Then, using coordinating VersaFine Clair colours, I stamped some random text. 

A selection of mushrooms and toadstools were cut out and coloured with Studio Light Markers.

 I love these mushroom/toadstool stamps - there's so much you can do with them.

Hello!

I have a bit of home decor to share this week that would be the perfect gift for anyone moving into a new home and this is really easy to make too. It's something where you could switch up the colours to a more vintage vibe or bolder colours.

My substrate for this is an MDF plaque which is rather a cool shape with the nicked out corners. I covered the plaque with one of Melina's papers in lovely pastel shades from the pastels and rainbow set.

I used the Circle Crazy stencil with Teal Multi Surface Paint to add a pattern randomly on the paper.

I stamped the house key on smooth white paper and coloured it with markers, adding extra black around the edges to make the images pop. I cut this out and glued it onto a Craftyboard shape that matched the image.

I took some Craftyboard hearts and painted these with Magenta Multi Surface Paint. 

I glued everything in place and finished off with text stamped on smooth card with black ink and trimmed into shape. I twisted some wire through the top.

Have a great weekend and see you next week.

The lovely Laura has the new Pentart Dipping Paint and Chrome Rub on Pigments in stock and I have to say that I love them and have had a wonderful time playing with them. Instead of a mixed media home decor piece today I thought I would show that they can also be taken into your paper crafting and so am sharing with you a  card made with them.

 

My card blank was 8" square and so I started by cutting a piece of paper from the Casa Granada 12 x 12 paper collection slightly smaller than the card front and then sponged tacky glue (I used Pentart but Studio Light's version will work just as well) through the Home Stencil and once the glue had "dried" applied a mixture of gold and brass pigments over the glue to give a foiled detail to the background.

I then added more of the tacky glue to Tiles Decorative Chips again letting it go tacky before applying the pigments along side a tiny amount of the Gecco Green powder which is anything but green - its a really beautiful turquoise.

I knew I was going to add some floral elements from the papers and took some plastic green leaves from the stash adhering them with hot glue to a lolly pop stick before dunking them into the Dipping Paint and standing them up in a polystyrene block so that the excess paint could drip off and the leaves dry with a smooth glossy surface. The Dipping Paint adheres to materials that are really quite difficult to get product to stick too - think plastic, acrylic, ceramic and glass. Once the Dipping Paint was dried I then added the Gold Chrome Pigment to the Dipping Paint - you will need to add a thin smear of Transparent Wax to the surface before applying the powder either with your fingers or a sponge eye make up applicator. 

Once all of my components were assembled I then set about layering the pieces together adding in the window and word thank you from the Casa Granada Wooden Shapes building dimension with left over cardboard.

Fussy cut florals from the paper collection were then clustered over the window. 

Finally I added some faux flowers tucking in both the undecorated and gold dipped leaves and then some more paper flowers until I was happy with my composition.

I hope you have liked this tutorial and pick up the courage to explore this wonderful medium - I have found at least 10 different uses and would love to know if you can find more.

It was time to start a new art journal and this is a little bit of a different journal for me to work in, the Studio Light Journal has a combination of kraft, black and white papers. For this blog post I am sharing two spreads where I worked on the kraft surface and where I am continuing to try to embrace working with the Mini Paper Dolls.  

The plans for this journal, I really have no idea at this stage. Normally a theme prevails in the journals I work in so it will be interesting to see if more of the dolls appear in this journal over time. 

That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Lynne's Affirmations Set 1 (butterfly wings and stars)
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Textures Set 1
StudioLight Journal Jenine's Mindful Art Journal - New Awakening
Tim Holtz Idea-ology Mini Paper Dolls 
Dina Wakley Media Typed Ledgers Set 1
That's Crafty! Medium Walnut Ink Crystals (substitute with Powder) 
That's Crafty! Multi-Purpose Craft Adhesive
That's Crafty! Medium Texture Paste
That's Crafty! Multi-Surface White Paint
Archival Ink Pad Jet Black
US ArtQuest Mica Tile
Extras: sewing machine, rusted fabric, muslin, white paint pen, palette knife

Mixing the Texture Paste with the White paint, it was applied to the Kraft pages with a palette knife, scraping into the paper. 

