Hello everyone,
Well the past couple of weeks have been mostly pretty miserable as I picked up one of the nasty viruses going around at the moment. The main symptom has been an horrendous cough which made me rather noisy and unpleasant to be around. My stomach and rib muscles feel as though I've been kicked by a mule but they should have had a good workout, lol! I'm coming out the other side now though and at least I was poorly whilst the weather here has been unfit to go out in. We were quite badly affected by the snow and ice and being a bit old and decrepit, I wouldn't have been venturing far had I been fit 😉.
Before the bad weather blew in though I managed to collect my 10 yr old granddaughter Izzy for a long promised weekend of crafting, just the two of us (no little brothers demanding our attention, lol) and just as The Cough kicked in big time. Izzy was very patient with my constant coughing fits and I'm so glad she doesn't appear to have caught the bug. I introduced her to stencilling various texture pastes onto large MDF hearts. It was lovely to see her delight when the crackle paste crackled before her eyes, lol! We made loads of backgrounds with my favourite Oxide Inks and the highlight was making some pendants with Ice Resin, a product I have had in my stash literally for years but have never plucked up courage to use. Izzy went home with a bag full of her creations and a proud smile on her face. Sorry the pics aren't brilliant but they were taken quickly on my phone.
Just about the only thing I have done this week is a project for the prompt challenge with my friends. The latest prompt was to use tissue and I decorated a canvas board to come up with this.......
......and that's where the pink comes in, purely by accident as it's definitely not my favourite colour, lol!
I started by covering an 8" x 8" canvas board with white gesso and then lightly blended some Portfolios to dull down the white. I took a piece of Tim Holtz tissue and applied alcohol inks over the back blending them together with the Ranger Blending Solution. Unfortunately the pink shade became the dominant one which I really didn't want.....
.....and once I adhered it to the board using Golden Soft Matte Gel it went an even brighter pink, argh!!!
So, I set about taking the accent off the pink by giving it a wash of white gesso, which also helped to enhance the crinkles in the tissue, followed by some stencilled Prima (Finnabair) opaque texture paste and then Watering Can Archival Ink through a Tim Holtz stencil. I applied some paint and Treasure Gold guilding wax to some Prima embellishments and chose a selection of flowers, lace, chipboard and other bits from my stash to collage onto the board. I also picked out the texture on the board with the Treasure Gold.
I'm really pleased to finally be digging out bits and pieces I've had in my stash for years and using it instead of hoarding it, lol!
A close up of the pretty 'water feature', little bird and the delicate Scrapiniec trailing ivy.
Another beautiful Prima metal embellishment I thought was too precious to use!
And finally I decided at the last minute to add a little Prima (Finnabair again) Graphite paste through a stencil. Don't forget you can click the pics to see the texture and light guilding on the background in greater detail.
Well, I have to say that by the time I finished this piece the pink had almost grown on me and I was actually happy with the end result. I really enjoyed the collaging which I find quite difficult as I don't normally do so 'busy'. I had intended finishing off with sprays over the flowers but I decided I liked the different creamy whites as they are although I may go back in and add a little shadowing round the embellishments before I call it finished.
That's it for today. I'll be back soon with a birthday card which I can share later in the week and I hope you all have an easier time getting out and about this week.
Hugs
Lesley Xx
