Sunday 11 August 2019

Faux Cloisonné

I've been having fun this weekend playing with different techniques to make stamped images look like cloissoné enamel.


The new Wavy Roses stamp set form Altenew just screamed at me that it needed a cloissoné finish as it reminded me of the art nouveau period when that technique was popular.

I started with the easiest technique and made a card.   For this one, I stamped the double flower image onto 300gsm cardstock and stamped and embossed it 3 times in silver to get a raised silver outline.

I then used kuretake paints - white from the Starry Colours set and Pink, Purple, Green and Gold from the new Gem set but didn't add much water as I wanted a thick paste like consistancy to imitate enamel.   You could clear emboss over the top once dry to get it even more enamel like but I decided I liked my finish as it was so left it.

To turn it into a card, I fussy cut it (there are dies but I wanted it without a white border to make it look more like an enamel brooch) and placed it on top of a cluster of frames from the Altenew Fine Frames Die cut from silver mirri card.   The sentiment comes from a Lovely Legs Set - the Hugging Elves set but I just wanted something that means I can decide later what sentiment I'm sending by stamping it on the inside - so sending you  hugs, thanks, birthday wishes etc.


Then I decided I wanted to try and make an actual faux enamel brooch so had a play with the single rose in the same set in a few different methods.   Let's start with the one I messed up......


I thought that nuvo drops could give me the enamel look so I stamped the image onto craft board which is a thick flexible board (I got mine on Amazon) that you can cut with steel rule dies (thinlets aren't deep enough but will get you 50% through and then you can finish with scissors) but is ideal for 3D projects and wearable things.  Once stamped, I traced over the image with silver drops and then let that dry and filled in with colours - that's where it went a bit wrong as it didn't flow to "fill" the areas as much as I wanted so it got a bit streaky.   I'm told it flows better if you warm it up a bit so I'll try popping the bottles in warm water next time before I use them.


So I decided to experiment again and tried painting with the kuretake paints onto shrink plastic, I favour the frosted variety.  I've only every used alcohol inks before and will only be doing that in the future!   The paints did dry on the plastic but when the plastic shrinks so does the paint so you end up with thick flaky bits on the back which will easy scratch off.   So I did a second one with copics - add a pin badge back to it and you've got your very own on-trend pin badge.


I wanted to have another go at a large pin so went back to the craft board, and this time stamp and embossed with platinum powder twice and then went to work filling in the areas with embossing ink.  I used the versamark refill bottle and just added a couple of drops onto my acrylic block and painted it with a thin brush section by section so I could add different coloured powders in different areas.  I cut with large scissors to finish - you need a decent pair to get through craft board (check out our Fiskars section that will be added to store this week!)


I had a few frames left over so decided to make another card using a similar design.  This time I used the new Rosie Posy Mini Stamp from Altenew and just coloured it with pencils this time.


I added the Mid Century Frame die and fussy cut the image out to pop on top and added a few enamel like accents into the frame using Rhubarb Stickles.






 NEWS FROM THE STORE

We will be adding to our basics section this week with the items we got last week but didn't have time to finish processing.   Our shrink plastic will also be here.

We should hopefully get our Concord and 9th delivery towards the end of the week if they ship it tomorrow as we hope they will.

We also have some Sugar Pea Designs restocks in transit.

Otherwise it will be a quieter week whilst we gear up for the massive Christmas releases from Avery Elle and Lawn Fawn on the Thursday the week after (22nd August)

Catch you later

Tara






1 comment:

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment - we hope the blog inspires your creativity.
The Seven Hills Crafts Design Team