Leave a few moments before misting areas with water and applying with a small brush, Walnut Ink - 

I happen to have the Walnut Ink Crystals in my stash but the Powder will work equally well.  

The cluster of stars from Affirmations Set 1 were stamped on the left side page.

Once this is dry, free flow journaling with white paint pen.

The butterfly wings from Affirmations Set 1 were stamped onto scrap piece of cardstock (stained with Walnut Ink) fussy cut and layered to one of the Paper Dolls Minis.

Muslin scraps were stained with Walnut Ink, machine stitched to the pages with one scrap layered to a piece of rusted calico. 

From the Typed Ledger Set 1, selecting (there are so many to pick from) Embrace all that is you.

The second journal spread follows on from the style of the first spread, this time using one of That's Crafty! Texture stamps to create patterned areas on both pages and a piece of US ArtQuest Mica Tile onto which the Typed Ledger paper words are layered.

Thank you for visiting.

Wishes

Lynne

 

For today's project I went to my Studio Light and Distress Oxide stash to create a fun, colourful card.

I started by stamping Studio Light Grunge Butterfly 205 with VersaFine Clair Twilight on plain white cardstock. I then used my sponge brushes and Iced Spruce, Salvaged Patina, Wilted Violet, and Saltwater Taffy Distress Oxides to colour the image. 

Once the whole image was coloured, I went into finer detail with a paint brush over areas of the butterfly wings with the Wilted Violet and Saltwater Taffy. To finish the detail of the main panel I used That's Crafty! Metallic Antique Gold Multi Surface Paint to pick out small elements from the butterfly wings. and then used the Iced Spruce to create a shadow around the butterflies.

For the background panel I used black card and Studio Light Grunge Circles Mask96, and the same Distress Oxides I used on the butterfly panel. I had forgotten how effective using Distress Oxides on black card can be. I used my sponge applicators to apply the colours, building up the layers to create a textured background.

I finished by applying some of the Antique Gold paint through the stencil and around the edge of the panel. 

I mounted the background panel onto a black card, leaving a small border then added some scrap pieces of mountboard to the back of the main butterfly panel and mounted that on the background panel. 

My project this week started off with this Craftyboard bee that was left over from a show sample a while back. i decided to use it on a 6x6 journal page that I stencilled with Texture Paste and then painted in red and orange.

I added some text stamping in Archival ink.

Then I overstencilled the hexagons with some of this Calambour paste...

and added a touch of gold paste on top.

The bee was coloured with Ranger Enamels, but you could also use thick paint covered with Gloss Gel.

 

Hello!

I have a mixed media shadow tag to share this week where I've used the amazing That's Crafty! Crackle Glaze on a couple of different surfaces to show that it's useful for all sorts of things and I've done this with my favourite multi colour technique.

 

Step by Step:

 

I assembled my chosen tag shape first as usual, using That's Crafty! Multi Purpose Craft Adhesive. One it was dry, I painted all sides except for the very centre with black gesso. I didn't bother colouring the centre as it will be covered up.

 

I then painted on a layer of Crackle Glaze and left this until it was tacky. Once it was ready, I painted over the top with Orange, Teal and White Multi Surface Paints and waited for the cracks to appear.

 

I then glued a stack of MDF waste bits in the centre to be able to raise up the background that I planned to add. These leftovers are so useful!

My next task was to prepare my background panel and I took a piece of watercolour paper cut to the same size as the inner area. I created the crackle effect as before, painting first with black gesso. A coat of crackle glaze was added on top and once tacky, I painted on the Orange, Teal and White Multi Surface Paints in rough downward streaks.

I added more interest with one of my favourite background stamps (I do love a bit of Einstein being an accountant in my work life) using black ink and then added painty circles with white gesso and a kitchen towel cardboard roll.

I inked the edges black and then glued the paper in place in the back of the tag on my stacked background.

I then prepared my embellishments stamping some of the gorgeous floral designs from Melina on smooth white paper with black ink and colouring them with Pentart liquid watercolours which are fab for quick painting.

I then assembled the tag using a mix of That's Crafty! glue and 3D adhesive for added dimension.