Hello!
Last week I got 'together' with Alison Bomber from Words and Pictures and Brenda Brown from Bumblebees and Butterflies. Well it was a virtual meet up over Skype! You may recall Brenda and I did this last year to create our 'Skype Journals'. This time it was lovely that Alison joined us too, we had a great few hours crafting together with lots of laughter along the way.
We had decided we were going to work on a large mdf surface in advance but the rest of the session was decided as we went along - each of us selecting a step in the process. Brenda was very organised and documented our steps!! Some of these steps took alot longer than others. It was fun listening to each others thought processes without actually telling the others what we were doing - that had to wait for the BIG REVEAL at the end.
B - Seal substrate with gesso
N - Use some texture paste any way you wish.
A - Dilute one
colour of paint and apply in any way you choose.
B - Add crackle in
anyway you want.
General - We gave ourselves time to start to gather
embellishments and give time for the crackle to dry
N - Add texture to one or more of the embellishments.
A - Add colour to
one or more of your embellishments.
B - Create a panel
to use in building layers.
N - Apply a coat of paint to the background any way you
like.
A - Stamp ...... Alison said 'it's in your hands' but it
must be pure stamping over the background.
B - Dip, drip and dry watery washes.
N - Edge the base in whatever way you want.
A - Trial the composition and design and finalise the
embellishments.
B - Do an Alison
and add some words.
N - Add a touch of
metallic.
A - Splatter.
Alison and I both worked on a large MDF tag - Tim Holtz Etcetera or That's Crafty - GiganTAG. This is a large surface - around 15 x 7.5 inches - a little scary when it comes to composition! I kept my embellishments smallish but then struggled with all the empty space - I don't do empty space very well. I confess I added the square / rectangles onto the mesh after we finished as it just seemed too empty!
The background had quite a few layers of texture, crackle, paint and stamping!
I think the Tim Holtz Ornate frame is my favourite part of this project. I layered a few up and gave a thick stippled coat of gesso before adding PaperArtsy Infusions and a bit of water. I blasted it dry and stippled some matt medium over it to help seal the Infusions before adding touches of gold paint.
Brenda's step of adding a panel resulted in me grabbing this old mesh I have and adding some paints!
Once we were all done it was time for the big reveal - so if you havent already do head over to Alison and Brenda's blogs to see their amazing designs.
Thanks to both Brenda and Alison for a fun day! We are all a little short of crafting time these days so it was wonderful to take this time out.
I would like to join in the latest challenge at Frilly and Funkie - Creatures Great and Small and Anything Goes at Stamps and Stencils.
Nikki xxx
