Silhouette Framed

 Every Adventure is Worthwhile 

I enjoyed making my last CVC August frame project and thought I'd try another one to go to 'Men In Sheds' for their fundraising fayre. If you've not heard of Men's sheds before, it's an association where men can meet for connection, conversation and creation and also to make, repair and repurpose mostly wooden items, supporting projects in their local communities. It also helps to improve wellbeing, reduce loneliness and combat social isolation. Since retiring this has given hubby a great place to hang out and develop his love of woodworking.

I used another piece of the woodblocks hubby had cut me, prepped it and layered with the Frenchic chalk paint. The last bar one layer I added the most minute amount of the scottish salmon paint and mixed it in the the fresco paint. When it was dry I rubbed over some vaseline, randomly, and painted the last white layer. I left it to dry but not mature. I warmed it slightly with my heat gun and then rubbed over the surface with some kitchen paper so it revealed some pink areas underneath, then I lightly sanded to smooth the revealed areas and the sandpaper also exposed some more of the underneath layer.

I used a Tim stamp to produce a fabulous pattern, stamped the words to add and punched a black bird to add as my silhouette. 

To finish I used some paper from Tim's correspondence pad for the background in the frame, found a stamped star in my bits box and die-cut a border using tim's provincial embosslit using white card then rubbed a black soot distress ink pad lightly over it, spritzed with water, dried then brayered white chalk paint over the protrusions.

I kept this one quite clean and simple and finished off with some tissue/washi tapes giving me extra words.

Supplies

TH stamp - Classics #3, Nature's Wonder CMS343

Frenchic Chalk Wall Paint

PaperArtsy - Fresco Finish Paint - Scottish Salmon

TH Punch (very old) Bird

TH Paper pad - Correspondence

Use a frame - CVC April #2

 Apple Blossom Frame

The cherry blossom in my garden, that I can see from my workroom window, is stunning and when I was out last month, in the sun, it was buzzing with bees, in fact I can see a few now flying around the flowers, in and out.               (Time of writing 23/03/25)

I have used the beautiful Apple Blossom edition of stamps by my lovely friend Alison Bomber to meet the challenge theme for Country View Crafts. I stamped all the images and then cut them out and watercoloured the blossoms with distress inks.

I adhered the large blossoms in the background and added some wood offcuts to support the frame.

I extended the layer frame to fit the size of the opening and sewed around it to match the rest of the piece.

The background was created using distress inks and clear embossing.

I added elements I had prepared to fill the bottom inside of the frame ...

.... and the top of the frame. The bottles have real dried seed heads, seeds and moss inside them. Some of the labels were bought from Etsy and others I have made myself. You can of course substitute them with TH snippets.

I also added the bird and 'Springtime'.

xx

Supplies

TH Distress Inks - Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass, Kitsch Flamingo, Evergreen Bough, Picked Raspberry,

Alison Bomber stamps - Apple Blossom Edition (PaperArtsy EAB46)

TH Idea-ology Layer Frames, Snippets,

TH Sizzix dies - Silhouette Birds

Ranger Archival ink - Peat Moss, 

My own bottles but Tim Holtz has great ones to use.

Halloween Twilight Panel - Country View Crafts Design Team

Twilight 

Imagine it's dusk, there's a clear starlit sky and the moon is bright and golden and shining down across the wooded landscape. Slowly the nocturnal creatures are emerging into the shadows and a gentle breeze is beginning to rise. The leaves are rustling and whispering together softly whilst beautiful spidery sculptures of silvery threads entwine between them often glistening as they catch the light of the full moon. Bats are seen swooping and flying between the trees looking for their food and are beginning to gather together before migrating or hibernating. A large black bird with shimmering plumage alights on a branch of the gnarled tree amd cautiously surveys the area around him.  

It is October 31st, it is twilight and so a Halloween night of chills and tension begins.

Process Steps

I had such fun putting this panel together I thought I would frame it to go on the sideboard at Halloween. When I'd finished I also took some close detail photos. I love how 3D it looks now.

xxx

Supplies

Distress Inks - Scattered Straw, Bundled Sage, Evergreen Bough, Cracked Pistachio, Forest Moss, Pine Needles, Salty Ocean, Scorched Timber, Walnut Stain, Scattered Straw

Distress Spritz - Weathered Wood, Peacock Feathers

Distress Sprays - Black Soot, Mica Spray Brushed Pewter

Distress Watercolor Pencils - Scorched Timber, Iced Spruce

Distress Crayon - Peeled Paint

Distress Paint - Rusty Hinge

Distress Embossing Glaze - Hickory Smoke

Ranger Embossing Powder - Black

Distress Crayons - Fossilized Amber, Peacock Feathers, Peeled Paint

Sizzix Dies - Vault Lovebirds, Funky Wreaths, Festive Gatherings, Mixed Media Halloween

Idea-ology -  Muse Tokens - Halloween, Metal Quote Band Ephera Snippets - Curator, Remnant Rubs - Curiosities, Mini Pumpkins, Boneyard

Stampers Anonymous - Halloween CMS093, Halloween 2 CMS 113

Treasure Gold - Aquamarine, Treasure Silver

Mixed Media Spring cards

Showcasing new Tim Holtz dies available from Country View Crafts.

Thinlits - Feathered Friends.

Bigz - Baggage Claim.

I used a piece of A5 card which ended up being cut in half ready to make two 5x7" cards then decided to change the background for the second one at the end.

Process steps

1. Scrape a layer of tinting base over the card using a palette knife.

2. Mix a watery wash using the most tiniest pin prick amounts of cobalt teal and grey paint. Dip and dry.

3. Into what is left of the wash add a tiny amount of primary yellow and repeat step 2.

4. Mix a new wash of prussian blue and repeat step 2.

5. Add tiny dots of the yellow, cobalt and prussian blues on a palette. Take a stencil, a small blender with blending foam and a water spritzer. Spritz over the stencil so water goes through onto the background, pick up tiny amounts of one or two of the colours at a time and blend through the stencil and dry.

6. Choose an embossing powder - I mixed a little of Wendy Vecchi's fern green and watering can together and used the text stamp from Tim's entomology set.

7. Use snippets of offcuts to die-cut the birds and cases and make up.

8. For a background variation ink the inside of the botanical 3d texture fade and run through the Big Shot several times with a damp piece of card.

9. Die-cut a couple of wildflowers to match the colour palette.

10. Ink edges. assemble and mount on cards.

xxx

Products

Andy Skinner Artist Pigment Paint - cobalt hue, primary yellow, prussian blue, 

Andy Skinner Matt Chalk Paint - olive grove

Andy Skinner - resist paste

Celebrate Spring

I am trying to get some cards made for my box and thought I would challenge myself to find a set of stamps that hadn't been used. I have a small tub of stampin' up stamps that never see the light of day and I chose the Nature walk set - now I think I may have used one or two of these many moons ago but I used a fair few of them to create a card that will be perfect for a man. (Hmmm I may know someone with a birthday in July who would like this).

I stamped the images on card that had been dipped in distress inks and found a piece of notebook style paper in my collage box and cut the celebrate from Tim's thinlits dies.

 I used Bisters in Tim's flourish embossing folder to create the background - you can just see some of the flourish pattern showing.

I didn't want to add embellishments because of posting but I am pleased with the collage feel it has to it.

Whilst I had the bisters out I played with a couple of more backgrounds and you will see those cards another day. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

hugs Brenda xxx