Dollshouse Book

Hello all... No, it's not a miniature book, but rather an altered album which will be the new Visitors' Book in Cestina's dollshouse museum, Small Worlds.

She's just set off back to the Czech Republic to open the museum for the summer season, so I had to make good on my Christmas "voucher" to provide the album before she left.

(If you've no idea what I'm talking about, check out Cestina's Dollshouses for the full story of my mother's dollshouse museum, and/or some of my miniatures posts here, here or here.)

And what else could one possibly have as the Visitors' Book for a dollshouse museum but a house?!

(Just to warn you, you might want a cup of coffee on hand for this one!)











I used some of the techniques learned from Andy Skinner on one of his fantastic workshops to alter a Prima Chipboard Dollshouse Album (I see they think of it as a dollshouse, not just a house... probably what set me off!), creating texture and rust effects galore.

I even added some of my own roof tiles for an extra bit of fun (they're not part of the kit).










Let me show you pictures of some of the stages.

The textures are built up with layers of embossed card, stencilling and DecoArt Mixed Media line paints.

There are lots of great techniques and products involved - drybrushing, paint layers and Texture Sand Paste all play a huge role.












For full details, I can't recommend Andy's workshops highly enough, and there are his online courses (find all the details on Andy's website) as well as videos of Andy demonstrating at CHA where you can get the lowdown from the man himself.

The colour scheme was pretty much dictated by the decor of Small Worlds itself.  If you've seen the photos of the museum (there are some good ones here), you'll know the shelves are all painted in a soft green which sets off the houses really beautifully.













So I went for the greens for this - mixing in a touch of my favourite teals and turquoises as I went.  These are the colours in play, mixed and shaded directly onto the walls and tiles as I went.











For the roof tiles, I followed my own lead.  When I was working on the Tudor Tavern last year, I created terra cotta tiles for my fire places using the Tim Holtz Lattice Frameworks die, some textured sand paste and layers of paint.











I did much the same for these tiles, but instead of conventional terra cotta tiles, I decided to have them tone in with the rest of the greens.  I gave the sand-pasted tiles a touch of black gesso to add extra depth and then set to with my colours.












It took some time to get them positioned to the best effect, but I love the finished look!












The various rust effects are created in different ways...












... some with the DecoArt Mixed Media misters, including the door and the window frames...













... some with layers of the Mixed Media Fluid Acrylics, around the edges of the walls.













In places there's Texture Sand Paste for extra rusty texture...













... including on the door, and the door knob...















... and just look at the damage done by water leaking down from the roof tiles!

The ingredient I can't be without is the Quinacridone Gold Fluid Acrylic, which is absolutely magical!














The windows are lined with tea/coffee stained book pages - we've gone way beyond a "naturalistic" look by now!












On the back of the house, I used Tim Holtz's Bricks stencil with some more of the sand paste to create my brickwork.

Again, I could have gone with standard brick colours (and you can bet there'll be a dollshouse to be done like this at some point in the future - Tim's bricks are exactly the right size for 12th scale work, and the stencil is designed so that you can repeat the pattern and get the right half-brick/whole-brick matching together)...











... but I decided to stick with the Small Worlds colour palette and lots of lovely blue-green shades.














And of course the rusted layers around the edges... eating in to the brickwork a little further where there are holes for the decay to gather around!











As well as the DecoArt colours, there's also a strong showing for Tinned Peas Fresco paint, as that's pretty close to the Small Worlds shelf colour.  I used that as the main colour, with a touch of Phthalo Turquoise mixed in to paint the interior walls of the house.

I stamped the peeled paint stamp from Andy Skinner's Industrial set in French Ultramarine Archival ink, so that you have a distressed look on the inside too.













The Dollshouse Album comes with pre-cut pages, some plain, some kraft and some with faint text on.














I think visitors will be able to write over the text, as long as there's a good enough pen around, or of course you could just snap open the book rings and replace those pages with plain paper.












Rather than let the shiny silver book rings spoil the overall effect, I altered them with some black gesso and alcohol inks so that they would fit the weathered feel.











The main thing is that Cestina (or one of her many willing assistants) will be able to cut fresh pages to refill the album, so that the Visitors Book can be never-ending, which will be just as well if the visitor numbers continue to go up year on year.

I love that it looks like a little faerie house in the woods...

