Thursday, October 30, 2014

Multi-Media Penny Black Holiday Bird

I have a few pictures for this project, but the real magic will be in the video, which I will post on Face book tomorrow when I get back to the store.  This first picture shows the finished card.  The bird looks popped out a little, doesn't it?
In this second photo, I am showing the materials I used. The cling stamp is called "cling cardinal elements" from Penny Black, stamped in Ranger Archival Black ink, onto white Bazzill 110 lb. cardstcock.

Before I just randomly pick markers, I am pulling out the color wheel and making sure that I am not all over the place...reds and greens are complementary already (for Christmas) and the yellow will go with either...

I  am going to use the gesso to paint the background with a whitewash, to make the music recede a little. After initially coloring the bird, I will then cover the whole thing with the Matte Medium. That is the secret weapon that makes the additional coloring in the video actually work. So, the next step after the gesso is the initial coloring, and the video will be on Facebook tomorrow for that.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Embellished Burlap Stocking

Embellished Burlap Stocking
Today, I have a burlap Christmas stocking project. I have taken pictures along the way, so I hope this helps you figure out how to do this. All the materials are available here, and can be phone-ordered (978-887-6397, and we can send paypal invoices.)  This project was inspired by a  similar stocking I saw on the Petaloo blog, but the rest I figured out by myself...All the descriptions match the photo above the words.
 
 I started with the burlap stocking from Petaloo, and, using the Tim Holtz holly stencil and some paste (you can easily use the Ranger Texture Paste, the Wendy Vecchi paste, or the Dreamweaver paste...pretty much all the same.) Use the palette knife to spread a thin layer of the paste across the stencil, remove the stencil, holding the top and bottom. replacing the stencil as needed to cover your area. Immediately after removing the stencil, sprinkle the Distress Glitter in Rock Candy color all over the white areas. Shake off the excess, and allow to dry. (The snowflakes are superfluous...they never made it into the project!)
 Next step, I want to create some foliage to add dimension and background. I used the Tim Holtz die called Garden Greens. You can also use any holly or greenery you have. I crumpled them uup, and then inked all of them with Gathered Twigs Distress ink.
 
 I lay out the pieces to see what it looked like...
 
 ...and use the Liquitex Super Heavy Medium, matte or gloss is fine, you won't see it...and this stuff is like cement. Finnabair has a product similar to this in her Prima line of Mixed Media stuff. She is the one who got us all using the heavy stuff to begin with.
 
 You can see here how I glued all the foliage in, and then I added a red ribbon. I used a piece of the Petalloo red crochet set...lots of widths to choose from, and it comes in white, cream, and green.
 
 As you can see, I am adding all the extraneous layers first, so that they will be hidden. We do the flowers as the top layer. I found some cool gold cording, and a string of pearls to add a little excitement...still using that heavy gel cement...
 
In this final picture, I am showing the placement of all the flowers, again using the heavy gel. Just bunch them in there in whichever way looks good to you...and then let it sit to dry. Santa will be delighted to fill this baby for you!! ...and see??...no snowflakes!! That could be a whole 'nother stocking!