Spring Into Life Apple Blossom Frame

 Spring Into Life Apple Blossom Frame

This is a second inspiration project for the Country View Crafts challenge of 'Spring into Life'. I have used the same set of Alison's stamps as I used for my previous project, showing how versatile her stamps can be.

I used Alison Bomber tissue paper from PaperArtsy, cut the blossom part and adhere it to green card and dry. 

Paint the blossom using the the paints and again dry. Make a wash of snowflake and paint it around the blossom lightly and again dry.

Stamp large and small apple blossom stamps using archival ink onto watercolour paper and paint. Dry and slightly cut around the large blossom images so they separate from the leaves. Then spritz water on the back of them and carefully squeeze leaves and blossoms to give them some shape.

Add some textured card to the photo frame and blend some distress oxides over it, spritz and dry. Then brayer one coat of the snowflake paint over it.

Edge all the flowers with brown distress ink and adhere pieces to the frame.

I now have a winter and a summer frame for displaying in my conservatory at the appropriate times of year. I think I will be looking to make a Summer and Autumn one as well.

xxx

Supplies

PaperArtsy Alison Bomber stamps - Apple Blossom Edition EAB46

PaperArtsy Alison Bomber Tissue Paper

PaperArtsy - Fresco Finish paints - Bougainvillea, Blah Mange, Snowflake, Vintage Lace, Haystack, Magic Moss. French Roast.

Distress Oxide - Tattered Rose

Distress Archival ink - Ground Espresso

Ranger 12x12 paper in green (old stock)

Miscellaneous - Ikea Frame, Fabriano watercolour paper 280 gms cold pressed, flower stamens, white bought flowers.

Christmas Decor - Distressed, embossed Christmas tree

CVC Challenges Heavenly bodies/ space. Include stars and or planets in your project.  

    

Hubbie cut the wooden pieces for me and I started by painting the block stand and dowling (trunk) with the chalk paint and when dry I sanded some corners and edges and rubbed the brown distress ink into it.

Next do the same with the side panels of the tree.

Cut silver mirri card to A5 size, secure it into the embossing folder/texture fade and run through a big shot. Remove it and cut two pieces to the size of the flat triangles of wood. Adhere them to the wooden tree shape.

Rub chalk paint over each side and rub of with finger and repeat till required look has been achieved.

Die-cut stars with gold mirri card and also rub in chalk paint and leave till almost dry then rub over with kitchen roll. Rub coffee archival ink pad round the edges and points of the star.

The the above and lowest photos have reflected the colour of my phone (red) back to the camera.

Collect together elements to make up the tree topper decoration (berries, silver pine cones and ribbons) and something for the wooden base, I had some tiny pine cones.

Glue the trim to the base, punch 3 small star and edge with brown distress ink.

Assemble and complete .

xx

Supplies mostly from Country View Crafts

Sizzix - Tim Holtz - Thinlits Dimensional Stars,

Sizzix - Tim Holtz - 3D Texture Fades A5 Engraved Large,

Tim Holtz Idea-ology - Industrious Stickers - Trims and frames

Tim Holtz star punch

Chalk Paint - Frenchic Yorkshire Rose

Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Walnut Stain

Archival ink - Coffee

Miscellaneous - silver and gold mirri card, berries, ribbon etc,

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

Flowers CVC March #2

 Building fanciful flowers from dies

This project produced these imaginary flowers by using a die-fest of flower shapes and putting them together to create these beautiful layered designs on a shabby, distressed board.

Start with the board and sand the edges and top of the panel, brush off dust and give a coat of decou-page mixed with a little water (not too runny, like thin cream). Leave to dry.

Brush a first coat of white chalk paint keeping it thinner in some places. Dry. I realised when I'd taken the photo I didn't get any white paint into the crevices, so I found an old thin brush and added some.

Give a coat of pink chalky finish paint. I used both colours of pink and had the white tin handy to mix them on the panel itself. Dry.

Add a little vaseline as a resist to the next layer.

Paint a coat of white and dry.

Spritz the board and rub with a paper towel to get the distressed pink to show through. I think I needed to make the vaseline a little thicker in places but I sanded the edges to create more distressed areas.

Take a brown distress ink and blending tool and rub the ink into all the edges and crevices.

Take a baby wipe to wipe away a lot of the ink and show the distressed edges. You can always go back in with the blending tool if it looks too clean.

To finish the distressing I spritzed some walnut stain distress ink with water on my mat and dipped the board in it and dried the areas.

Onto the flowers.

Cut card and create distress ink backgrounds.

Choose the die sets you want to use.

Choose some plain card to go with the distress pieces and cut out a random selection of the large and small flowers.

Enjoy some time layering up different shapes and colours/patterns to create your imaginary flowers. 

Add some shaping to the petals and add some 3d foam shapes to add dimension to the finished blooms. I also had some small punches handy to complete one of the centres.

Create dimension.

Use the same process to get some leaves.

Adhere your pieces to the board, find a sentiment and add some ribbon or string to the top to hang it by.

These photos were taken out in the daylight, here you can see the real colours better. Thank goodness Spring is arriving.

xx

Supplies

TH Sizzix dies - Wildflower Stems 1, Wildflower Stems 2, Blossom, Brushstroke Flowers 4.

TH papers.- a dusky pink and a dark lilac mauve.

TH Distress Inks - Tea Dye, Dried Marigold, Antique Linen, Ground Espresso, Tattered Rose, Walnut Stain, Victorian Velvet, Cracked Pistachio, Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Wilted Violet, Lost Shadow,

TH Word Chips

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints - Snowflake, Rose, Blah Mange 

(I used a DIY chalky finish paint from a company on line that I bought in a large tin).

Seedheads Panel -

Poppy Seedhead with collage 

I found a small wooden panel and decided to use chalk paints for the background and include the lovely Alison Bomber's stamps. Her love of nature and using plants and seedhead images reflects my own, so I totally resonate with her projects and ideas. So poppy seedheads it is!

Process steps

Paint a layer of london brick mixed with white and lace to tone the colour down a bit (I love mixing my own colours) and dry.

Rub some candle wax over the surface then paint with primitive, dry, rub and sand down to create some distressing.

Rub candle wax more heavily in chosen areas and paint a layer of lace and dry. Again rub and sand down.

Repeat last layer with snowflake sanding edges well to expose the wood.

Blend the edges and surface with walnut stain DO, splatter with water and pull droplets off with kitchen roll, repeat until happy with the effects.

Rub white areas with a damp cloth to lift DO and bring some brightness back to the panel.

Stamp Tim Holtz text onto surface using permanent black ink and heat dry.

Also using Tim's stamp add texture (circles) with embossing ink and use white embossing powder to create this layer.

Stamp and cut round poppies and grass. (I extended the stems of them to help make these fit to the panel size).

I started to design the panel and gather all the bits together and to achieve the look I wanted I did some mass stamping of ephemera and numbers. I'll make my next post about this and show what I used. (See also supplies listed below). 

As it's February and very near Valentine's Day I added some hearts.

The completed panel

xx

Supplies

Chalk paints - London Brick, Snowflake, Lace, Primitive,

TH DOs - Walnut Stain

TH DIs - Pumice Stone, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain

TH stamp - Ledger Script CMS241, Halftone & Rings CMS260, Paint by Number CMS483,

                   Ornate Trims CMS326, Curator CMS493

TH Small Talk

TH Heart Punch

Alison Bomber Stamps- Poppy Edition, Pressed Grasses Edition,

Miscellaneous - candle wax, real poppy seedheads (picked from a neighbour's garden, with permission lol), twine