Shroom, Sweet, Shroom by Gill Humphrey

For this weeks make I have decided to use the same shadow box set that I used last week but to showcase it in a landscape format with both of the smaller boxes used as shadow boxes. The beauty of kits is that its entirely up to you how you use them - the way the image is on the packing, with one both or none of the smaller boxes, landscape or portrait there are so many variations to explore.

I started by constructing all of the boxes with Multi Purpose Glue choosing the pen format for accurate application. I then added Fine Texture Paste to the outside of the large box adding detail by drawing a cocktail stick though the wet paste to create a faux bark effect. Once the paste was dry I painted all of the boxes with Apricot Multi Surface Paint and left it to dry. To highlight the texture and to mute down the apricot colour I then covered everything with Antiquing Paste wiping back the excess till I was happy with the result. 

To create the brown background piece I scored a piece of white super smooth card stock at 1/2" and 1" intervals and then swiped from both the top and bottom of the paper piece Distress Oxide inks in Antique Linen, Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs in the direction of the score lines. The blue background was created by scoring at 1/2" intervals and then coloured using Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans and Weathered Wood Distress Oxides. I layered the colours going back and forth between them till I had built up a layer I was happy with.  The blue one was then cut to fit the inside of the smaller shadow boxes. Before adhering the brown background in place I added some stamping with Melina's Florals Set 2 using Acorn Versafine Clair.

Before carrying on I then stamped out lots of images from Shroom Sweet Shroom and Shroom Town stamp sets which were then covered using Flat Matte Sprays in Saffron, Bluebell, Ochre, Redwood, Grass Green and Tomato as watercolour paints rather than sprays before cutting them out. 

 

The background pieces were cut to size and adhered in place before adding the mushrooms and "trees". By using the shadow boxes you have created lots of layers onto which you can place your images creating a dimensional piece within the box. I layered some pieces for added stability on layers of waste card or small bobbins.

Once the main compostition had been created I then filled in the gaps using twigs from the garden, natural small wood slices and moss from my stash. I added some extra mushrooms into the foreground for added detail and then used some left over small flowers from last weeks project to make the garden complete.

My title was stamped and then the card cut to size before edging with Chipped Sapphire Distress Oxide and spritzing with water to get the ink to spread. This was glued in place but I still felt my piece was missing something so added some stamped and coloured butterflies from set 2.

For those of you that watched The Craft Store show on the 22nd of December the picture below is the project created as a sample before the show and hopefully you can see how I decided to evolve the piece into the make that I have created above.