Encore - Time to Bloom

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 while I'm away.  Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Hello!  Just another quick encore before you get something new on Monday - and I think Monday's project may take you by surprise!  But for now, here's a large canvas created as a Sponsor Spotlight for Our Creative Corner when I was on the team there.  This was to showcase our sponsor for that particular month, Tando Creative - so there are lots of their fabulous chipboard pieces involved.  Here's what I wrote back in April 2014.

__________________________

Hello all!  I've got a 12 x 12 canvas for you today...

... with lots of texture in the background, and lots of crackle...

... and dimension and words aplenty.

I started by coating the largest of the Tando clocks with Croco Crackling Colour by Viva Decor.

My crackling medium is actually white, so once it was all dry and crackled I applied Distress Stains in lots of colours from nature... starting with earthy browns at the bottom, working up through the leafy, grassy greens, to blue skies at the top.

I spritzed with water as I went to allow the colours to mix and blend on the surface.

I made sure I had the clock hands approximately in position (I generally go with ten to three - "And is there honey still for tea?") so that I could see where the colours needed to go, and gave them the same treatment.

They're fastened together with one of the Prima industrial effect brads.

I'd originally been thinking of creating some sort of hanging mobile but, when push came to shove, 
I realised it would be tricky to get the hands in the right place and so on.
So instead, I decided to mount the clock on a 12 x 12 canvas.  (That should tell you how big the largest clock is!)
You can see an early draft here... the untreated clock and flowers, with a plan to "hang" the clock on a "tree"!

In the end, rather than the tree bark paper, I used a piece of 7 Dots Studio paper from their 9th Wave collection as my background.  It already looked pretty good just as it was, but I decided to augment it with some actual texture.

I added pieces of lace and cheesecloth, and glued them down with multi-medium.

And I applied some texture paste through the Tim Holtz doily stencil in various places.

Once all that was dry, I applied gesso fairly roughly here and there...

... and then set to with some spritzing and spraying and inking.

I used partly Distress Stains which I'd put into misters (ED: before the days of Distress Sprays!)...

... and various other sprays including Dylusions, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists, and Ayeeda sprays from 13Arts.

I sprayed and dabbed and knocked back and sprayed again until I was happy that my added texture looked as though it was an organic part of the paper.

I glued the whole thing down to the canvas and gave the edges a good roughing up for texture and dimension.

Next it was time for the flowers...

Having created such a busy background, I decided the flowers themselves needed to be relatively simple and neutral.

I stamped the lovely SheArt Print Texture (by Christy Tomlinson, Unity stamps) in Coffee Archival...

... and did a little light inking around the edges, and then arranged the stems around the clock face, trying to make sure they balanced nicely.

The words arose out of the two Tando products in use - clocks and flowers... time to bloom, then.

They're stamped with my Hero Arts Playful Flowers letters...

... and inked and mounted on padded tape over the textured background.

The final step was to add some musical tissue tape around the edges of the canvas.  Never neglect the edges!

And I used the Distress Stains here too to tint the tape slightly to blend in with the main surface of the canvas.

So that's my Tando Creative Canvas for you.  I hope you like it.

______________________________

It's funny how some projects have stayed very familiar and immediate to me, and others I'd almost completely forgotten about.  This was one of the latter sort, so it's great to have it gathered in to the fold here at Words and Pictures finally... Now I might even remember its existence!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and, as I said, I promise there'll be something new for you on Monday.

As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow.  We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom.  It happens in its own time.
Dennis Waitley

Flora and Fauna

Hello all!  It's the first of the month, and time for some new challenges.  I'll be back later in the morning with the new Country View Challenges theme, but right now we'd like to invite you to come and share your Flora and Fauna with us at The Artistic Stamper this month.

I don't need much excuse to get out the Encyclopaedia Botanica stamps designed by Katy Leitch, so there was never much doubt what I'd be reaching for with that theme... and here's the tag I created.

The metallic background is created with my10 Seconds Verday paints - the Copper colour.

You paint on one layer and let it dry, then paint on a second layer.  While that's still wet you spritz it with the patina solution and let the magic happen.

The real copper and verdigris in the background means you have to give the stamped images some oomph to make them pop against it.

I think this angle gives you an idea of the sheen of the copper as well as of the solution to how you get the images to zing.














It's my usual solution... they're stamped in Coffee Archival and then clear-embossed.

(I never tire of this stunning flower.)










That gives them the extra clarity and visibility amidst the coppery accents of the background.










And with the shine you also get my favourite "now you see'em, now you don't" effect!












I also stamped some of the dictionary text from the same set in Evergreen Bough - a shade which echoes the decayed coppery tones of the verdigris - but left that un-embossed.

I used the Verday paints on the Idea-ology WordBand too, as well as on the wire which attaches it.













The metal skeleton leaves have had a touch of Viva Decor 3D Stamp Paint in various colours to match the verdigris look.












It has a really cool shimmer, I think.













More of the wire is wrapped around the dyed seam binding at the top of the tag.  And I added an Idea-ology Muse Token altered with a hint of Treasure Gold.

So that's my Flora and Fauna for you.  I hope you'll come and play along with us at The Artistic Stamper this month.

