Sunday, 17 March 2019

A positivity canvas

As the weather here was awful yesterday, the best place to be was in my craft room getting messy and watching Queer Eye on netflix so I set about making a mixed media positivity canvas as a gift for a friend which took me around 4 episodes...



I started with a 7 x 5 inch stretched canvas and blended oxide inks straight onto it (I am not a mixed media expert, so although I know conventional wisdom is to prep the canvas first, I don't find I need to)   I used Scattered Straw, Fossilised Amber,  Dried Marigold and Crushed Olive to get a blend from top to bottom and then used a little weathered wood and pine needles to "dirty" it up a little in places before spritzing with water for a little reaction here and there.

The next step was to add some paste detail to the top right corner using one of Tim Holtz's mixed media #2 dies to create a stencil from a scrap of card (you can use acetate to make a stencil to keep and reuse) and gluing it down with stick and spray repositional adhesive before spreading seaspray green tonic mousse through and allowing it to dry.


Whilst that was drying I die cut all my elements to decorate the front.  As one of the sentiments I used is about time, I wanted to feature the fabulous Timekeeper clock die also by Tim Holtz for Sizzix.  This is a steel rule die so can cut really thick material like leather or as I used here super thick cardboard.  I cut two and glued them together for added dimension and then used a couple of shades of green and teal wow embossing powders and Hero arts Copper for that verdigris look.


The floral stems come from the Wild Flowers #2 die set again another one of Tim's, and I die cut them from 3 shades of card - Sage Leaf by Lawn Fawn, and then Pesto and Palm from Hero Arts.  I used some more wow embossing powders to add hints of sparkle in places.

The sentiments were all taken from the Reason to Smile Stamp Set from Altenew, the ones at the bottom were white embossed onto Hero Arts Adriatic cardstock, the one inside the clock was embossed using the "verdigris" combo onto vellum.

Once the paste was dry, I added a little stamping to add some texture to the background using the ocean waves background from Hero Arts (sorry this is currently out of stock but will be back as soon as possible, but any simple pattern would work)   The technique here is to just add random "bits" of stamping rather than the whole image just to add some detail and texture.


My normal style is very CAS, so doing something like this really pushes me out of my comfort zone but I really had fun tyring to make something I was happy with (even if I did ruin my desk by dropping embossed pieces on it upside down!)  I just kept adding things and taking them away and taking photos to remember what I had put where before I fixed it all with strong glue in the end.   Hopefully my friend will like it and the positivity reminders will do their trick.






NEWS FROM THE STORE

This week we will have:
  • Lil' Inker Designs latest release and restocks
  • Altenew's latest release
  • Lawn Fawn restocks
  • Echo Park and Carta Bella papers and stencils and embellishments
For European customers worried about Brexit - I am sorry but there is still no concrete news to give you.  The UK Government have voted this week to reject the "divorce deal" that is on the table from the EU which left us with "leave without a deal" or "another referendum" both of which were also rejected so currently we have no clue what will happen on the 29th March and cannot do any planning for it!!!   It's a case of watch this space still I'm afraid.......

Laters

Tara




1 comment:

  1. The Chi Machine is a passive aerobic exercise device, developed and first manufactured in Japan by Skylite Industry company president and engineer, Keiichi Ohashi, in 1988. The Chi Machine was granted a patent by the Japanese Patent Office December 18, 1990 which is expired in 2010((ii) Duration of a patent right).
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The Seven Hills Crafts Design Team