Hello!

I have one of my samples from Monday's shows on Hobby Maker TV to share this week. It has rather a lot of crackle as I've been experimenting with the Daily Art one coat transparent crackle paint and can say that I love it!

The MDF box I used for this is really easy to put together and I glued 3 sides to the base, leaving the last side (one with the loop for fitting the lid) until the lid was decorated.

I painted the lid with Teal and Light Blue Multi Surface Paints. Once the paint was completely dry, I brushed on a coat of the Crackle Paint and left it to dry and crackle. Once the surface had finished crackling I brushed on a coat of Daily Art Bitumen and buffed the surface with a paper towel.

I then used the butterfly Dinky stencil with Chestnut Brown paint to add a pattern over the top.

I created some embellishments for the top using inchies which I covered with some green overflow paper from my bits box. I stamped a leafy branch on 4 of the inchies using green ink and left the others as they were. I stamped 4 daisies on orange paper and cut the images out.

I brushed Crackle Paint on the leafy inchies and left this to dry. I glued all the inchies in place, leaving the centre uncovered. I glued the daisies in place and brushed on a little Crackle Paint. 

I prepared the sides by covering them with more of my overflow papers (I have quite a lot!) On 2 of the sides, I stencilled on dragonflies and the other I stamped script with blue ink and then stencilled on butterflies. I brushed crackle paint over all sides and when dry crackle appeared. The surfaces bubbled in a couple of places but went down when dry so don't worry if yours does that.

As you can see, I decorated 2 sides with dominoes which I covered with orange paper and stamped with leafy images using dark green ink. I brushed them with crackle paint. I glued them in place and finished those sides with stamped dragonflies.

The other 2 sides have inchies which were covered with papers in shades of blue. They were stamped with the leafy branch image and bees. They were also brushed with crackle paint. I added butterflies to these stamped on yellowish paper and a bit of orange added.

I added a butterfly to the top. The insides of the box were painted green and the inner lid stamped with the tile image using brown ink (note to self - next time do this before putting the lid in place!).

I brushed some glitter glaze on the butterflies and dragonflies to finish - you can just see that on the photo above, along with the crackle on the inchies.

Have a great weekend and see you next week.

I am back creating with Sir Vagabond Aviator this week and have created a 10" square home decor panel using lots of mixed media techniques. 

To start with I had some scraps of rice paper having used the focal image for a secret project that needed to be used and so I  feathered the edges with water and pulled off small amounts of the paper before adhering them onto the canvas with Decoupage Glue - Matte. Once that had dried I added some Structure Paste through the Walls and Pipes Stencil and again left it to dry before filling in the gaps and scraping with a palette knife over the stencilled areas and rice paper some White Crackle Paste. Once this was dried I added a little Green and Chestnut Lasur Gel to the white areas - wiping back the surface to leave the colour concentrated in the cracks and around the stencilling. 

From the 8 x 8 paper pad I chose the paper with the clock on it and then fussy  cut using a scapel around each of the main rings of the clock creating three pieces which I added with Mixed Media Glue to some Kraft coloured mount board. Sealing the papers on top with more of the glue. Once these were dry I cut around the out edge of each piece keeping the central mountboard pieces in place as I knew that I was going to stack them on the final piece. 

Whilst these were drying I fussy cut the Stature of Liberty, Lady Vagabond, propellers and words from the papers and also prepared some cogs and the crow. The cogs (left overs) but lots to choose from on the website if you search for greyboard were painted with Mahogany, Brick Red, Cookie and the tiniest bit of Indian Turquoise Allegro paint. Spritzing with water to allow the colours to mist (don't overstaturate though as the greyboard will fall apart if you do).

The crow was cast with Amazing Casting Resin using the Fly High mold. Once set the cast piece was primed with bonding fluid before painting with Anthracite, Dark Grey, Light Blue and Old Ivory.

Hello!

I have a 2 for 1 technique to share this week which is perfect for Christmas. There's always so much else to do nearer Christmas that it's good to have some cards in reserve.

The 2 for 1 background came about because I cut  a piece of cartridge paper to fit my chosen 5 x 7ins card blank and smeared paint on my craft mat, choosing Sandstone, Buttercup, Chestnut Brown and Antique Silver Multi Surface Paints. I misted on some water and pressed the paper into it. I found it picked up quite a lot of paint so I cut another piece of the cartridge paper the same size and pressed it on the painty paper. There you have it - 2 backgrounds!

