Sometimes you just have to do it

There may be a moral to this story, there may not (it's also a long post - sorry!).

I really enjoyed painting and distressing three tags in the style of Lind Cain valentine trio. They had lots of colour on (Moonlight, crackle, Eggplant, Dusty Orchid, Limelight and French Roast and lots of sanding and then stencilling, stamping and finally the three metal hearts.  

They looked good and rather than join them together in a triptych like Linda, I wanted to put them on a canvas.  So quick nip out to HobbyCraft (plus Sainsburys they are virtually next door to each other) and a long oblong canvas purchased.

You know me I have to put texture and layers EVERYWHERE, so I scraped some texture paste over the canvas and then used a dot stencil over the top of that in areas. Left it to dry (gosh horror I think I did some housework in between).

I used Kaiser Eco paint (hiding away in the bottom of the paint stash) in eggshell all over and followed that with slate slopped on, all random and messy it's not like painting walls is it! Finally added some weathered wood (a blue grey) Anita's acrylic (why no Fresco - too precious to cover this whacking great canvas) 

Added some of the many sewing stamps from PaperArtsy I have - really big background images in plum archival, left it to dry a bit and then gently smudged some of the ink with a baby wipe.  Added in some edge of a credit card lines as well.

Tissue tape - I have quite a few rolls as I assume many of you have as well, so put different strips on top and sealed them with some Ranger Glue and Seal (had it yonks and not opened it).  On top of that I put some Mermaid.  Some Treasure Gold on the dots and it was all looking fab.

Then I laid the tags on top to gauge positioning.  But they just sort of sat there, perched, floating but not really looking at home, not anchored. It needed something else so I added some corrugated cardboard along the length of the canvas covering the tissue tape and stuck the tags on top.

Nope still looked wrong, still needed something else to bring them together.  Rootle rootle through stash - ah lowers.  Yep they worked as they linked the three tags together and covered the gaps.  Glued them down and then thought - they need a bit of colour, I could spray them "carefully" to avoid the tags (I do talk to myself when I'm crafting, not out loud  - just in my head like).

Disaster!  I over sprayed they all went soggy and the wrong colour, heating with the glue gun warped the metal hearts as well and softened the hot glue sticking everything down. Stomp, stomp, stomp, grumble, grumble, grumble.

So the next day after letting it all dry out overnight to see if would improve (it didn't) I started to rip the tags off thinking well I can just repaint the canvas and use for something else.  The first two came off with the corrugated but then like a beautiful butterfly emerging from a caterpillar the last one looked lovely with some of the cardboard. It looked at home, grounded and let the eye focus on it.  

So I left it.  I added some Pea coat over the tape and the right hand side of the canvas and now I'm really happy with it.

So the moral?  Don't be afraid to rip it it up and start again (sneaky eighties reference there)!

hugs
jo
xx