PaperArtsy Challenge #6 - Fabric Sculpting Entry

Hi Everying

I hope you're all having a lovely Sunday.  We have (my kind of) perfect weather here today with lovely sunshine, a little breeze and very comfy temperature!

Over on the PaperArtsy blog for the past two weeks the guest designers have been putting various fabric stiffeners through their paces and have shown us some amazing artwork from wall art to dolls as well as my own offering of the doily vase which you can see here if you missed it.  The very interesting introductory post by our lovely talented Darcy is HERE.

After making my guest designer piece I really wanted to make a piece of wall art the basics of which I've had in my head for quite a while and amazingly I managed to finish it this afternoon just in time to beat the deadline for the challenge.  I was so enjoying the whole process from start to finish of making this piece that I forgot to take many progress pics but this post is still a bit photo heavy so apologies in advance, lol!.

I started with an 8" x 8" wooden deep sided piece of wall art I bought as part of a triptych ages ago.  I bought them with the intention of altering them as they were very cheap and very boring, lol!  

I gave it coats of gesso followed by dabbing several neutral shades of Fresco Finish acrylic paints with wet wipes, a clean one for each colour.  I then did some stamping with Archival Inks as well as some Frescos using stamps from various Hot Picks sets plus a couple of PaperArtsy Minis.  I stencilled a couple of leaf fronds from Lin Brown (for PaperArtsy) stencils using Mud Splat Fresco then bumping the stencil slightly and using Chalk Fresco.  I stamped the pretty flower from HP1009 and coloured the flowers with pencils.

I then covered the top two thirds and also a little vase with cling film.  I positioned the vase then soaked a piece of old cotton Tshirting in Bronze Powertex and arranged it in folds and ripples over the bottom third and over the vase taking the fabric round to the back of the wall art.

Once the fabric had cured overnight (I helped it along with my hairdryer ;D) I then started adding little sand balls to the folds.  I found the easiest way to do this to get them where I wanted was to pour a drop of Powertex into a plastic dish (I used a plum tray that I keep as a palette), drop the balls in and then pick them out one by one with tweezers to place on my art piece.  I find the Bronze Powertex is much runnier than the Ivory and next time I'm coating the sand balls I will leave it to thicken a bit before taking them out as at first it wasn't sticking.

 

This shows the stamping on the sides.

 

A closer look at the main stamping and stencilling after taking the protective cling film off.

 

I added shades of bronze and blue of various mica paints and pastes including Treasure Gold  to highlight the textures.

A final look at the piece with some pretty gentians and a grape hyacinth from my garden in the little vase.

I had a ball making this piece and am really happy with how it turned out.  It is very rare that I actually finish with something that is close to what I had in my head, lol!

Okey dokey, I'm off to do the link up with less than an hour to spare!!!  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and see you again soon.

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

Birthday card for a friend.

He Everyone,

One of the lovely people I've got to know through crafting and good old t'internet had a birthday last week.  I'm hoping she has received her card by now although it would have been a little late.....the Bank Holiday threw me completely, lol!  Anyway, fingers crossed as I'm going to share it today.

In the recent new releases from PaperArtsy designers, Lin Brown had some more gorgeous stamp sets for us .  I love them all but so far have one of the flower sets, the gorgeous lily and one set of quotes.  For my card I used just the lily and thE quote from the same set ELB27!  It's so elegant and perfect for stamping out multiple times then colouring with pencils, cutting out and decoupaging as I did here.  My base card came pre-cut as a tri fold giving a large aperture on the front so I just inked the edges then used double sided tape to stick the front to the piece folded behind.  I arranged the lilies and adhered them then stamped the quote and used co-ordinating dies to cut it out and layer onto suitable card before sticking it in the middle of the aperature.

If you click on the photos you can see the dimension on the 2nd and 3rd and the last one was taken in really bright sunshine (hence the shadows) so that hopefully you can see the sparkle of black stickles I added to the stamen.

Thanks for stopping by and see you again soon.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

PaperArtsy and Powertex....what a mix!

Evening everyone,

Tonight I'm sharing a guest designer project over on the PaperArtsy Blog using PaperArtsy products along side Powertex... what a fab partnership that is!  Here's a sneaky peek and I hope you can hop over to the blog to see the whole thing.  I had such fun with this stuff!

