Whimsical Birds

Here are a couple of projects I made using Tando Creative Whimisical birds 2. I had the birds in my stash for a couple of years just waiting for a bit of painting so I started playing with them last weekend and finished them off today.

The first bird is mounted in a painted MDF frame and the second whimsy bird family picture is just mounted on black mount board. If I can find a cheap frame I might frame it.

The bird is painted with Pink Ink multi-surface paint and the frame painted with Fresco paint (Captain Peacock). The bubbles are stamped with IndigoBlu "Bubbles Background" stamp and the pattern around the frame is a Tim Holtz stamp by Stampers Anonymous. Doodles were added with black and white paint pens.

It was good fun painting all those chipboard shapes and assembling the birds. A great way to get back into painting again.

Thank you for visiting and I hope these bring a smile. 

 

2018 Topic 17 : Colour - A Box of Eggs

The latest PaperArtsy challenge is a colour challenge which is always fun. Here is the link:
2018 Topic 17 : Colour - A Box of Eggs

There are many colours of eggs so I picked a few pastel colours from my Fresco paint stash and made a postcard. During the week I was stuck in traffic going home one night after work so that was a good opportunity to think up some ideas as I was going nowhere fast that night. I had several ideas and if I get time I will do them, strangely, this postcard was not one of them. This little project was just to get in the mood.
The photo looks darker than the postcard actually is as it is a grey rainy day today, perfect for doing craft projects though.

Stamps used;

PaperArtsy ESC01 and ESC04 by Scrapcosy

Fresco Paints;

Ice Blue, Sage, Seaglass, Vintage Lace, Concrete

Ink;

Watering Can archival ink and Limestone dye ink (Altenew)

One Cup at a Time

PaperArtsy Challenge Topic 15 : Artist Trading Coins

I like this challenge because I like artist trading coins and you can pretty much do anything that takes your fancy as long as the coins are 2.5 inches in diameter. Click on the linked title to go to the PaperArtsy blog and see the great selection of inspiration posted there.

Here are my tea themed artist trading coins using the lovely Scrapcosy tea stamps from ESC16.

Materials used:
Fresco Paints : Peach Nectar (the new Courtney Franich paint), Concrete, Vintage Lace (not the new Courtney paint, it is a very old one, one of my first purchases. I wonder if it is exactly the same as the new one).
Stamps : PaperArtsy Eclectica ESC16 by Scrapcosy
Watering Can archival ink

Have a good week everybody x

#scrapcosy

Time for Tea

I have new toys to play with and it rains at last outside so I have an excuse to play all day.
I made a tag just to get into the mood although I have already way to many ideas for using my new Scrapcosy stamps from PaperArtsy. The trouble with too many ideas is that I mess around and don't actually produce anything for ages. I want to make a mini book, some cards, ATCs, a canvas and more but there are just not enough spare hours so I will exercise some control ... for now.

The first thing I wanted to do is enter the PaperArtsy Challenge #13 : Colour - Mint, Sage, Claret and Gold. That is a colour combination that works really well for vintage designs.
Here is my tea themed tag :

I used images from the new release stamp set ESC16 by Scrapcosy, the new Seaglass Fresco paint for the background and infusions to colour the images mixed with matte glaze. The lace and word cloud are stamped and embossed with WOW metallic brass sparkle and the spoon has metallic glaze on it to make it shiny.

The cup was stamped on smooth stamping card which had a pale blue wash of stormy sky oxide so it is not a stark white. All the images were fussy cut and the cup mounted with some foam pads to give it dimension.

So the tag ended up as a clean vintage design rather than the more grungy vintage that I originally had in mind but I am quite pleased with it. Seriously, those stamps are so good I reckon you can do anything in any style with them and get a good result.

A close up of the word cloud and don't you think that postage stamp is cute.

OK, that's me done for today. I'm off to make some tea. x

Artist Trading Coins

The hot weather is getting to me, making me lethargic. To get motivated to do something, I watched a couple of YouTube videos today hoping to get a bit of inspiration. I'm never disappointed, there is so much talent out there.

I found a great demo/tutorial by Mike Deakin for Artist Trading Coins (AT Coins), a new trend in miniature works of art which I had not tried until today.
Here is the link to Mike's blog with the video embedded:
https://mikedeakinart.com/other-mixed-media/snippits-artist-trading-coins/

I pretty much followed the tutorial but I used Fresco paints for my backgrounds. These are fun to make and a good size for experiments too. I like to make small things. The coins are 2.5 inches in diameter.

