Busy Bees for Country View Crafts

Hi everyone, I was delighted to win a top 3 merit at Country View Crafts last month for my nautical themed journal pages....which means I have the honour of being a guest designer for this months challenge  'Bugs, Bees and Butterflies'.

This conjured up a little bit of summer sunshine in my mind as we head into winter. The background is a gelli plate print but using luminarte silk glazes in pretty peridot and love struck instead of acrylic paint. I've used 3 stencils and as usual you never quite know what you will get but I thought the elements looked like a garden with netting, flowers and of course the honeycomb so along with the sentiment thought this would make a pretty get well card. The print was trimmed down, corner rounded and embossing powder used on the edge.

It's been lovely to use some old favourite stamps, the Be Well stamp which I added an 'e' to is a Hero Arts one from yonks ago, unfortunately I can't remember who made the main image stamp....I thought it might be a Chapel Road stamp, but not sure...if anyone knows let me know. 

The copper embossing powder is also an original purchase from when I first started (I don't use copper very often!) It isn't as fine as they are now...but I LOVE the effect it gives on the Bee.  

Lastly the 2 silver metal bees were charms that had a hole for threading which I decided needed snipping off with some wire cutters and then the same glaze was applied. 

Thanks as always for stopping by, hope you have chance to join in the challenge here.

' Any Old Iron' at ATP Exchange

Hi everyone, I'm delighted to say it's my turn to host the challenge over at ATP Exchange. As a reminder we are a fortnightly mixed media challenge (no digis and you must include stamping) and the winner chosen by the DT will receive a £10 voucher to spend online from our sponsor The Artist Trading Post. 

I've chosen a picture based inspiration theme using a photo I took of a beautiful rusty door...well I think it's beautiful! You can find all the details here.....and some wonderful inspiration from the uber talented DT.

So what did I create?......a rusty, textured, metallic wall hanging.

I've linked all the products I've used and can be found at The Artist Trading Post. I started off with a 10 x 20 hanging icon which I painted with a mix of blood orange and london bus fresco paints. As they are both translucent paints I gave it 2 coats. I then stamped the fine text from PaperArtsy Eclectica ESN11 over most of it with Stazon in Black Cherry. 

I chose Stazon because of the next step which is the eroded metallics technique from Tim Holtz Compendium of Curiosities 3 and I wasn't sure how archival would react. For the technique I used Distress Paint in tarnished brass. 

I then used some peacoat to create some dark edges and blistered the paint with my heat gun. I also added some Viva Ferra in graphite to the same area.

Next good old Crafty Notions puff paint in white. At first I used some stencils to create dots but when I came to put the next layer on I was able to splodge circles on using the tip of my palette knife. Then the heat gun puffed it and the Ferra up beautifully and no I didn't wait for it to dry first.

Next, lots of painting in yellow submarine, smoked paprika, london bus, blood orange and french roast. Drying the colours well in between to avoid creating mud.....can you guess I was impatient and that's exactly what I did first time around?

A little sprinkle of gold and copper embossing powder and some Stampendous shabby white embossing enamel. I then restamped the text in red as it wasn't showing through enough.

The same text in Stazon Teal Blue around the edge.

For the flower I wanted to use metal and a friend kindly gave me some blue metal but I couldn't find the right coppery tone to go with it until I remembered I had saved the inside of tomato puree tubes ages ago. You get a variety of shades and I think sometimes it depends on how long the tube has been in use as there is a more aged look to some of them, anyway..perfect! I used the tattered florals die and elements of the jumbo tattered florals die to create a medium sized flower. 

I embossed the blue with a TH bubbles embossing folder and the copper with a cuttlebug spots and dots one. Sanded both to distress and then assembled. A little spanish topaz treasure gold was added to the blue one. 

To add the little banner I used an adjustable stamp alphabet I had. I needed to choose something short....sorry but just couldn't resist this pun. Its stamped in black Stazon onto copper and I pressed hard to deboss it. I then heated it so the copper took on some lovely shading and attached to finish.

Hope you enjoyed the post and now for more inspiration please do hop over here and see what the rest of the fabulous DT have created. As always, thanks so much for stopping by.

Exchange Day at ATP

Hi everyone, it's my turn over at Artist Trading Post for today's Exchange Day. I've been exploring bead gel, (a product I love) and made a couple of journal pages in the process. To see all the details please hop over here.