StoneArt Tree

 

After watching day 5 of Ashley Hay's Creative Christmas Challenge videos I decided to have a go at making a tree but I didn't have a cone shape for the base, so instead I wrapped cardboard around a bottle.

Once dry, I took the bottle out of the cardboard and was left with a cone shape.  I mixed up stoneart and powertex to make a clay, rolled it out very very thinly and then tore it and powertexed it on the cone.

I did it in layers starting from the bottom upwards.

And here it is totally covered in the clay.

Once dry, I started to apply colour.

Once I was happy with the colour I gave it all a coat of varnish and then about 2 hours later a coat of transparent powertex.

Just love the ruffles of the torn clay mix.

Powertex Tutor Training Days

So guess where I've been the last couple of days? Yes, on my Powertex tutor training course, along with three other lovely ladies all set to become tutors for their designated areas.

First of all we played with the ivory Powertex.

The mdf shape that I was given was an owl and there was a huge box of embellies to choose from, so as you can see I went off piste with mine (what's new there then!) and went down the skull, cog and Halloween route.

We then started working on the next piece.

This was the next piece, either an angel or a fairy, I chose an angel and the others made fairies.

Here at the end of day one are my three pieces all ready for their colour tomorrow.

Back again for day two and today the sun was shining.

We played with different colouring and layering techniques firstly on the bottle.

Everyone is on a roll now.

Michele popped down to see how we were all doing.

I went for the blue for my angel.

This is a photo of the projects I made taken outside this morning in my garden - love them all.

This is a snippet of my certificate, so it's now official!!

And my absolute special favourite is my fabulous apron which I shall wear with pride - thank you sooooo much.

Can't wait to also share my other news with you, but that will have to wait until nearer the end of the year!!

The Other Boot

I played with the 'other' boot that I got from the car boot today.

I picked this pair specially as they had both a zip and a lace.

I painted the whole of the boot in a layer of bronze Powertex and added fabric and clay pieces.

Once I'd finished embellishing, I covered the lace in Powertex.

Then I put it outside to dry.

I left the bottle in to keep the shape whilst it sets in place. 

And this is it from the back.

And a view from the zip side.

Once dried, I took the bottle out and it had held the shape I wanted.

 

But I needed to do something with the inside, so I covered it with t-shirt fabric and set it outside again to dry in the sun.

Once dry I used old gold and soft gold metallic paints to colour it and then used worn penny on the embellishments with the old gold.

I love the contrast of the two gold colours and just a pop of the red.

This is the back, just very subtle but really brings out the texture.

I might eventually put it outside in the border.

 

Don't forget, if you are going to put something outside, you need to leave it inside for at least three weeks to cure, and then it will be totally weatherproof.

So this is what my pair of boots now look like. You can really see the red on the embellishments on this photo.

And another photo of them out of the sun. I love how they both came out. Not so much of a pair now though.

Bottle Sleeve

I made a quick bottle sleeve with some leftover fabric, lace and red powertex.

Once dry, I added silver treasure gold.

Close up of the face and 3d sand balls, which are extremely fiddly!!

Paperartsy are asking to see our makes using liquid sculpting medium for their challenge this week.

Powertex Colour Experiment

My netball buddie Chris, brought me some empty wine bottles last night. I needed some to play further with my powertex and fabrics.

I wanted to see if I could change the colour of the ivory powertex without changing the properties of it. I know you can add pigments but I wanted to know if it would work with acrylic paints, so I added lots of drops of dioxazine purple media paint, which is a really, really deep purple, and I ended up with this lilac.

It mixed okay, it went on okay, the fabric stuck okay, but it seems to be taking an age to dry. So I left it overnight and checked it the next day. 

It still wasn't totally dry this morning so I gave it a blast with the hairdryer and that did it. I don't actually think it had anything to do with adding the paint, I think it was probably because it was the coldest night on record this year up to now!! So anyhow, I then added some more purple paint by using the dry brushing technique.

I did the same thing with another shade of purple.

I also added a tiny touch of black paint, again dry brushing, just to hi-light some of the texture. I also painted the faces silver.

And finally I added some treasure gold in pewter and indigo around the faces.

And the back of the bottle.

And the balls and the faces.

Again, unfortunately, the photos don't pick up all the textures and the shimmer from the paint and the treasure gold, but we have also had 4 seasons in one day up to now today, so that hasn't helped either!!

So my verdict would be that yes it is very easy to change the colour of the powertex using acrylic paints, but I will keep experimenting.