Noel

Well I am back from my amazing weekend with Anna-Marie Designs.  This has to be one of the best organised workshops I have been to  Our first project was a card which incorporated some MDF items with the Noel and the deer. 

We started by taking a piece of white card where we roughly brushed on some Viva Chalky Paint (smokey blue) which was then followed by stencilling.  We then used some white chalky paint to add some additional stamp detail in the corners.  The deer was also painted in the smokey blue paint, once dry we used a layer of crackle glaze, dried again and then added some white chalky paint and then let for the paint to crackle.  I didn't use enough of the crackle glaze to get a good crackle but I was happy with what I produced!

Finally we distressed inked the background card and  distressed it with scissors.  This was followed by making up the flower and leaves, inking and shaping them.  The flower was then edged with 3d Schnee and crushed ice crystals.

The final part was to assemble the card which involved using some natural fire to add some dimension and additional interest to the back of the card.

We used lots of embellishments to add interest to the card and I have to say I was very pleased with the finished product.

All items were supplied by Anna-Marie and are available from her website.  I would thoroughly recommend attending one of these creative weekends as I really enjoyed it and you get really pampered into the bargain!

There are lots of other projects that I will share over the coming weeks -  I really cannot make up my mind which one I like most as they were all fabulous!

With love and crafty hugs

Ginny xx

Steampunk Canvas

Well I promised I would share the canvas I did with Sheena last weekend, so here it is!

It definitely looks better in real life than it does in the photo's.  We started by cutting all the different elements we wanted to use on the canvas, which we then arranged onto the canvas. 

As there was a lot of layering I took a photo of my arrangement before taking it all off and sticking them down!

Once they were stuck down we then put a layer of gesso down across the whole canvas, including the sides.

Once this was done and it had dried we then went to work on adding cover to the canvas.  We used the Brights from the Aqua

Tints range and I primarily used the red, green and teal colours.  The tints were watered down and mixed together and then randomly painted onto the canvas, excess was wiped away with a baby wipe and this also helped to merge the colours together and add shading.  Once I was happy with the background I then watered down some of the tints even more and dribbled then down the canvas and they pooled around the elements that had been gesso'd (not sure that's a word!) down.

The extra cogs were coloured using Pebeo Gilding Wax before arranging them on the canvas.  Next we worked on the flower elements and the dragonfly.  We used Pebeo Texture Gel which had sand in it to add some extra texture to the flowers and dragonfly and then dried it carefully.  We then added the teal aquatints and it was interesting to see how this changed the look with the texture gel.  Once this was dried we added additional gilding wax to give a verdigris effect. 

Whilst the cardstock was still wet we played with the shaping of the dragonfly and flower to add dimension.

A small amount of gilding wax was added to the edge of the canvas and also to some parts of the gesso'd cogs to pick up some of the detail. Then we finished it off by adding the wording and calendar.

I have to say that I really enjoyed doing this and think it is something I will do again.  I believe Sheena did a version of this on Hochanda last week, so if it looks familiar that is why!

The products used are as follows:

10" x 8" Art Box canvas

White Gesso

Pebeo Gilding Wax - King Gold & Renaissance

Pebeo Texture Gel

Aqua Tints Brights range

Sheena Douglass Time Traveller Range & Dragonfly Dance

I hope that I will have something different, yet again, to share with you!  I am attending a weekend workshop this weekend, with Anna-Marie Designs.  That should be so much fun and I get to stay in a beautiful hotel in the Cotswolds too ;-)

I hope you are all having a good week, until next time ....

With love & crafty hugs

Ginny x