Shows, Christmas and some canvas fun!!

Guess what I'm going to hit you with...... a bit more Christmas! Sheena has a couple of shows this Saturday at 2pm and 6pm on Hochanda and she's got some of last years Christmas Perfect Partner stamps and dies on.  They were such a lovely collection and it's always fun to revisit an old friend :)

Was watching some Pebeo shows the other day and it reminded me of some paints that I first used over a couple of years ago when Sheena brought them to air along with a collection of flower stamps...Pebeo Prisme Paint, it's a wonderful paint that splits and creates great patterns as it dries all on its own, no effort required!! So out came the Prisme, the good old favourite Dyna paints, some Pebeo foil and  of course the Pebeo Gilding Wax and at the end of a the afternoon I had this Christmas canvas......

So let me give you a brief breakdown of what I did.  I started off by painting an 8" x 12" canvas with black gesso, then I made myself a spruce stencil by using the Spruce die to cut a shape from a piece of card. Then using a bit of sponge I applied some Dyna paint, I used the Green/Yellow and the Green/Blue colours.

 
For those of you who haven't used Dyna paints before they are thick acrylic paints packed with interference mica so will show different colours depending on the colour of the background they are painted onto and as they are moved. Once I'd finished stencilling on the spruce I then sponged a little extra colour around just to soften the look slightly. Then I die cut some baubles from some ordinary card and from some old corrugated cardboard and ripped a bit of the surface away to show some of the corrugations.  You can see the effect in the picture below where I was placing things just to get an idea of composition.....

The corrugated baubles I painted with black gesso, then dry brushed some dyna paint on.  Once it was dry I then lightly applied some silver gilding wax and glued them in place on the canvas.  The ordinary card ones I also stuck in place but I outlined those with the gilding paste and then filled them with the Prisme  paint......just use a pipette and drop a little paint on and let it spread up to your raised line of gilding paste.

I also dropped a few dots of the Prisme paint randomly over the canvas and also splattered a bit of silver paint from a Pebeo paint pen. I used the gilding paste as well to 'pipe' the strings for the baubles.  Once the gilding paste had gone clear I applied some silver foil.....NOTE that if your Prisme paint is still tacky when you do this the foil will also stick to that as well. So if you don't want that just be careful. I let it happen because I liked the effect......

 

I finished it off by stamping and heat embossing a few festive words. This was such a lot of fun to create, love playing with lots of different paints! If you've never had a go then why not have a play yourself......trust me you'll be back to being a kid again with painty fingers!! :):)

Don't forget to tune in and watch Sheena, there will be lots of cool samples to see from the team :)

Thanks for stopping by
Donna xx

Canvas fun....

....and it's going to be lots of painty fun as well! I'm going to be doing a workshop at Crafter's Companions store at Newton Aycliffe on Sunday 7th August 10-3, cost is £45 and includes all your materials that you'll need for the project. We're going to be doing a 16" canvas with a mixture of stamping and die cutting with lots of Dyna paint, gesso, gilding wax and a bit of foiling thrown into the mix as well :) If you're in the area and are free it would be great to see you there, bookings are all being done through the store aycliffestore@crafterscompanion.co.uk / 01388 663251

Will be back in a couple of days with a little how to tutorial for another canvas but one with a definite Christmas feel :)

Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you at Newton Aycliffe on the 7th :)
Donna xx

The start of something new.....

......well as you probably know I'm head of Sheena's Design Team 'The Inkoids' and a few weeks ago I had an idea.......the team get a bit worried sometimes when I come up with ideas I think!! Lol!  Anyway I thought it would be a good idea if as a team we did regular projects using Sheena's products but instead of just from the current release like we usually do these projects would be using things from her large catalogue of stamps, dies, folders etc.  So much of what Sheena designs is drawn with the idea that they will coordinate with past releases so we thought we'd like to do  some projects showing just that.......showing how all the releases mix together to form a library of creativity.....gives us a good excuse to play as well! So every Monday and Thursday one member of the Inkoids will be publishing a project on their blogs/facebook page etc.

Thought as it was my idea I better kick it all off, so I have a Christmas card to share with you today using last years Christmas Perfect Partner stamps and dies (Baubles, lights, holly), this years Booklovers Christmas stamps (background holly, wording), Man's Best Friend stamp set (the dog) from The Little Bit Sketchy range, the Rock stamps (grunge band set, background stamps) and some Pebeo Foiling.

I started off by stamping the dog from 'Man's Best Friend' using Watering Can Archival Ink onto a piece of Sheena stamping card (approx 7 1/2")......

Then using some cut 'n' dry foam and some distress inks (barn door, wild honey, twisted citron, pumice stone, hickory smoke) I blended the background keeping most of the bright colour to the top left corner where the decorations and lights were going to go. The opposite corner I kept pretty neutral just adding the merest hint of colour. I also started to add some background stamping to the coloured area using some of the stamps from 'Grunge Band' .....

I painted the dog using a mixture of Walnut Stain and Pumice Stone Distress Ink, also adding some reds and yellows to his head and chest to indicate reflected light from the decorations......

Added a few 'light spots' by doing a bit of faux bleaching......splash on a few water droplets, leave for a few seconds and then blot with some tissue. Then I stamped some holly (from Christmas Child) around the edges and some wording (from Christmas Notes). Both were stamped in Watering Can Archival and then some colour added to the holly using distress inks.......

