph so I glued on some flowers from my bits box which had been stamped and white heat embossed on yellow and orange ink sprayed papers and were perfect for my page. I think black stamping would have been too heavy.

I finished off with one of Lynne's beautiful affirmations as I thought this one described my page very well.



Supplies:

That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Fanciful Flowers Set 1
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Lynne's Affirmations Set 4
That's Crafty! Round Dinky Stencil - TC134 Daisy Explosion
That's Crafty! Flat Matte Sprays - Orange, Saffron
Distress Oxide Inks - Broken China, Scattered Straw, Mustard Seed, Worn Lipstick, Hickory Smoke, Tattered Rose, Spun Sugar, Mermaid Lagoon
Distress Crayons - Broken China, Mustard Seed, Worn Lipstick
Black Pigment Ink
Embossing Ink
White Embossing Powder
DecoArt Matte Medium
Coloured Pencils 
Vintage Book Pages (or you could use a script stamp)

Hi Everyone

Welcome to my Thursday Weekly post of Creativity!

This week I have been baking with Seth Apters /Emerald Creeks Baked Texture Embossing Powders to create a Grungy tag embellished with some of my own 'rusty' findings.

I have used 5 of the 7 2018 debut release of Baked Textures - Chunky Rust, Green Patina, Dirty Sand, Ancient Amber and Vintage Beeswax. That's Crafty! have them available to order along with this years release of Baked Textures, of which there are 12 new flavours. Be sure to check them out here and here.

My substrate is a #8 That's Crafty! Greyboard tag. I primed it with Gesso and then scraped texture paste roughly and randomly over the surface. Whilst the paste was still wet I began adding the Baked Texture EP's sprinkling them over the surface one by one until the tag was fully covered. I then applied heat using a heat gun and watched the BT's transform and the magic happen!
Once I had a carpet of melted colour and texture I continued to add sprinklings of the various flavours wherever I felt they were needed, heat setting as I sprinkled- no rules just following my creative muse until I was happy.

Here's a few close ups of the rich pools and sprinklings of melted colour

aswell as the fabulous grungy texture achieved by the texture paste/BT combination.

The Focal Feature

For the base layer I created a rusty panel using sand texture paste and DecoArt Media Fluids

and for the second layer I heat embossed a piece of old 'chocolate box' packaging with Patina Oxide and Chunky Rust.

A close up shows you more of those sprinklings

To embellish I dug out a few of my rusty metal findings that I discovered when out and about last year clocking up my 'steps' . I thought they would be well suited to my grungy baked tag. 

With the 'rust' already present I just simply caught the edges with metallic wax before adhering in place along with a couple of eyelets.

I adhered a big chat sticker to an off cut of greyboard, tinted it with Distress ink and heat embossed it with Vintage Beeswax.

To finish off I threaded some jute through the tag hole and bound it with some metal wire

I hope you have enjoyed your time here with me today and that maybe my 'Baking' has offered some creative inspiration.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Hope you all have a great week and hope to see you again next week .... same time, same place

Take Care

Amanda

x

(ink-a-pink)