ACP:2 Pink + H

I'm not going to beat around the bush - H is for HEXAGONS!!!

I'm slightly obsessed with hexagons at the moment!... ok, in truth its been while now... punches, dies.... gelli plates - boxes:....

Look at these lovely hexagon nesting boxes I bought on the PaperArtsy stand at AllyPally... I've temporarily put my kokeshi dolls in them to illustrate the size (tallest doll (in black) stands about 17cm) - I like them A LOT (both the dolls and the boxes lol)!!  The shape is so on trend at the moment and these boxes make for a more interesting display than square boxes - not that I have anything against square boxes of course...

A couple of  years ago there was this scrapbook page... (and the quilt that inspired it..).. lots and lots of hexagons! (the patience my Mum must have to have hand sewn all those!)..

OK, so Hexagons are my theme for the last part of April's Pale Pink month (and yes, I am aware that its now May - where is this year going!!!)... I chose to use the colours below with the hexagons... (I didn't actually use the pale pinks but have put them here to illustrate the palette I'd chosen)(and I actually picked several other paler colours as the project progressed)

I like the look of pale pink with pale blues and grey (pink and grey together look great on their own, and in my book Slate/dark grey goes with EVERYTHING)

This is the finished project.... or so I thought... the more I looked at it the more unfinished it seemed... (you'll see what I mean later)

Let me show you how I made this - its not overly complicated...  The substrate is a 10x14in board canvas - this is quite big for me - I'm itching to go bigger with projects but I'm doing it gradually :o)

Painted the canvas with a wash of slightly diluted 'Space Cadet' paint

I didn't want a 'solid' base coat and so I broke it up by removing the paint 'ragging' stylee - ie crumple up a piece of kitchen roll and dab the surface.... 

I decide this was too dark so I added paint (Hint of Mint) using kitchen roll again.... 

Still not happy with it, I added some 'Chalk' and 'Slate' ... the kitchen roll was being used a lot for this project...  I really like how this looked (the photo below is a close-up) started to have lots of lovely paint layers and texture... but its now what I wanted so..

I painted over the whole piece with a wash of Antarctic' and 'Chalk Fresco Finish paints and laid on the die cut pieces of pink patterned paper... 

but it still felt too dark so I repeated with another wash of the colours...

I laid the pieces on again and now I was happy...  I think its important to keep checking (if its possible) how the different layers are looking and working together as you go along... because you can then tweak colours, finishes and layouts... 

The stencil I'm using is from Artemio - I love it because its so big! (Its the one I used on my suitcase HERE )  I laid it on, checking that it worked with the position of the pattered hexagons

It would bother me if the hexagons weren't straight (!) and so I drew a pencil line down the canvas as a guide to line everything up to

...and glued them down. I'd always planned to cut the hexagons off at the canvas edge but I really like how they look hanging off the edges...

I stenciled the flowers in Slate - I like the bold contrast - black would've been to harsh...

To finish the canvas off I die cut the word 'Hope' (using Sizzix Serif Essentials dies) and painted it with Slate to coordinate with the stenciled flowers.  I dry brushed Chalk around hexagons - over the edges and onto the canvas to halp blend the two surfaces, and then I used a Grey Stabilo All Pencil to draw around the hexagons to give them a bit of depth.  I dragged the edge of the canvas in Slate.  The word 'Hope' was attached to the canvas using 3d foam.

Here's the 'finished' canvas again..

which I liked but felt it was missing 'something' down the left hand side... I wanted to write on it... in my head it was turning into a BIG journal page of sorts - what does the word HOPE bring to mind... what do I hope for?? (I think it about here that I occurred to me that HOPE begins with H which is letter of this post! lol I'd like to say I planned that but it was happy accident!)..
I couldn't bring myself to just write on it... Its a canvas, something to go on the wall - that little inner voice started up: what if its not straight? what if it looks 'wrong'? what if writing on it ruins it!???
So my husband had the 'brilliant' suggestion of writing the words onto acetate and laying it over the top of the canvas to get an idea of how it would look! That was a fine idea!

Biggish writing.... thickish pen... not really liking that...

What about if I wrote IN the hexagons... no, I liked that even less! lol 

Then  my husband suggested just single words ... die cut like the main word.... another great suggestions - he doesn't often suggest design options/ideas but when he does they are good - he was on a roll!
I dug out my QuicKutz dies (going old school here!) - the perfect size! and so quick and easy to use with the Big Shot!

I cut words out - 'eternal' 'weather' and 'well' using the QuicKutz dies and then 'Cure' using the Word Play die from Sizzix (I wanted that word to be bigger)  I painted these words in a mix of Slate, Space Cadet and Chalk - I didn't want these to distract from 'HOPE'. These words were glued flat to the canvas surface and I wrote phrases and journalling around them in grey felt tip pen - white was too pale, and black would be too strong/bold... I didn't want the handwriting to be too obvious.

Here is the finished canvas (yes, now definitely finished!) 

Woah that was a long post!

Thanks for stopping by - and as its now May I'll be moving onto a new colour and 2 new letters very soon.... 

xx

tick tock tick tock tick tock....

