Birthday Cards

I needed three cards for crafty friends with birthdays in January, so I decided to try a Powertex and Bister mini mixed media style and was quite pleased how they came out.

The hardest part was trying to keep them flat once they had been mounted on to the actual card, as they dried on the chipboard they curled!

I used teal pigment along with copper and gold on this one to hi-light the textures.

Bits and bobs, coffee stirrers, corrugated cardboard, cotton scrim, sand balls, string, dishcloth and t-shirt fabric to create the textures.

Everything was sprayed in a mix of brown or natural Bister and water and left to dry overnight.

Once completely dry they were all dry brushed very lightly with ivory Powertex and copper and gold pigments to finish.

Triptych Powertex Workshop

The table ready and set up for us to go. As you can see there are three pieces of lovely ragged raw wood for each of us.

Alli giving us a run down on what we were doing and dishing out 'pink' gloves!!! Yikes!!!

First step, paint the panels with gesso and dry with a heat tool.

Lesley gessoing her panels, don't forget the edges!

Next we added some stenciling using the Powertex Easy Structure product, which is basically like a texture paste, modeling paste or grunge paste.

The girls adding their stenciling to the panels whilst wearing their pink gloves!!

We dried the Easy Structure with a heat tool.

This is about 3 steps later. Next we mixed a 50 / 50 of 3d flex and ivory powertex to make an icing like consistency to literally drop and slop across our three panels. We used a pallet knife to create texture and stringy bits, some of us added the sand balls in. Next we sprayed the powertex and 3d flex mix with bister and left it to dry on it's own for now!

Next we decided what embellishments we wanted to use and roughly placed them where we wanted them to be.

Using powertex we stuck them down on the panels, dried them with a heat tool and gave them a coat of gesso and then dried that with a heat tool too.

This one is Lesley's, she is just deciding where to place her embellishments.

And then all the additions got a final coat of ivory powertex, this is to ensure that everything dries hard, ie the corrugated cardboard. Everything on all three panels was then zapped with a heat tool and I'm not sure if you can see or not, but the bister over the powertex and 3d flex mix has started to crack.

Then the fun started. You would not believe how many layers of different colours of bistre and spray paint this has had on it, but basically I just kept going until I was happy with what I had. And if any of you eagle eyed people out there can spot some pink, well you'd be right, I used a bright pink with a mica in it!!

I left mine there for the day as I wanted to go back to it to do some dry brushing when I got home after it had 100% totally dried.

Chris admiring what she'd done and the rest of the girls in the background drying their panels.

This is Chris's once she'd dried it.

Helen is still drying hers as her 3d flex / Powertex mix was quite thick so took a while to dry.

Lin's, again she also had a thick layer of the mix, sorry the photo is a bit blurred but I was taking it over her shoulder whilst she was still drying it.

We finished up at the workshop and all decided to do the dry brushing when we got home after the panels had had time to properly dry.

So this morning, I added violet shimmer and yellow shimmer Decoart media sparys, dazzling metallics in berry and teal, metallic lustres in black shimmer, majestic purple, elegant emerald, brilliant turquoise and champagne ice until I was happy with what I had.

As the sun was out, I took them outside in the garden and took some photos.

Close up of the stenciled skull hi-lighted in black shimmer and the mix of powertex, 3d flex and sand balls.

Close up of the grungeboard numbers and wooden cogs.

Another close up of the stenciling and paste mix.

Close up of the stringiness we managed to achieve with paste mix and power cotton.

Love how the mix on this one crackled once heated.

Close up of the burlap and metal embellishments.

And one more close up, stenciling, wooden cog and paste mix in bottom corner.

Then I came back inside and took another photo. Obviously they look duller and you can't see the metallic as well.

Another close up of the middle of the middle panel.

Another close up of the key and cog sat on the burlap.

And finally a close up of the bottom of the right panel. Right in the bottom corner you can see the corrugated cardboard and sand balls.

I love how they've finished up really grungy even though I've used a lot of metallics to hi-light the textures.

We took this workshop with Alli Turner of Allison Turner Designs, please contact her through her website to arrange classes.

Pocket Letter Atc Set

Chris enticed me into a swap of 9 atcs with a theme running through them all. I got to choose the theme for her, so I chose shades of pink, black and white and butterflies. Now apparently they are called pocket letters as they are meant to have an element of surprise.

So my element of surprise was on the back. These are the backs, basically another set of 9 atcs with a theme.

We are at a Powertex workshop in Nottingham today, so we are swapping them there, hope she likes them and the surprise!!!

Layers and more layers

I couldn't even begin to tell you how many layers this piece of card has taken, I simply just kept going until I liked what I saw. There is brayering, stenciling, stamping and I must have used about twelve different colours and varieties of paint from the DecoArt range. I had some of Seth dies already cut, so grabbed a handful and started to place them on the background, as this is what I ended up with, which incidently was nothing like what it started out as! Finally I added the black words and 'X's. 

I'm sat looking at this photo and I'm thinking that something needs to added to the space at the bottom between the two sets of 'x's. I may go back in and add another word in black.

Little Book of Wonder

I'm involved in a swap over on a Facebook group and the criteria was for it to be no larger than 4" x 4" with a maximum of 12 pages / signatures, decorated in whatever medium you fancy or how you like, with quotes on at least half of the amount of pages you have in your book.

All the quotes are stamped in a coloured stazon.

The pages were painted with DecoArt multi satin paints and stamped in co-ordinating colour of stazon inks.

Also included are some images including ones from Teesha Moore.

I used DecoArt chalky black and white paint with lid tops and a credit card to make the marks.

These images are from the Crowabout pages.

This quote is from Stampotique.

This quote is also from Stampotique.

Seth Apter and Andy Skinner stamps used in the backgrounds.

Another Stampotique quote.

And I thought I'd add my name to the back page.

I added a piece of ribbon as a closure for the book.

I hope my swap partner likes it, I had fun making it.