Spring Floral Canvas

My second post of the day... if you missed my Spring shadow box for A Vintage Journey you can find it here.
Ah April...I love spring, hopefully full of bright days and the emergence of colour as summer approaches. Our April challenge at Country View Crafts is Spring. I have created this canvas for my first project of the month.

Now I must firstly say - this is a remake of a project from one of Brenda Brown's Country View Crafts workshops from last year. You can see what we all made on her blog and Brenda's original project design on the CVC blog - here.

This canvas is a little smaller and a little greener than the one we did at the workshop. I have made this for a friend who asked for a piece of Nikki artwork - no pressure then! I don't have any process photos but here are some close ups:

Do check out the Country View Crafts challenge blog today for more ideas ideas and spring creations from the team.

Nikki

xxx

Spring Butterfly for AVJ

 It's April and here in the Northern Hemisphere, let's hope it is the start of some beautiful Spring days! We are celebrating Spring at a Vintage Journey with our April challenge. 

For my design I have taken a plain shadow box and used lots of different paint techniques to decorate the frame and contents - brayering, dry brushing, a bit of sponging!

The butterfly is embossed and oil pastels used to highlight the raised area before coordinating distress stains were added.

There was a painted flower on my desk, leftover from a the canvas I have made for the Country View Crafts April challenge - post coming in a few hours - (here) - so I used it as a little embellishment.

Until next time..

Nikki 

xxxx

Wildflower birthday card

Hi everyone. I love these new wildflower dies! This is the first time I have used them and was inspired by Paula Cheney's recent project.
 I have a step by step for this card over at the Country View Crafts Projects blog today.

I would like to enter - Spring is in the Air - Stamps and Stencils

Nikki 

xxx

Blooming Birthday cards

 

Hi everyone hope your week is going well. Just a quick post today to highlight some 4 inch square cards today using distress inks and sprays. There is a tutorial over at Country View Crafts projects.

Nikki

xxx

Dragonfly birthday

Time for my second creation for this months Country View Crafts challenge - where we are using the Industrial Technique.

 I seem to have used this alot recently, Tim Holtz January Tag, A Vintage Journey February Challenge and now CVC for March (here is my first creation if you missed it). My foil is now put away!!!

This time I made a birthday card with Tim Holtz dragonfly die and coordinating embossing folder. I also used the same embossed foil and paint technique on the honeycomb panel behind.

My 'Wishes' greeting was die cut from a scrap of foil and dabbed with distress paints - love the marbled effect on this if you can see it in the photo below...

The finished card:

See you next time...

Nikki

xxx

Industrial Bird Silhouette

Today is a new challenge at A Vintage Journey - not only that but it is a brand new A Vintage Journey - we have a new style and new sponsors. I am hosting March's challenge and we are using the Destination Inspiration Travel Bag which consists of:

Substrate – Board (eg - grey board, coaster board, cardboard, chipboard) 

Main Colour – Lilac or pale purple 

Technique – Rust Effects (perhaps using rusting or embossing powders or rust coloured paints) 

Product – Something metal 

I decided to combine the styles and products of Tim Holtz and Andy Skinner, to create this dimensional canvass. 

 I started with greyboard and using mod podge to layer lots of torn strips of embossed card stock. I then added Deco Art sand texture paste to the edges and some pearls in the corners. Once dry I covered it all in black acrylic. Again after fully drying, I dry brushed gesso over the surface.

   Finally - to add the chosen colour - I dry brushed dusty concord distress paint over the surface too.

Next I die cut loads of cogs - large and small - and layered them onto the edges of the canvass and also some card.

 As before I added sand texture paste, painted black and once dry dry brushed with white gesso.

I die cut the bird silhouette out of the textured card and mounted it on 2 other die cuts from foam board, which I also painted black.

This time to both the card and the canvass I added Deco Art translucent paints in Quinacridone Gold and Yellow iron oxide. 

Finally I put my three layers together and added my metal embellishments which I added a touch of treasure gold to (Royal Amethyst I think - I borrowed it at a crop!)  

I would like to enter this canvas into:

Frilly and Funkie - Layer it Up

Our Creative Corner - The Return of the Challenge ( I selected Go Rustic- Oct 14)

Sandee & Amelie's Steampunk challenge - Anything Goes SteamPunk / Industrial

Sorry for the long post! Hope you like my Tim Holtz / Andy Skinner combination. Lucky enough to see both of them at Stitches at the NEC the other week! And not forgetting the amazing Mario, he really is lovely.

  Back tomorrow with a shorter post...(I promise).

Thanks for stopping by.

Nikki

xxx

Industrial Crazy Cat cards

 

We have a new challenge at Country View Crafts for March, chosen by Debs - Industrial. When I created my Tim tag for January I wondered if the idea would work on a card too - so here we are! So it is fair to say it was inspired by Tim and then by me - follow the links if you missed them. Very short of photos today but here is how it started:

Foil on card, emboss, add paint, let dry or wipe when nearly dry, sand a little!

My cat is stamped in versamark and embossed with clear powder before covering in black ink. The rest is just inked and torn layers. 

Here is number two!

Not quite sure who is receiving these yet, although I do have one person in mind - but they were fun to make. I would like to enter:
Frilly and Funkie - Layer it Up

Be back later in the week with a new challenge at A Vintage Journey and another Industrial project for Country View Crafts.

Nikki

xxx