Affirmations 1 - Distress vintage layers

Be Brave 

It's the end of January as I'm writing this, the weather has been wet, chilly and even freezing but today we had some sunshine , blue skies and temperatures up to 10 degrees, you could almost say balmy weather. January into february is my SAD time when I need some love, time-out, friendship and excitement. But there are many of us in this position so I am going to build a box of affirmations to cheer me up.

This is #1. Just a small card 12 1/2 x 7 cms, covered in papers and ephemera with distress texture paste (matte), scraped into the edges of some of the bits of card, finger rubbed and then some distress stains painted in to give it some depth.

I carried on adding some inks spritzes of water and layers of pencils until it was nearly covered, dried it, ........

 ...... and rubbed away with a wet wipe to expose some of the pattern and text from the original layers, again dried it and finger rubbed some white gesso to create some highlights.

I finished by splattering some white gesso and distressing the edges of the card and rubbing walnut distress stain over them.

Now the background is complete, let's gather the collage elements and adhere them together to complete the project.

xxx

Supplies

Random papers, labels and pieces of TH ephemera

TH - Distress Spray - Pumice Stone, Ground Espresso

TH - Distress Crayons - Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo, Antique Linen, Hickory Smoke, Picket Fence, Pumice Stone.

TH - Ephemera

TH - Ephemera Snippets, Number Strips

TH - Distress Texture Paste - Matte

TH - Distress Ink - Walnut Stain

DecoArt Americana White Gesso

Canvas Board for CVC

Today I am over at Country View Crafts Project Blog with another of my canvas boards. Having attended Tim's class at the Stitches Trade show back in February I used some of his ideas and design to put a collage together and had more fun with the distress crayons.

I have shared the process steps and products I used to make this and I have to say I really like the background with those gorgeous deep colours and texture and I finished off with some foiling which makes it look even more opulent.

I would love it if you could pop over to take a look at the details and photos.

Huge hugs Brenda xxx


Updated from CVC project blog

Hi it's Brenda here with another of my canvas board projects.

In February when I went to our UK craft trade show called Stitches I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with Tim Holtz and watch him demo several times on the stands. It was fabulous trying out the new Distress Crayons and thought I would use some of the techniques he taught us and demoed and add any of my own to make this canvas board. The design is similar to the one he taught.

I began with set 2 of the crayons, scribbled some of the colours over the board and spritzed with water. Although they have a short smudge time when spritzed and rubbed with your finger the pigments are activated and will blend together. The depth of colour depends on how much water you use. I made mine quite wet and dabbed with a piece of kitchen roll which took some of the colour out leaving the board underneath exposed again. I heat dried it. But the colours looked pale so I took set 1 and set 2 and lots more colours blending them together.

To add another layer I took aged mahogany, rusty hinge, bundled sage and brushed corduroy distress inks and blended over the top. Now I bet you would expect the crayons to blend around with the inks but they don't, the inks give a complete new layer over the top. Next I gave it the dip and dry and the spritz and flick treatments drying with the heat gun.

Following that I stamped the lattice stamp in black archival to begin to get more interest.

 The colours are very deep at this point and I love using white as an 'absorber' to give the whole piece a more muted effect. So out came the picket fence distress spray stain and a few quick spritzes plus some light sprays of water I got what I wanted to achieve. I gave it a coat of micro glaze and a spray of matte sealer.

Next I chose some ephemera pieces and adhered to the background. Silly me didn't let the spray dry enough so some of the colour moved but I don't think it detracted from the look of the finished piece. Now to add dimensional texture and I used opaque matte texture paste through a stencil and let it dry.

Using the medium brush I applied crazing collage medium over the complete surface and let it dry. Whilst that was happening I die cut some greyboard numbers and painted them with tarnished brass distress paint. I also took a word key and painted it with tarnished brass and picket fence distress paints.

Because the surface is now completely sealed on the canvas board I came in with some of the crayons and smudged the smooth pigment again to add deeper colour and to create interest on and around the ephemera pieces and the texture. The crayons also pick up the crazing which gives a beautiful porcelain effect, it was impossible to photograph on canvas.