... and I love the gleam of the "rust" in the sunlight, even though the whole thing has had a coat of the DecoArt Ultra Matte varnish to protect it in the busy times ahead.

So there's my (small) contribution to Small Worlds for this year.  Work means I'm not going to be able to get over there to do any substantial dollshouse renovations this time around, though I hope to visit for at least a few days at some point.

I am still hoping I might manage some inhabitants for the Tudor Tavern, including some strolling players - I have all the makings for those here in the UK, but I'm not sure whether time is going to be on my side!

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson




I would like to enter this in the following:
At Mixed Media World they're playing a Vintage theme, including anything "rusty, crackled and weathered" so I hope this will qualify
Love To Create are playing Anything Creative/Mixed Media/Anything Goes - me too!
The Inspiration Journal is inviting us to Get Pasted - with the embossing paste stencilling on the back as well as used for texture on the tiles and the rust, this should fit the bill.
In the Creative Gym at the Mixed Media Place they are playing with The Power of One - I have one stencil (the bricks), one stamp (the crackle) and one colour (greens).

Giveaway Winner - at last!

Hello all!  My apologies for the delay in picking a winner for my Ally Pally PaperArtsy Giveaway.  As you'll know from my absence here and elsewhere in Craftyblogland, I've been somewhat distracted lately.  But today I finally got around to putting all the names in a hat (bowl) and picking out a winner, and that winner is...

Rachel of Fisher's Cards and Crafts

Rachel, if you drop me a line with your address via the Get In Touch gadget in the sidebar, I'll get the tags off to you as soon as I can.  (Hopefully without the same kind of delay as it took to draw the thing!)

Many thanks to all of you who took part - I'm only sorry you couldn't all win.  But my blogaversary is just around the corner so watch out for another Giveaway in a few weeks.  (That one is likely to include one of my Calico flower cards and some of the bark used on them, so keep your eyes peeled.)

No-one has ever become poor by giving.
Anne Frank

Wildflower Calico Cards

Hello all!  I'm sorry it's been so quiet around here lately (more than a week without posting - unheard of!)... and I know I haven't even drawn my Giveaway Winner yet - soon, soon, I promise!

Life's been a little distracting, but I've got a gentle week coming up so I'm hoping to get back to the craft table as well as to a little bit of visiting around Craftyblogland.

For now though, I'm offering up a sneak peek which I hope will tempt you over to the all new Calico Craft Parts blog.  Yes, as well as the lovely new designs available from Calico Craft Parts, the Design Team are all back together and the inspiration is flowing at the new blog - so do hop over and check out the projects appearing there.

I've got a trio of floral cards for you today.  Yes, I know... cards.  That really doesn't happen very often, so make the most of it!

I hope you'll have time to pop over and take a look, and I'll be around and about again very soon.




May your life be like a wildflower growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day.
Native American Proverb

If they don't mind hopping over to see them, I'd love to enter this in Mixed Media Monthly's challenge May Flowers - how could anybody not be inspired by the flowers of May?!

Spring Tim(e) Colours!

Hello all!  It's time for a new challenge on A Vintage Journey, and the amazing Astrid would like to see as many Spring Colours as possible.

Remember we are a Tim Holtz-inspired challenge so although you don't have to use his products, we would like to hear from you how he has inspired your project - whether that's through ideas, techniques or (of course) products too.

As always, my fantastic team-mates have created some inspirational projects - do hop over and check them out, along with the challenge details and our Travelling Instructions - and here's my offering for you this month.

It's another of those ones that started in one direction and ended up somewhere else, but probably all the better for the discarded layers underneath!

It's a 7x5 canvas, and I started out spritzing it with my favourite spring colours - the vivid green of new leaf growth and the fresh blue of the sky.  Over that, I embossed the Papillon text in Seafoam White and added more powder around the edges for a distressed look...

And then I gesso'd over the whole lot and started again.  I don't know - I just wasn't feeling it!











Instead, I applied texture paste through the wonderful Blossom stencil (my other favourite thing about spring is blossom).  You can see colour is seeping through from underneath... no problem, it's not like I dislike those colours!













I spritzed that with various Distress Sprays - Cracked Pistachio, Broken China, Mermaid Lagoon Squeezed Lemonade (for some sunshine)... others too, I'm sure.

I sprayed the same colours onto some paper and cut that with the Birds in Flight Decorative Strip Die.

