Saturday, 15 October 2016

SDC259 - Halloween

Stampotique Design Challenge 259 - Halloween
and Mixed Media Monthly Challenge 29 Sponsored by Stampotique
 
I do like a good old Halloween project,  in fact anything that has cats, skulls, pumpkins and general spookiness as a prompt.
Halloween colours are also a draw for me, black mainly but purples and oranges also play a part.
So, moving on here is my project for the Stampotique challenge.
I decided to make a scene from a hard plywood box canvas 8"x8", this was primed in white gesso followed by a dark yellow paint. Crackle paste was added but the waiting got to me and so I sped it up a little and instantly regretted it, oh well, part of it was okay to use.

  

Dark  orange/red and black paint was dry brushed all over the frame to produce an aged effect and knocked black in places to reveal the crackle and the Orange hues to give the impression of dark skies.
 
 
 

Next up, stamping! Using my new Stampotique Cat stamp (plus a few others I've collected over the years) stamped onto watercolour card stock and cut out.
A few dies were used to create brick effect, green leaves and cob webs.
 
 
Small blocks were made to lift the wall from the base of the box and a step created from black card to give a 3d  effect.
The leaves and pumpkins were coloured by double dipping  elements into distress inks which had been misted with water to give the impression of variegated colour. Kitty was coloured with watercolour pencils and blended with a water brush. I hand drew a trick or treat sign to hang on the door fussy cut it out and inked the edges.
To create a sort of path art stones in various sizes were glued onto the black card
along with the other stamped elements. not exactly what was in my head, however, I'm super happy with the out come.


 
Hope you like it, to see lots more inspiration hop on over to the Stampotique blog here, and
to the Mixed Media Monthly challenge here
This is the Mixed Media Mood Board.



 
  
Sue X



Tuesday, 4 October 2016

Weekend Crafting

What more can I say, a whole weekend crafting. No washing, no ironing, no kids and no hubby.
It cannot get any better than that!

Normally at this time of year Rebecca and I head up north for a craft shopping day at Port Sunlight, this year however we headed down south for a weekend workshop with Linda Brown.
 
It was a great break from the usual and well worth the drive down to Milton Keynes.

We arrived nice and early which meant we had time for a quick mooch around the shop, followed by gelli plate printing and rusting fabric. A patchwork of the prints and rusted fabric were arranged along with small houses cut from various fabrics.
The following day we got out  the sewing machines and zigzagged the seams of the patchwork pieces, very therapeutic only one problem the patchwork looked really cool and I didn't want to cover it up. Now there is an excuses to make more gelli prints.
The houses were all stitched and decorated by hand, this did take a little while but it well worth it.
We took our projects home to complete, I may have added a few more beads, buttons and lace too.
So here is my finished project.
 
 
Here are a few more close ups.
 





Thanks again to Linda Brown for guiding us on this workshop, hope you like it.

Sue X

Here is some rusty fabric I made as I was finishing off my project, I'm now addicted to making it, unfortunately though, out of rusting powder.
 
 

X