I decided to stamp one with snowflakes and the other with fir branches. I embossed the snowflakes gold and the fir with silver.

I also spritzed on a little Gold and Silver Lustre spray for a little added shine.

For this one I took a Craftyboard bauble and stamped it with a snowflake which I then heat embossed with gold powder. I painted the top antique gold and misted it with Silver Lustre spray. I tied some string through the top.

I stamped the greeting on a strip of vellum and heat embossed it with gold powder, wrapping it around the background paper and gluing it on the back. I then glued the background to the card blank and added the bauble to finish.

This one is very simple and I just added some string in a criss cross pattern before gluing the background paper to the card.

I finished off with a sentiment stamped and heat embossed with gold on a white card strip. I trimmed it with decorative scissors and added a gold mat before gluing in place on the card.

Have a great weekend and see you next week.

I would say that I am not an art journaller - partly because each page takes a relatively short time to do and I craft quick so they don't keep me entertained for long and partly because I really haven't seen the point of it. However with the advent of lots of journalling items by Stamperia I have taken the plunge my way - is this make an art journal? or is it a photo album? or is it made just because - I will leave you to decide.

The starting point for this make was actually to fill the inner pages as I think once the cover is decorated it would be much harder to work on it given how dimensional I have made it. For my post today however I am going to concentrate on the cover and leave the pages for another post.

I took an A5 Stone Paper Mixed Media Journal because I knew I was going to add paints and crackle mediums to each page and did not want the pages to warp with the wet mediums and then added a wash of paint mixing three colours - Garden Green, Milk White and Powder Blush paints on the surface and lifting some of the colour with scrunched up paper towel so that I could seen the texture on the cover in some areas. 

 

I then applied torn pieces of  Our Way Manuscript rice paper using Mix Media Glue covering the entire surface of the journal with the glue to add another layer of protections. Once this had dried I added gold crackle paste - but Gold Glamour Paste would work equally well. 

Whilst the cover was drying I cast a camera using Amazing Casting Resin and the Travel Accessories mould and several feathers from the Feathers mould. Whilst I painted the handbag I eventually decided not to use it. I primed the resin pieces with Bonding Primer and then painted them with milk white acrylic paint. The below's of the camera were painted with Mahogany and the darker areas with Anthracite acrylics and left to dry. I then brushed the Rust Vintage Patina to the brown areas and wiped back lifting some of the brown paint to reveal the ivory underneath. The dark areas were then covered with Grey Vintage Patina which was again wiped back before adding White Vintage Patina. Finally I added Graphite Metallic wax and then some Gold Metallic wax.

The feathers were simply painted with Rust Vintage Patina wiped back to reveal the feather details.

Fussy cut images from the Our Way Collectables were chosen and then layered with the moulds onto the front of the cover. Some areas of the cover still looked bare so I added some crackle stamping to those parts before finally I adding splatters with watered down milk white and anthracite paint.

Happy Monday That's Crafty! Creatives. Hope you're keeping nice and cool in this hot hot weather.

For today's project I've dipped into my Journal It Templates Set 2 to create this fun tag book. 

I started by creating my pockets for the tags using one of the Journal It Policy Envelope templates, but taking off the fold over closure. 

I glued the side and bottom flaps over, then cut the notches to make 6 envelopes for the tag book. As I was going to lay the envelopes on top of each other to create a concertina, I only wanted to decorate along the sides of each envelope. I chose the new Studio Light Grunge Letter Mask and Distress Oxides Cracked Pistachio and Carved Pumpkin to decorate the pockets.

I applied That's Crafty! Multi Purpose Craft Adhesive down the centre of the first envelope, starting approx. a third of the way down, then sticking the next envelope directly on top. 

Then carried on applying glue to the middle of the envelope on top and layering the next envelope on top. This created a concertina of envelopes ready for the tags. 

For the front and back covers I cut two pieces of black card approx. 4.75 x 3 inches, then two pieces of white card slightly smaller. To decorate I stamped the two distress colours onto my mat then spritzed with a little water. I then smeared the two white pieces of card across these colours then heat set with my heat tool. I did this a couple of times to get my desired background.

For the detail I used the Studio Light Grunge Inspire and Create stamp, and randomly stamped the images across the front and back covers of the tag book using the Cracked Pistachio, Carved Pumpkin and Uncharted Mariner Distress Oxides and the Versafine Clair Nocturne ink pad.

Once finished, I attached the front and back covers to the set of concertina envelopes, again just gluing down the middle, approx. two thirds from the top of the cover. 

Happy Crafting!