They're stamped with Tim's Tiny Words stamps.  Now they can soar and sing amid the treetops.














There's lots of shading around the birds, done using a combination of Distress Markers, pastel pencils, Inktense pencils and even the odd Copic Marker.









And I also added shadings of Fresco paints to the textured blossoms in the background.  There's some Zesty Zing in there, and probably some South Pacific and Southern Skies.

I was really enjoying the blues and greens, but the whole thing needed some paler highlights and some more of the dappled spring sunlight that I love.










On the way in to work I was looking out of the train window and admiring the glorious tree blossoms in all the gardens.  White is my favourite, so the next time I was at the craft table I decided to add some white accents.












The little wooden hearts have had a coat of white paint and then a couple of coats of UTEE.











That gives them not only a glossy reflective surface, throwing light around, but also a touch of domed dimension.

The WordBand has Distress Paint tinting the lettering, and then a coat of Glossy Accents so that it can catch the sunlight too.













It's attached with a large crinkle ribbon bow - a touch of extravagance to mark the excitement of new spring growth.














Obviously there had to be plenty of spatter...













And all of this also "falls" over the sides of the canvas too, of course.

So there you have my Spring Colours canvas.





Do hop over to A Vintage Journey to see what my lovely team-mates have been creating, and we hope you'll be inspired to play along with us this month.

Remember there's a prize voucher from our generous sponsor Country View Crafts, and you might be one of our Pinworthies at the end of the month.  Can't wait to see your Spring Colours!

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit.
Thomas Malory

This is the last day to add your name to the hat on my GIVEAWAY - hurry, hurry, hurry!  I'll include all comments left before 23.59 1st May UK time (my blog is an hour ahead of that, as it runs on European time, so don't panic if your comment seems to be an hour late - I'll take that into account!).

Springtime ATB

Hello all!  Thanks so much for dropping in today - it's lovely to have your company.


Despite squeezing in my Tim Tag and a bit of visiting, I'm still struggling with time, so it's another Calico Craft Parts creation today - one of my Calico Crafts DT makes which hasn't so far appeared here.


Given the happy reincarnation of the Calico Craft Parts, it seems a good time to get my virtual scrapbook of projects a little up to date by posting some of the projects using these wonderful laser-cut wood and MDF designs.

This springtime ATB was constructed out of beermats (or coasters if you prefer!), covered with a stone effect paper from the Kaisercraft BaseCoat Collection.






















I used stiff kraft card to join it all together and give it extra stability.













On each side I added a Calico Craft Parts flourish.













There are lots of flourish designs to choose from, including some fabulously intricate new ones which I'm looking forward to playing with.











I dabbed texture paste onto the flourishes, patting it with the palette knife to create extra texture, and painted it white once it was dry.












The delicious Artemio Summer Meadow stamps provide some of my favourite meadow grasses, stamped in Coffee Archival.












The words are stamped using the Artemio Typewriter Alphabet stamps.

And I positioned them at different heights so that as you rotate the ATB they progressively "grow" upwards.











These are individual letter stamps including multiples of each letter so that even if it's got, say, more than one e in it, you can put a whole word on the acrylic plate and stamp it all in one go, rather than stamping one letter at a time.







I quite like that you get the mysterious deep dark hole at each corner because of the rounded edges of the beer mats.  And of course I inked the edges of the covered coasters for a more distressed look, and to draw the eye inward.

On the top of the ATB is a little springtime bird's nest.















The upright supports are formed of some of the Corner Wood Shapes available (again lots of different designs to play with), glued in place.












There's a bit of Icelandic Moss to keep the eggs cosy, and the eggs themselves have had a soft wash of gesso to keep everything nice and pale and delicate.














The nest is protected with some whitewashed driftwood and decorated with some daisies.











And underneath, some whitewashed cotton reel spools give the whole ATB a little lift!

I hope you like it - remember if you saw it last time around, you really don't have to comment again.  But do hop over to Calico Craft Parts and take a look at the lovely goodies on offer!





By now, I should have been able to repay some visits around Craftyblogland - if I haven't got to you yet, I'm sorry... but I am on my way!!  Happy Crafting all.

There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest.  Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and their families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged.  But, alas, we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes.  Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?
Henry David Thoreau

There's still time to join in my little GIVEAWAY - if you'd like me to put your name in the hat, just pop along and say so!