Hello!

Today is very exciting as we have a new range of the most gorgeous products designed by the very talented Melina Dahl. There are new and beautiful stamp designs and the amazing substrates with matching masks to create artwork with and this is my take on the wreath shadow box which I made autumnal.

Each wreath comes with the base and top with an extra wreath shape to glue on to to hide the joins but if you do as I did and create a paper wreath to glue on top, you're left with the topper to make another project - 2 for the price of 1 - what's not to like!

I stencilled the wreath on to thick cartridge paper with Light Texture Paste which is great for paper projects as it's much lighter than the normal paste. I then left it to dry thoroughly.

I placed the mask back over the top, holding it in place with small bits of masking tape and cut it out. I put it to one side to work on the shadow box itself.

I decided to crackle the base section to provide a good contrast to the brighter top so I painted it first with Gold Multi Surface Paint (you have to use metallics as the base coat as it won't crackle on top) and then added a layer of Crackle Glaze. Once it was tacky, I brushed Chestnut Brown, Orange and Bright Red Multi Surface Paints on top. I painted the joining pieces brown and glued them in place.

I glued the top section in place and added my painted wreath on top. I then took the Gold Multi Surface Paint and added accents all around the edges and on top of some areas to give a lovely gleaming finishing touch.

I then had a bit of a dilemma as I didn't want to cover up the crackled centre by adding things to it so after a bit of thought (and consulting my fellow dt members - thanks guys, you really did help!), I stamped some butterflies with brown ink using the new stamp set and coloured them with markers, cutting the butterflies from the main image and gluing them round the outside instead.

Don't forget to look at That's Crafty! Creatives Group Facebook page as you'll see lots more examples of what to create with this amazing substrate and Jo Channon is doing a Facebook Live next Monday so do join the group if you haven't already.

See you next week.