.... goes the clock in the box as the flowers bloom and grow...

I had such fun creating this piece - made from bits and pieces that were hanging around the studio - they've been 'up-cycled'.. like the box: its the lid of a small Tim Holtz Configurations box, painted in Nougat Fresco Finish (I love love love that colour), the back is covered in text scrapbook paper that I stamped seed heads onto but I forgot to photograph it before I assembled everything - doh! but you can see a little bit here:

I wanted the piece to have a sepia, almost monochrome look - so very limited colour..

I painted the flower heads (JOFY11) with Distress Ink to achieve a watercoloured effect (Walnut Stain)... stamping on the back layer of the box and then adding all the dimensional elements really helps to build up a sense of perspective and depth.
I love this clock die by Tim Holtz /Sizzix - I used to own an alarm clock like this very pretty but it is a hellish way to be woken up - seriously unpleasant - a little hammer on metals bells!! Not a soothing entrance to the day ahead...

This clock is much nicer! (its quiet for a start!).. I created it by cutting clocks from corrugated card (from cat food boxes that I've been saving - it has really fine corrugation) and one from plain card (for the front layer that would be painted). 

   

The flower heads I used are from JOFY12 - stamped on white and painted with Distress Ink (Walnut Stain), I also stamped onto a distressed scrapbook paper that I had, cut out the flower centres and heads and added them here and there... not really planned just what look good.
The piece has more of an Autumnal feel than any of the other projects I've made with the stamps and so I added a legend in top right hand corner (Mini15)(I find those little seasons words really useful).
Behind the clock I added a couple of die cut seed heads (quickutz) - die cut from kraft cardstock to keep with the natural sepia tones of the piece.

And I couldn't resist adding some wooden flowers... and some bling.. oooh not forgetting the bling on the clock face!

I stamped phrases from the JOFY stamp sets on to the sides of the box... and the mesh strip along each of the corners (just visible in the bottom left of this photo..)

I love this piece - it was fairly time consuming but not as much as you might think - the construction of the clock took the longest time, & there is minimal stamping...  I could happily make another one...

Must love'n'leave you - I'm off back into the studio to get ready for my visit to Colemans Warehouse on Saturday where I'll be demo'ing my stamps.  Looking forward to that - hope to see some of you there.

A Journey...

... or two - PaperArtsy style:
I recently received some of the lovely, quirky, steampunky new HotPick stamps. Here are pic's of all 6:

 

 1106                                                1107

 

 1108                                              1109

 

1110                                                1111

I made some quick pieces with the stamps - just wanted to play with the stamps - a card and a tag (the tag might get a bit more attention (its missing 'something', but I'm not quite sure what yet....). 

I had a lot of fun looking through a book and cutting out random phrases - I have quite a few lined up so expect to see more (I prefer to cut them out as they read in the book rather than make them up ransom style (or to read down the lines as opposed to across) )

(there's one that says 'the cops with curious hindquarters' that made me laugh out loud but as yet I have no idea where/when I would use that - but I'm saving it just in case.....)

Winter Cottage...

In my first post of the year I mentioned projects, & said I would show you... & I haven't (sorry!) ... well now I am!
Better late than never.... here is 'Winter Cottage'... it was a while in the making 'cos ...erm .... well... other things took precident.... & I couldn't decide how to finish it... blah blah blah

... on the bright side, & with a view of excellent planning (ahem) I've started the decorations for christmas 2011! :o)  I'd actually finished it before christmas but I kept adding bits to it, taking them off, adding them again ... generally faffing about with it really!

The cottage is quite small (as normal!) about 12cm tall.. & created with all sorts of dies (Tim Holtz' snow flurries & paper rosette; Quickutz scallop border) & punches (Martha Stewart snowflake)(had a lot of use out of that punch this christmas! lol) There's also a liberal sprinkling of 'frosted lace' Stickles ... snow snow snow

bits of this'n'that...

When I need to get creative but haven't been in the sudio for a while I have to make an unimportant 'something' just to get the creative wheels turning... so the other week I coloured a page in my big (25x25cm) sketchbook... this is my sketchbook size of choice - its not to big, not too small, not the wrong orientation (I tried a portrait layout sketchbook once (hinge at top) and I couldn't work in at all - it felt completely wrong - I think I only got 2 pages in before I abandoned it! lol) so this one is just right!  :o) 
The page isn't part of something, its not for something.. it just is what it is - a sort of warm up exercise...

And here are Florence and Lawrence - don't know why I've called them that - maybe because they're flowery - who knows...(& its not really important!) lol  They're created with an oh-so-cute Quickutz die - one that I saw and thought I 'need'  that but I have no idea what I'll use it on!  And when I went in a certain craft 'supermarket' on Tuesday (shopping with my Mum) I found a stamp that said 'so tweet'!  Ta da!  Sorted. Cards!?

They're quite big - about 8-10cm, and I'm loving the googly eyes - took a while (and a certain amount of shaking) for Lawrence to stop being cross-eyed...I think he may need a bit more shaking - but its part of his charm.