Here are my coins :

Ingredients I used:

Paperartsy Fresco Paints 

Tim Holtz Paper Dolls

Tim Holtz Big Chat stickers

Potting soil archival ink

Happy Sunday everyone. x

Paper Dolls

PaperArtsy challenge Topic 10 : Paper Dolls

I just love these Tim Holtz paper dolls. Each character fires up my imagination. Who are they? What are they thinking?
These two are all dressed up but tough, serious little girls. I sent them out into the early summer woodland where there are foxgloves, butterflies and the sounds of birds singing.

Here is my small canvas for the challenge;

Ingredients.

Rubber Stamps : PaperArtsy EKC08 by Kay Carley

Fresco Paints :  Glacier blue, Venice blue, Spanish mulberry and Steel grey. 

Washi tape

Tim Holtz paper dolls

Tim Holtz paper punch butterfly

Happy weekend everybody x

PaperArtsy Topic 5 : Nautical Colours

A wet bank holiday Friday is a good excuse to play in my craft room and catch up with projects I want to do.
The theme for the PaperArtsy Challenge Topic 5 is Nautical Colours and the inspiration on their blog is particularly good again. I was away last weekend so had thinking time but no craft stash with me to start work on this one but I did have several ideas. Strangely, I did not use any of those ideas. I had planned on making a tag but I have ended up with a card using my Scrapcosy sea life stamps from PaperArtsy (ESC10 and ESC12).

I started by making a Gelli print background using Adirondak dye ink : Pool, Denim and Stonewash applied with a brayer. Then I stamped one of the Scrapcosy images in red geranium archival ink and took the print. I added some water with my fingers to bleach out some of the dye ink to make bubbles which were later doodled with a white pen.

The seahorse and shell were stamped and embossed with white Wow embossing powder and painted with a little bit of gold Fresco paint. To finish it off, I used a Woodware stencil around the edges to add some gold embossing powder (metallic brass sparkle by Wow) and stamped and embossed some words. A small gem was added for the seahorse's eye.
All mounted on red and blue cardstock and a 7" by 7" white card.

Here is a close up of the seahorse :

These are such detailed stamps that I thought the embossing might lose that detail but not so, it looks quite nice in natural light as it is shiny.

Happy Easter everybody x

Friends in the Garden

PaperArtsy Challenge Blog Topic 4 : Whimsical.

I like the definitions of whimsical, a couple of the dictionary definitions popped out : "playful" and "odd" as well as optimism, hope and innocence. All good words that put you in a happy place.

For this challenge I used a mixture of Jofy and Kay Carley stamps on the same panel which I mounted on a card.

I started with a painted background (Captain Peacock) and stencilled circles in Teresa Green. 

Then stamped Kay's flowers and grasses and added some coloured details using white and dark pink Graphik paint pens. The faces are coloured with Promarks, cut out and added to the flowers. I finished it off with a few small flowers and a butterfly.

Ingredients :

PaperArtsy Eclectica EKC02 by Kay Carley

PaperArtsy Jofy 42

Fresco Paints from FFPA1 Limited Edition : Captain Peacock, Teresa Green and Granny Smith.

I have been having a think about what to do for this challenge all week and the finished result above is miles away from my original idea. Maybe I'll do another one.

I hope you like my little friends in the garden.

Happy Weekend everyone. x

PaperArtsy 2018 Topic 2 : New Seth Apter Fresco Paint

I am still feeling chuffed to bits after my win for Topic 1, the apron arrived and it is fabulous. I encourage you all to join in for a chance to win one.

Now for Topic 2, I don't have any of the new Seth Apter Fresco Paint, but I will get some, oh yes, aren't they lovely. Fortunately for the PaperArtsy Topic 2 Challenge we can use any Fresco paint and I have quite a selection now. I used some of my older ones for this month's offering which is a tag.

Fresco Paint applied to the background using a brayer and an old credit card : Irish Cream, Cinnamon and Chalk.
The door is from PA Hot Picks HP1601EZ, stamped in black archival ink and painted with Irish Cream, Cinnamon and Brown Shed.
The numbers, small doors and words are from HP1605EZ.

Always good fun using paint and stamps, I really enjoyed doing this month's challenge.

Victory

When I saw the new PapaerArtsy releases by Scrapcosy I knew I had to order the ship stamp plate, that ship reminds me of HMS Victory and maybe it is an image of the Victory. 

I played with a few techniques on these two cards and ended up with two similar but different results, one stormy vintage style and the other on a brighter day.

I tried out stencil bumping for the lettering but I used vintage photo distress oxide ink rather than archival ink, the result was quite weird but pleasing. The texture paste I used (Deco Art texture paste) reacted with the distress ink and the colour was absorbed into the paste. I quite like it. Here's a close up. It looks almost like wax in daylight.

