Mini Album Cover

The day started pretty much as any other, quick tidy, hoover, washing on etc followed by a a tea break and a dash to the shops for diner.

All that done I decided to do a mini scrapbook for a few holiday snaps of the girls.

Today was the covers turn.

First off, I chose a few papers and set about covering the mount board base, gluing it down with slap-it-on and leaving it to dry.  Once dry I trimmed the paper to the size of the board, this was done to both sides of the cover front and back inside and out.

Other papers were layered on top and torn at an angle for interest then the edges were distressed with a little  ink and creased and torn a little more, a lace punch was used to add detail onto one of the layers, a pencil was used to mark the lower edge of the distressed upper layers before the were stuck in place and lace was added along the line. The top layers were then attached.

A frame was cut from mount board and the edges were inked, it was covered in glue and dipped in glitter to add a bit of bling.

 Card butterfly's were dipped in distress ink and dried off, a bow was made from blue/cream string.

The inner oval from the frame was distressed around the edges, a "memories"rub on was put on the oval and then glittered over to tie in with the frame.

A swirl, the butterfly's and a few coloured hole reinforcers were added and stuck down.

 Finished !!!

for today that is.

Canvas Fun With Friends

So Thursday my sister-in-law Nola and her friend Trish came to play.

And boy did we get messy!!!

 We began with a 6x6 box canvas and covered it with real lace and a few die cut lace pieces and stuck it all down firmly. Next up we smothered the canvas with gesso, the new finnabar heavy white ( it's so nice, sort of a gel consistency).

We stamped our face image twice, one to colour, which we did lightly with Derwent pencils and the other to use as a mask whilst spraying.

A couple of hours was used making flowers from thick card as it would hold the shape better when painted and coloured, yes, it was also the cheaper option as buying the lovely metal embellishments can get expensive. We also used die cut butterfly's, swirls and cogs.

Once all the bits and bobs were made and arrange in an appealing manor, it was stuck in place with hot glue gun mainly for speed, cos, we were all impatient and wanted to start colouring.

We placed our face mask over the coloured image and gave the white card embellishments a coat of gesso, then the messy bit got under way.

We each had two water spray bottles, in which we put our chosen paint colours about 5mm. We added approx 10mm of water and mixed the solution together. We sprayed the mixtures on the canvas until we were happy with the results, drying in between layers. 

At this point I really wished I had head to toe overall on as someone around the table was a bit of a happy sprayer, mentioning no names, (Trish).

Treasure gold was added to highlight areas. Nearly forgot, we used a charcoal pencil to create shadow

 depth and blurred it with a paper blending stubby, I used more of this as I like the black effect.

So, here are the results.

Mine , Nola's and Trish's.

September Art Journal Page

I know, I'm very late with this months page, I've been a little busy.

Yesterday, Friday, was a teacher training day, can you believe it! Any how bearing that in mind I thought I wouldn't get anything done because I would be entertaining my eldest.

Turns out however I wasn't needed. 

 We had to pop to town to see hubby raising money at a tea/coffee morning for McMillan cancer research, (he normally works in Brum but managed to do this closer to home, he was also the only man who volunteered, Bless him).

So that done, donations put in the pot, a spot of shopping, a visit to Greggs for Georgie to get her favourite lunch, a short drive home and a spot of hoovering. Georgie decided to plug herself into several media sources all at the same time and that was the end of mum and daughter time.

I decided to stay out of the way and got stuck into my page.

I began by brayering a background with the new JOFY Limited edition paints, followed by a bit of artistic licence of bottle top printing and other bits.

I knew I wanted little houses and so added a few yellow and pink paints to the mix and just painted house shapes onto the bottom of the page. Once dried I used a charcoal pencil to draw the outline. of the houses, windows, doors etc.

Then I added a bit of stamping.

 I had used up the remaining paint up on a plain piece of card, didn't want to waste it, then stamped the lettering and numbers onto the card, cut them out and stuck down. I added the journal blocks and that was that.

 Really happy with the page and with having a second day of messy, painty fun.

September Already!!!

Well, here I am.

August passed me by and with the school holidays over I am looking forward to having a play.

I have managed to start decorating the hall, stairs and landing. Although it's not the crafting, messy painting I had in mind, it is quite satisfying to see fresh paint on walls (no finger prints). I just hope the weather holds out so that I can do the woodwork (that paint takes so long to dry).

I have my September Calendar page to do first, I told myself, then  I realised that Christmas is sneaking up on us.

So, bearing that in mind I made a Christmas candle holder, (fake tea lights).

My dad cut a block of wood into squares and drilled a tea light size hole in the top.

I gave it a layer of gesso to prime the wood followed by a coat of mermaid fresco paint.

Crackle glaze was put in areas on the block, followed by a coat of nougat. The crackle cracked and looked great.

Poinsettias  were die cut from white glitter card and a blue embossing powder was melted into the centre from the back. 

A few tiny pearls were added and the flowers arranged and stuck down.

Tah Dah!