I finished off with another piece of ephemera and one of the found relatives girls cut down and then added the key. Well I say it was finished but I waited till the next day to photograph it in the light and at this point thought I would add some glue stick foiling, can you see some of the traces of it?

 So happy with this piece.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

hugs Brenda xxx

Tim tag for March

12 tags of 2016 - March

This is Tim's tag for this month and I'm just getting in under the wire, so pleased I found a few hours yesterday afternoon to get my one done.

I followed both of the remix techniques but used different dies and found my own design which I actually really like. 

Following Tim's steps - see HERE to see all the details, I created the top layer and used two movers and shapers dies.

Then onto the media layer (see details from Tim's blog HERE) - I had die-cut the tag once but it didn't quite give me enough of the trellis to fit under the top layer, so I turned my tag over and found I could re-cut to extend it further - great find.

Here you can see how much extra trellis I managed to get - it was enough for what I wanted.

I carried on with the process steps using the new distress crayons and oh boy this technique is fabulous.

And then I added the embellishments. This is the best photograph of the tag showing it in it's truest colours and catching some of the brown (yes would you believe brown?) foiling. Having used a small talk saying I altered the wordband to reflect the same colours, black background - archival ink - and white lettering - picket fence distress paint. The photobooth lady was raised on thick foam pads and I used alcohol inks on the mirrored star.

Yay, I got it done and what a fabulous remix - thank's Tim, I just need to pop over and link it up.

Products

Mixed media thinlits

Ranger foil sheets

Wordband

Distress crayons set 2

Distress crayons set 3

Movers and shapers ticket die

Mirrored star

Ground espresso distress spray

Tarnisged brass distress spray

Ground espresso DI

Trimmings

Small talk

Photobooth strips

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend, we had a family outing to the local Indian restaurant Friday night, a fairly quiet Saturday, Sunday was the Easter egg hunt in the garden for the girls ....

... with a family meal later and nine of us this time.

Saturday night and most of Sunday storm Katie raged, wrecking her havoc everywhere but we kept up the family tradition of having a BBQ ...

.... but ate indoors, again the family together. So all in all a busy but wonderful time.

See you back here on Friday with two post as A Vintage Journey and Country View Crafts will be starting new challenges.

Enjoy your week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Mixed media canvas board - Dress form card

Here is another of my canvas board cards. I love the 5 x 7 inch size and with Tim's easel on the back they make a great card for someone special. The first one can be seen here if you missed it. It's a little more shabby and fussy in style. This one is more mixed media but kept simpler.

For this one I began with some gesso scraped on, dried and then texture paste  added through a stencil.

Then some paper pieces adhered over the top and I gave them two coats of gesso.

Using peacock feathers, mermaid lagoon and picket fence distress crayons I added small marks, spritzed with water and rubbed the colours to achieve a watery wash and flicked on some peacock feathers and white ink.

I added some more paper pieces giving them only one coat of gesso and edged them lightly with ground espresso and frayed burlap distress markers. Searching through one of my bits boxes I found all the embellishments and glued them on lifting the dress form to create added dimension and allow me to slip pieces underneath.

 Here you can see the easel on the back of the card which means my friends can keep their card as a small personal work of art from me.

 

 You can see I used the same dress form that I used on my AVJ wall art last week (see it here if you missed it), this one got discarded for that project but I didn't want to see it go to waste and am pleased how it fits with the lighter colour background.

 Now I wonder which friend will receive this for their birthday?

Having seen the challenge at Craft Stamper I thought I would enter this as the theme is 'Take A Stamp' Anything Goes as there is some stamping somewhere on the project. Stamp sets I have used are Wendy Vecchi - a form of art (the cut out dress form), Tim Holtz - purely random (the Paris ticket) and Tim Holtz - ledger script (stamped onto the heart and border at the bottom).

I hope you are having a good week, we are catching glimpses of Spring arriving in the garden which is wonderful to watch.

Take care and don't forget my give-away which is available till next week. Details are on my side bar.

hugs Brenda xxx