The backgrounds for both panels which I have mounted onto cards are a mix of blues from the PaperArtsy Fresco range : Ice Blue, China Blue and Midnight. There is much more Midnight on the stormy version which is also edged with vintage photo distress oxide ink.

I found an old pot of Pinflair glitter paste in copper which I used for the screw heads. I am quite pleased with the rusty look of those.

The ship needed to be painted in HMS Victory colours so I used Nougat for the sails and Pumpkin Soup for the body of the ship. Here is photo of the Victory taken when I visited the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in 2015.

Here is the brighter version of my ship panel;

The images are stamped in black versafine this time. To get the detail of the sails and rigging I used my Tim Holtz stamp platform. I stamped the ship once, then painted the sails and body of the ship then stamped over it again so that the details can be seen. This is an easy way to paint these vintage images, especially when using opaque paints.

A close up;

I have a few more ideas for this stamp set but I have run out of weekend again! Hopefully I will get some more playtime next weekend.

Stamps used : PaperArtsy Eclectica by Scrapcosy ESC11

Stencil : PS094

Vintage Rose ATCs

ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) is the topic for the PaperArtsy blog challenge for January. Go check out the inspirational examples posted there.

I love making these miniatures as they are a great way to try out techniques and new stamp sets. I was given the PaperArtsy Vintage Rose set of stamps by Scrapcosy for my birthday in December so I chose to use them for my ATC entry.

I made a set of three. The backgrounds are painted with Fresco paints, the beautiful images stamped with black versafine ink and then I painted them with infusions mixed with metallic glaze. The smaller butterfly was painted, cut out and mounted on foam pads to add a little dimension to the middle ATC.

Stamp set : PaperArtsy ESC04 by Scrapcosy
Fresco Paints : Chalk, Mud Splat, Key Lime and Gold.
Infusions : Rusty Hinge, The Sage, Golden Sands
Metallic Glaze

A great topic for the challenge which has renewed my interest in ATCs.
I hope you like them.

Blues and Greens Challenge

I had the time and felt like doing a challenge so decided to make an entry for the August Country View Challenge. The theme is Blues and Greens, a great colour combination. I was going to make a tag but changed my mind and made a small canvas. Here it is, photo taken outdoors in the sun so the colours look a little paler than in reality:

For the background I used an old book page and some torn music paper and painted it with Granny Smith and Teresa Green Fresco paints.

I added some circles stamped in chalk paint with a bottle top.

This is watercolour card stock with PaperArtsy infusions : In the Navy and the middle panel was an experiment with a few greens, The Sage, Emerald Isle and Slime I think. I didn't use that one. I die cut some Tim Holtz wildflowers from the larger panel and used the TH butterfly punch.

At this stage I thought the canvas needed a bit of stamping so I added some text with leaf green archival ink and the bubbles in cornflower blue. Sticking to the blues and greens for the stamping I was happy with the background. I added the die cut flowers and butterflies plus a TH quote chip colour tinted with the infusions.

Here is a close up so you can see the book text still shows through the paint although they were opaques, I watered them down a little.

Ingredients used for this canvas:

PaperArtsy Infusions : In the Navy

Ranger Archival ink : Fern Green and Cornflower Blue

Tim Holz Wildflower dies

PaperArtsy Fresco paints : Teresa Green, Granny Smith and Chalk.

Stamps : PaperArtsy Mini MN61 and Indigo Blu Bubbles background.

Tim Holz butterfly punch.

This is my entry for August on the  Country View Crafts' Challenge Blog.

Thank you for visiting today. 

Dreamer Canvas

When the May 2017 issue of Craft Stamper magazine arrived on my doormat and I saw the stunning project in the article by Jenny Marples, I knew I wanted to give that a try. I often see projects I want to try and time goes by but with this one, it was still in my head three months later.

I've pretty much followed the instructions in the article but used PaperArtsy Fresco paints, changed the colours of some of the buildings and changed the words to make it my own.
Here is my finished canvas;

The paints I used for the background were Squid Ink (one of my favourites, love the name and the deep purple tone), Elephant, Slate and Sage.

This is the background before I started:

The next layer was stamped using white gesso and the Tim Holtz Halftone background stamp CMS260. Then I used my PaperArtsy mini MN18 for the letters and numbers in black and coffee archival ink. I didn't get photos at each stage although I intended to. I totally got lost in the project and three hours went by in a flash, I forgot to eat, it was great.

I spent ages die cutting the Tim Holtz suburbia buildings and adding the details, some of the parts are so tiny but it is worth the effort.  The photo below was taken outdoors so the background looks a bit more blue than it actually is.

Here's a close up :

I am really pleased with this one so huge thanks to the very talented Jenny Marples for the idea.

Enjoy your Sundays and see you again soon. x