At this point I flicked some droplets of Pebeo Gilding Liquid over the surface and put on one side for it to 'dry' (needs to go clear before you can add the foil). To make the decorations I die cut some Holly, Baubles and Lights from last years Christmas Perfect Partner range then stamped them with the corresponding stamps (except the baubles, I left them un-stamped) and coloured with Distress Inks. For the baubles I blended over distress ink and then lightly highlighted the embossed areas with gold gilding wax. To give some more shimmer I very lightly rubbed over some of the embossed areas with Pebeo Gilding Paste and once that was dry (clear) I added some gold foil highlights.  Gives the baubles a nice vintage look I think......

To finish off I added to foil to the droplets of gilding liquid I had applied earlier, layered up the panel onto first some black card and then some gold mirror card before mounting it onto an 8" white card blank.  I used 3d glue gel to attach all the die cuts, shaping them to give extra movement before sticking in place. The final touches was to use a Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle pen on the lights and some gold Stickles on the edge of some of the holly leaves.

Thanks for stopping by,

Donna xx

Had a request.....

.....for a step by step on how to put the Sweet Pea's together that are part of Sheena's Perfect Partner range. So here goes, I warn you there are lots of photo's so you might want to make yourself a cuppa and get comfy!!

So first of all here are a couple of pictures of the finished flowers used on projects, the first shows them stuck directly onto a card, with some stamping and a bit of stencilling in the background.....

 This next one they are put together in the same fashion but I inserted a wire at the beginning so I could have wired sweet peas which I then used on this MDF plaque that I put together to use as a workshop project.....

So here we go with how to do them first of all lets sort out how many and which layers you will need. The first row shows what you will need to cut and stamp (lost the calyx stamp....whoops!!) for a small/single sweet pea. The second layer shows you what you will need for a larger/double flower...

 Just a quick point before we move on, these stamp die combos's are designed to be an exact fit so although you would nut normally stamp this way by far the easiest way is to die cut your petals and then lay your cut petal onto the inked stamp and gently press with your finger. This is the same with all the Perfect Partner stamp/die sets....

Now you've got everything cut and stamped you need to colour, I've used AquaTints but any wet colouring medium would work well. I say wet because these are made from copier paper and by wetting them you are able to manipulate and shape the paper to get a more realistic look and the water and shaping messes with the fibres of the paper so when it dries it's remarkably rigid. Therefore it's easier to use a wet colouring medium.

So lets start assembling, I'm doing these as wired flowers but the method is the same for unwired.....just leave out the wire and don't make the holes! So take a piece of 26 or 28 gauge wire and form a tiny hook at the top and make a hole in the centre of the middle petal as shown....

Insert your wire and add glue as shown, then fold over the smaller petal to form the very centre of your flower. As I said if you don't want to wire just do the same thing but without the wire, also you won't want as much glue. Once folded over it will look like the second photo.... 

Now add some glue to the other petal, but only at the bottom as shown, you want it to gently hug the centre not grasp it tightly!!! ;) Gently fold over the outer edge of the outer petal as shown.......

 

That is how you will form every centre regardless of the size of flower you are making. So if you are making a smaller/single sweet pea take your centre and add the outer petals as shown. Positioning the petals either side of your centre (again if you are wiring you will need to make a hole for the wire), adding a tiny bit of glue and then gently squeezing together.  Again don't add to much glue, you only want them to be attached at the bottom or the whole flower will look too solid.

Now you need to add your calyx by simply shaping it slightly, adding a tiny bit of glue and sliding it up tight behind the flower allowing the points of the calyx to bend backwards though away from the flower....

So you have a finished sweet pea! However it's sitting straight on the wire, and sweet peas nod gently so just give the wire a slight bend immediately behind the flower and you'll get a much more realistic look.......

If you want to make a larger/double sweet pea then take your centre created just as before, take your larger petals, shape them slightly then them fold back on themselves and position as shown below.......

 To glue in place simply sandwich a little glue between the petals and then put a tiny bit either side of your centre and squeeze your petals into place.........

Then you simply add your calyx as before.  If you are making unwired flowers then you're now finished and all you need to do is stick them in place on your project. If you are wiring your flowers you will want to tape them together using a florists paper tape............

Still with me? Lol! Well hopefully you'll be able to follow the steps, they're actually pretty simple and quick to make once you get the hang of it and make such pretty additions to your projects.

Thanks for stopping by

Donna xx

Oh my word!!!!

It's over a year since I blogged!!! How can that be? Probably has something to do with the fact that I'm a lazy, bad blogger ........hangs head in shame :(

Well I'm making no promises but I'm going to try and get my backside in gear and get blogging again,

Now lets see shall I start where I left off? With a little bit of Christmas......I mean what else would one blog about in July? So how about I show you a couple of samples made with Sheena's new Christmas stamps for 2016? They have a lovely vintage feel, being based on Victorian Christmas postcards and cards and so many of the images could easily be used for non Christmas cards and projects. This first card is a good case in point, the ink well and quill would be great for so many occasions but teamed with some die cut holly and ivy it makes for a sleek Christmas card perfect for business use or with a masculine feel.

Then we go to something very traditional and vintage in feel, I'm thinking Santa might just have nipped out for a cuppa before continuing to write his lists. This was a really simple make; the chair and holly were stamped in Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then the colour was brushed out with a damp paintbrush ( NOTE: damp not wet!!) and then a little extra colour added with watercolour pencils. 

Right well I promise I'll be back sooner than last time (well I promise to try anyway!).
Donna xx