Wednesday 22 June 2016

A taste of the Orient?

Hi there visitors,

Well, I'm still waiting for the signal to travel up the A1 for our new baby's arrival (officially due in 8 days time) so I've managed a rare bit of playtime just for the sake of it.  I found a square of gessoed canvas in my bit box, discarded from some other project and started out just playing with Slick Stix crayons.  I had no project in mind just wanted to mess about and this is what is eventually became.


I began by blending the dark blue and purple Slick Stix onto the canvas with a wet wipe, dried it with a heat tool then sprinkled Infusions in Royal Blood and Violet Storm and spritzed very lightly with water.  When I had the amount of colour I was happy with I dried with the heat tool and then painted the whole thing with a coat of Fresco Finish Pearl Glaze to give a lovely sheen and also stop any further reaction of the Infusions.
 

Next I chose some random stamps from the Lynne Perrella Oriental themed sets to use on the background. I didn't want them to show up clearly so used second generation Archival ink images.  There's a bit of Japanese text from a portion of a bigger image, a koi plus a PaperArtsy mini flourish stamp.  I then stencilled the trailing ivy using one of the translucent Fresco Finish blues which I think was South Pacific, as I wanted the Infusions and light stamping to show through.
 

My next step which I fogot to take a pic of was to stencil some clear texture paste to which I applied a little Aquamarine Treasure Gold when it was dry.  I also added touches of TG round the edges of the canvas.
 
Next was to stamp the main image onto Tim Holtz tissue and then paint it with various translucent Fresco Finish colours, South Pacific, Claret and Pumpkin Soup.  My only complaint with the TH tissue is that I found it very difficult to tear around the image and painting around it with plenty of water seemed to make very little difference.  It's blooming strong stuff but I got there in the end and adhered it to the canvas with Heavy Gloss Gel Medium. 


I then raided my bit box which I hardly ever think to look in, and found some bits and pieces to embellish the hanging.  I painted the leaves with Pearl Glaze so they looked something like the die cut piece of lace I added to the bottom and the tiny butterflies also got the Pearl Glaze mixed with Claret/Pumpkin Soup.


I used bamboo sticks with beads on the end to form the hanger and found the perfect coloured ribbons in my biiiig bag of those annoying pieces I cut out of clothes.....knew they'd come in handy some time, lol!


Well, that's how my playtime over the past couple of days has ended up.  Hope you like it and I just have to finish the post by sharing a photo of one of the lovely busy bees that were enjoying the campanula whilst I was taking the photo of the hanging out in the garden.


Enjoy the rest of your week everyone and thanks for dropping by.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Sunday 19 June 2016

Another PaperArtsy Infusions Playtime!

Hi everyone,

I hope you're having a good weekend and the weather isn't putting too much of a damper on it for you.  We had sunshine first thing but it's grey again now.  I can live with grey for a bit as long as there's no more of the torrential rain we had last week.

Bit of family chat next so feel free to skip....

Crafting has been on a bit of a back burner here for a few weeks mainly because two of our grandchildren have been staying or I've been up in Harrogate with them.  Last weekend I collected them after school on Friday and brought them down here because my lovely Daughter in Law to be, Yvonne, had organised a special 'Mum to Be' Spa Day for Jenna and as her hubby was still not well enough to have the children for the full day I had them and we had a very special day out with their Uncle Jamie and our lovely Alexa at The Chestnut Centre, Otter, Owl and Wild Life Sanctuary in the beautiful Derbyshire High Peak.  Then on the Sunday I took them home but there was a lot of subterfuge involved as completely unbeknown to Jenna, Yvonne and some of Jenna's friends had organised a very special Baby Shower for her.  The expression on her face when she walked into the room with everyone there was priceless and she told me that although she was so tired the whole weekend was amazing and just what she needed after the past few horrendous months.  Baby is officially due on 30 June but Izzy and Charlie were both a week late so we will see.  Jenna looks ready to pop now imo, lol!

OK, back to crafting!

When I was having my last bit of playtime fun with PaperArtsy's Infusions powders this was the last make from that session which I have shared on FaceBook but haven't blogged.


For this card, I first sprinkled a little Lemoncello Infusions and misted with water until I was happy with the colour depth and I then dried it with a heat tool. Next I used Black Knight by placing a stencil, lightly sprinkling the powders (not lightly enough really, lol, you only need a teensy bit) and then spritzing with water. After removing the stencil I used a damp paintbrush to define the shapes a bit more.  When it was dry I then stamped a selection of JOFY images using black Archival Ink.


I then used Fresco Finish Chalk Paints to colour the images.  I can't remember which colours now sorry but they were a couple of lemony colours and greys. I again made sure it was dry before adding Diamond Stickles to the middle flower image which I think you can see if you click on the pic.  I matted the card onto a layer of black and then onto my base card before stamping the JOFY phrase across the bottom and finally I added the metal butterfly and the happy birthday.

I was really happy with how this turned out and love the lemon and grey colour combo.

Crikey, while I've been writing this post the temperature seems to have plummeted!  I think flaming June, brrrr!!!  I know I don't like hot weather but this is getting a bit ridiculous now, lol!

Hope it's warmer where you are
Hugs
Lesley  Xx