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

PaperArtsy Challenge #5 ....OMG this is so not me, lol!

Morning everyone,

I had a play last night with something waaayyyyy out of my comfort zone, lol!  The current PaperArtsy Blog challenge is Artdolls.  Firstly I have to be honest and say it's one form of crafting that has never interested me to include in my makes but I decided to have a go (such as it is ;D) and as I was going out of my comfort zone with topic I also decided to go the whole hog and use a mish mash of bright colours.  I was actually trying to make myself use clashing colours but somehow, I don't really think I succeeded there, lol!  This challenge, Darcy did a great intro post over on the blog on Sunday and the inspiration has already kicked off with a quirky doll from Gabrielle Price on Monday.

I used a size 10 tag, Lynne Perella stamps, Fresco Finish paints, Distress Inks, stencils and an arm and legs cut from a fashion catalogue and this is what I came up with as an entry to the challenge.

It's absolutely hammering down with rain this morning so it's taken some of the brightness from the colours when I added light to the pics.

Enjoy the rest of your day everyone.....  I'm off to link up and then, wouldn't you know it, I'm off to the hairdresser's.......in the rain!

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

PaperArtsy Challenge #4 - Image Transfers....I think I like this challenge, lol!

Happy Mothering Sunday to all you lovely Mums out there and good morning to everyone,

It's a nippy morning here in Nottinghamshire but for the moment we have beautiful bright sunshine so that's a nice start to the day.

Why is it that after sitting in my craftroom all day doing nothing very constructive inspiration or whatever you call it, jumps into my head when it's almost bedtime, lol!  Well, that's what happened last night and the result is an MDF plaque (plus another late night ;D) using one of the transfered images I decided not to use for my Guest DT piece over on the PaperArtsy Blog.  As always there has been some amazing inspiration from the guest designers for this challenge which Leandra introduced beautifully HERE.

 This was another archway photo taken at a place I love, Fountains Abbey, but this time I printed onto a transparency and used PaperArtsy Satin Glaze to transfer the image to cotton fabric as Leandra shows HERE.  Perhaps I didn't quite get a good all over contact between the transparency and fabric as there are one or two what look like bubbles which failed to transfer but I still like the effect.

I gave an MDF plaque a coat of Nougat Fresco Finish then started randomly brayering with various Frescos in toning shades.  Believe it or not there's even some pink (Rose) in there, lol!  I adhered the transfer with gel medium then added stencilling followed by stamping from a couple of PaperArtsy Hot Picks sets.  Finally I added the metal embellishments.

I've really enjoyed this challenge as image transfer is something I had previously only tried once before in a workshop many years ago.  I'm off to link up to the challenge as the deadline is later today.  Have a lovely Sunday everyone.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

I got to play for PaperArtsy again!

Hello Everyone,

How exciting (and a bit nerve wracking) it is when I get to share something I made over on the inspirational PaperArtsy Blog and tonight it's my turn to do just that.

Here's a sneak peek of my project and I do hope you have time to pop over to the PaperArtsy Blog to see the whole project and how I made it.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

A nice little weekend play....................

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I didn't get to post over the weekend as I'd hoped.  I did get this project finished but didn't get chance to take pics or blog it.  As it is I've taken the photos tonight so they're not brilliant (apologies) but as least you get to see the sparkle better than in daylight ;-).

While I was searching for something else I came across one of the MDF Man's hearts which I had already painted with Fresco Finish Paints and Crackle Glaze topped off with some shimmery misting (probably Glimmer Mists) so I decided it was just crying out to be finished off using my pretty, new Kay Carley stamps from the latest PaperArtsy releases.

Most of the stamping was done with Archival Inks except for the dandelions in the background which were stamped using Snowflake Fresco Finish paint.  The tiny flowers were coloured with Copics and the butterfly was stamped onto card and coloured with pencils before cutting it out and attaching to the heart.

 

Finally I added tiny spots of Stickles, dark blue on the alliums and diamond on the dandelions.

Short and sweet from me again tonight ;-).  I'm trying to decide whether to have an hour or so crafting or carry on moodling about online...... it's lashing down with rain ....again...... which means it will be hammering on the craftroom (conservatory) roof!  According to my OH we could well wake up to snow in the morning... lurvely ...NOT!!!

Thanks for dropping by!

Hugs

Lesley  Xx