Remember, we do need to see some stamping on your creation.  You don't have to use Artistic Stamper stamps but if you do you automatically get two entries into the prize draw.

Hope to see you there... and perhaps here again in a few hours too, when I'll be back with the Country View Challenges theme for April.



If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
Buddha

Animals are such agreeable friends; they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot

Birthday Bloghop

Hello all... So glad you could drop in today!  We're celebrating Fun With ATCs's third birthday with a bloghop.  There are prizes and inspiration galore, so you make sure you visit all my fellow team members, leaving comments wherever you go, and enter our challenge for a chance to win.  We have some wonderful sponsors: Tando Creative, Visible Image and 100 Proof Press.  

You should have arrived here from Uta's lovely blog, Streifenhörnchen's Stamp World, and your next stop is with the amazing Caro, whom some of you will know as cbee, and who has organised this whole thing, so she deserves a lot of love!  If you're not already hopping, the best place to start is here, where you will find all the details...

Appropriately, our theme for the challenge this fortnight is Birthday/Celebration.  Show us your party ATCs...  And I'm offering up two samples for inspiration - the extra one happened by accident as I was making the other!

Regular followers will see I'm still on my turquoise kick, and it's a double whammy today, so let's start with the one I intended to make...

I started with some leftover Christmas cracker paper, which seemed appropriate for a Celebration ATC.  We had those musical crackers with little pipes inside - everyone ends up with a numbered pipe or two and a "conductor" points at the numbers in turn to build up a tune.  We did pretty well, even with a nine-year-old and a four-year-old in the "orchestra".

Brilliantly, from my perspective, the wrappings were music manuscript paper, and the hats were made of music tissue paper - perfect for crafting, so you'll be seeing more of it.  




I did have to share it with my sister-in-law, mind you, Laura of Laurart... so don't be surprised if you see some popping up over there too.

I cut a thick piece of chipboard to ATC size (2.5 x 3.5 inches) and covered it with the cracker paper.  

Then I used my Tando mask, Distorted Hive (which I won on one of their hops!), to blend some Peacock Feathers DI onto the surface.

I wanted to use my Tim Holtz Alphaparts to "write" the word Celebrate, but I had to check it would fit.  Rather than put the sticky-backed letters down on my newly inked surface, I tried them on a spare bit of card, cut to size.  

Once I'd higgledy-piggled them into place, I started to alter them - they start out as black plastic - and here's where the accidental ATC started to kick in.  Since they were gently stuck to the card, I left them there.  

It was much easier to paint them held in place.  I started with a coat of Mermaid Fresco paint, and then added a wash of Beach Hut and one of (shock, horror) some not-Fresco but DecoArt paint in Blue Green Light.   The final touch was a smearing of Treasure Gold wax in White Fire.

While they were drying, I used another Tando mask, Sequin Waste, to add some texture paste to the corners of my ATC.  By looking at my spare, I could see where they wouldn't interfere with the lettering.  

Once the paste was dry, I used embossing ink with some Ranger Verdigris embossing powder to give the dots a distressed coppery look.  (I think the brilliant Claudia, die amelie - who you'll have already met on the hop - and I must have discovered this stuff at exactly the same time!)  They also got a little touch of Treasure Gold to highlight the texture.  


Then I went to peel the dried lettering off my spare card, and found that they'd left behind a stencilled version of themselves... beautifully highlighted by the layers of paint around it.  For a while, I left it alone, but it kept calling me and so I started to play with it. 

Now that I'd fulfilled my duty with one ATC, I was free to really mess about with this one - and here's where it got me:

For once, the sunshine has failed me at the point when I need it, so it's hard to show you this one in its full glossy glory!  The painty background is pretty much exactly as it was after painting the letters.

I toyed with leaving the letters in pale cream (the colour of the card), but yielded to the temptation of trying out the metallic turquoise Viva paint - possibly the most beautiful iridescent paint I've ever seen.  

And perhaps I should have left it at that, but I also added some Glossy Accents to the letters for dimensionality - definitely fun and funky - but not easy to get a good picture of!

At some point last year, I got some very cheap metal embellishments from ebay... flat, aluminium shapes which I thought I could zhuzh up a bit.  

You can see two of them here... embossed with a tiny Vintaj embossing folder and given some Bottle and Denim alcohol ink treatment.

Once there were cogs on my metal stars, it was a short step to adding some stamped cogs to the ATC itself.  These are from the Chronology range by Papermania, stamped in Cobalt Archival.

And hey, we're only messing around, so let's see what happens if we take a border punch to the edges of the whole thing, eh?!





So those are my dimensional double party celebrations - happy 3rd birthday to Fun With ATCs! - and we really hope that, as well as enjoying today's bloghop, you'll be able to play along with our Birthday/Celebration challenge this fortnight.  

Can't wait to see what you come up with...

Thanks so much for visiting me on my first ever bloghop - I'm more grateful than I can say for your continued support.  Next stop, Caro - have fun!

The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
Oprah Winfrey

Oh, and if you've time to kill... I've also got a new project over at Artistic Outpost today (but you will get to catch up with it here soon).