Vintage Beauty

The topic at Take A Word Monday is Vintage Beauty so I decided to do two things at once.  I made an ATC for a swap this month and created it to suit the theme from TAW

It's a simple piece from me this time, but I love how it has turned out.

Love those shoes!

A few weeks ago I went to a Flea market and found some cigarette cards of old movie stars that I thought I may be able to use in my art. They are real photo's not a print, so they are quite thick but have aged beautifully. Today is the turn of Ms Maril De Forest and pretty she is too.

The background is scrapbook paper in a grey and paler grey stripe.  Attached to that is the photo of Ms De Forest.  Over the top I thought the Tim Holtz film ribbon was so fitting and I added the text down the right hand side from my computer and coloured with some Pumice Stone Distress Ink.

I finished it off with a small star from my stash.

Thinking of Spring

Today at Take a Word they challenged us with 'Botanical s'.  It seems so long since there were beautiful spring flowers, so here's one I created.

Time to smell the flowers

 This is an ATC (2.5" x 3.5") backed on to thick card stock.  The background is plain honey coloured paper that I stamped using Versamark and the polka dot stamp from Hero Art, using Bridal Shower embossing powder before heating.

The small framed stamp is actually a large stamp with four different flowers that I cut down to a single bloom and coloured using Inkensils.  Once it was coloured I stamped over the image with a crackle stamp using Archival ink in Pale Ochre.  I wanted the image to have some gloss so I painted over it with Golden Gel Medium in Gloss and left it to dry.

Across the bottom is a strip of Tim Holtz washi tape and  the text was 'Sweet Tulip' on my computer.  The faux bow and the brad were bits from my stash.

Thanks so much for looking, it's always appreciated

Having a cracking time!

The challenge at Three Muses is Timepieces so I decided to post a piece I made for my partner.  The piece has been created in a smash journal, which is ring bound with various types of paper.  This piece is on high quality print paper (hence, there is no paint!). 

My grandfathers clock was too old for the shelf so it stood 90 years on the floor

 I started by drawing a rough shape of a long clock with a black marker.  I then drew a circle where the face of the clock would be and coloured it with very dark brown distress ink.  The whole background is coloured with Tim Holtz distress inks in various colours from the brown / blue range.  I used a blending sponge most of the time but also used direct to paper technique.

I had the clock face in my scrapbook paper stash (I think it could be Tim Holtz) which was the perfect size.  I cut it out and then applied a VERY thick layer of Tim Holtz distress crackle paint.  It was incredibly thick but didn't run off the edges.  Putting it somewhere it could stay undisturbed for 24 hours as I watched  it curl and buckle.  They straighten up once you crack them flat again

The clock face was edged with brown distress ink and then glued to the background.  The wings were stamped, embossed and have a metallic paint effect applied prior to being cut-out and glued.

The base of the clock has chains and little penny farthing bicycles to represent the weights with a coin as the centre weight.  All the metallic elements are glued using glossy accents to prevent them coming lose.

The various quotes and sentiments about time are all printed on my computer using Albertsthal Typewriter font and then glued to the page.

For those wondering, yes he does sometimes use the smash book to stick 'guy' stuff in: beer labels, strange diagrams I don't understand, and he writes the weather in it sometimes too - go figure!

A little bird told me....

When I saw the topic from Three Muses for this week, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

There were so many different layers that I won't go into them all here.  The paper is standard card stock with a coat of gesso to stop it buckling and pilling with the water and glues.

The first layer of paint is Golden Liquid Acrylics in white, red and yellow (heavy blending and then stippled to give texture).  Then I attached some old paper and started to apply the various layers.  Finally spraying with a gold mica spray! phew...

Sing birdie sing!

 Once I finished the background, I cut the bird and cage from the same card stock as the background but the scroll to hold the cage is a Tim Holtz grunge paper element.

I gave the cage and the scroll a distress treatment to make them look like tarnished metal.

I coloured the bird with Shabby Shutters distress ink and then splashed him with water (you can't see the lovely colour variations well in the pics.  The eye of the bird is a dot of black enamel from Ranger.

You can see the tarnished metal effect better on the scroll work.  I also over heated it to make the under layer of paint bubble a little, this makes it look like the metal is corroding under the outer surface.

I've just noticed that the bird and cage is Tim Holtz and the quote is Lou Holtz - It's a Holtz collaboration :)

I made a video and for once loaded in time and can be found here.  Approx 10 mins long

Broken glass?

This morning I have a day off work and I'm letting my muse have full reign.  I started the Take A Word challenge quite late this week (this morning actually) and decided to do an underwater piece with a mermaid, but my muse had other ideas!

I was playing with UTEE and discovered (for me it was a discovery) that I could make it look like glass, and that if I did things to the faux glass, it looked like stained glass.

Broken dragonfly

The piece is postcard size and sprayed with London Blue and Vibrant Turqoise (ready for the underwater scene I didn't make).   I wiped some of the ink off through letter stencils and a border stencil.  I stamped the Tim Holtz dragonfly in StayzOn ink black.

I then spent a ridiculous amount of time melting layer after layer of UTEE with my heat gun.  Once it was thick enough to look like glass I had a flash of inspiration and lay some fairy film over the top and heated again.
Once cool I removed the 'faux glass' from my craft mat and stamped it in StayzOn metallic gold.  After another blast from the heat gun I started to roughly cut it as though it were being cut from glass.  Then to make the colours 'pop' I painted the back in Mars black.  Voila - stained glass!

The strip of copper down the right hand side (it's from the garden centre to deter snails) is embossed and then distressed with paint.

I'll have to do the underwater scene another time :)

I'm a little rusty today

I have had so much fun over the past week making myself a pencil box!  A few months ago I found a Bronnley soap box that was the perfect size and started to paint and stamp on it and then lost interest.
About a week ago, I decided it had to change drastically - and it did!

My lovely grungy rusted heavy metal pencil case was born.

I had no idea I was going to enjoy making this so much and didn't take many photo's during the process, but for anyone interested I'll try to document what I did.

For the box, it was a small box originally holding three Bronnley brand soaps.

Metal banding on the top and around the side is cut from Tim Holtz grunge paper

The Euscutcheon is a Tim Holtz grunge board element

The rivets are pearl half domes usually placed in the centre of paper flowers

Painted in a battleship grey colour

The rust is applied by placing glue where you want the rust to appear, sprinkle with Crafty Notions Rust powder and spray with white vinegar.

Above is the empty box after I had painted the outside Grey.  You can see the untreated eustucheon at the top of the photo.

The box is now glued and painted in grey but no rusting is done yet.  Even now it looks heavy and is a shock when you pick it up and find it's just a light box.

More views of the eustucheon as I worked on the rusting process.  Before I applied the rust powder, I covered it completely with Distress Ink in Rust (what else!).  I made sure I covered all of the cut edges to that no grunge board was visible.
This is the eustucheon after the first spray with white vinegar.  I think I sprayed it three times by the time I finished

A close up of the rust, it looks real because it is real.
Once completed I covered everything with a layer or two of clear Golden Mat Medium to seal it.  I applied it with a brush but then stippled it with a cloth to removed brush marks on the rust.  The brush marks are only on the painted surfaces,

It is now full of markers and pens and sitting proudly on my book case.