Encore - You don't bring me flowers...

Encore Posts

Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook.  I'm calling them "Encore" posts and they're formatted differently (all the way down the centre), so you can spot them easily.

Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Hello all!  I'm back with one of my Encore posts.  They'll be bobbing up now and then when life is too busy or too complicated for regular projects and posting.  I've still got watercolour experiments to share, but just haven't got time to write the posts at the moment, so an Encore it is.

This one was for the Artistic Stamper and it's from almost exactly three years ago... 23rd March, 2014.  Funnily enough, I've just recently been playing with some moulds again, so it seems like the right time to post this particular project.  Here's what I wrote back then...

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Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here again, with a musically-inspired hanging for you today.  (Click on the photos for close-ups if you'd like to see more.)

This happens to me a lot... a phrase or song lyric will go round and round in my head until I'm pretty much forced to allow it to play along.  If you want to listen while you look, You Don't Bring Me Flowers is the song that invaded this creation!

I know this song was triggered by the new toy I was playing with to create the stone urn on this piece... there's something very melancholy about old stone planters in my head, and that dictated how this piece took shape.

Jennie has just added these fabulous Katy Sue Designs silicone moulds to The Artistic Stamper shelves.  There are some really lovely and intricate moulds - and I thought this little trio might have dollshouse potential as well as crafty applications.

UPDATE I'm afraid The Artistic Stamper doesn't stock these any longer, but they do have other moulds to play with here.

I had meant to use some air-drying clay, but when push came to shove I wasn't patient enough to wait for it to dry, so instead I melted some beeswax in a tart tin, using my heat tool, and poured that into the moulds.

I sealed it with multi-medium, and then painted it with various colours, including the marvellous Stone Fresco.  The little mulberry paper flowers are from my stash.

Regulars will know that when I need melancholy, I usually reach for the Gibson Girls, and this woman was perfect for my purposes.

I stamped her in Potting Soil Archival onto some Distress Watercolour Cardstock, and then used a mask to allow me to ink and stamp around her.

I stencilled around her using the new Tim Holtz Doily mask, and stamped with my favourite Calligraphy Mat, but lots of the layers have almost disappeared under the final spritzing of Perfect Pearls Mist in Pearl.

Worth it for the shimmer - though it's hard to capture in a photo.

The book page ivy strands had been sitting around on my desk for ages (created for this art journal page at the beginning of February, but then that needed something darker).

Despite the layer of beeswax covering them, they're pretty fragile, so it's a miracle they've survived this long!

The watercolour panel is layered up over some distressed book pages...

... with some die-cut paper lace tucked under the edges.

Another crack at that shimmer here... with lace and book page and corrugated card and all!

The words are stamped on another piece of watercolour cardstock...

... torn...

... and inked around the edges.

And I used gesso and some Picket Fence Crackle Paint on the corrugated background to create a shabby chic look.

I rather like all the layers of distressed elements, and the masking of the main image which I think really makes her pop.

A couple of eyelets and some pale twine, and it's ready for hanging.

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So another blast from the past for you - delivered as close to its third birthday as possible!  I hope I'll be sharing some of my more-recent mould-making with you soon, but first I'm supposed to try to make some dollshouse dolls for the Tudor Tavern... it's been empty long enough.  I haven't decided exactly how to go about it yet, so that will be taking up most of my time and creative energy over the next few weeks.  I'll keep you posted if I have any success, but in the meantime, happy crafting all!

You don't say you need me
And you don't sing me love songs
You don't bring me flowers anymore
From You Don't Bring Me Flowers by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman & Neil Diamond