Christmas, I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Christmas. Sometimes I can be really enthusiastic about it, want to decorate the whole house, cook loads of yummy food and try not to buy even more Christams baubles in a new colour scheme (I have 3 large plastic boxes of baubles that really is enough for one house isn't?).
And then some years I could beat Scrooge for a bah humbug viewpoint.
It drives my husband insane, but he loves me and puts up with it.
This year I have a feeling it could be the whole full on Martha Stewart, Good House Keeping homespun chic DIY fabulous designer "oh I just knocked this together in a couple of hours" expereince as I've made this and it isn't even November (well it is now but I made it when it was still October).
I bought this MDF cut out last year and didn't do anything with it (it was a Scrooge year).
I knew I wanted to create a sort of shabby (nothing new there then) natural look. Distressed layers with touches of gold.
I started off painting it all ovr with PaperArtsy Claret Fresco paint. Then added a lyer of Old Gold.over that.
Next a layer of Crackle Glaze.
Over this layer of Nougat and Snowflake, not too thick as I wanted fine crackles.
Then some sanding to distress the edges and on the top to remvoe some of the crackle so it looks like peeling paint.
Treasure Gold (i think Renaissance), bit more Claret and Vintage Photo Distress Ink in places especially on the edges just to shabby it up.
Over all of this I added a layer of Metal Glaze mixed with a small amount of Old Gold. It really dirtied up the colour and added to the aged look.
A little bit of text stamping in Claret and finally I sprayed watered down Snowflake across it to add spots of white.
The more thin layers of colours you add to a piece can really add tone and depth as can sanding to reveal base layers of colour - my favourite way of creating!
So, onwards then to continue creating my scandanavian shabby Christmas, migh have to orgainse a drinks party to show it all off!
Hugs
Jo
xx
I did, I really tried to do a clean and simple inspired by Jo Wardle Guest Designer pieces over at PaperArtsy, but I just couldn't stop myself from adding texture!.
So here's a failed inspired by Jo Wardle, but it's a pretty good inspired by Jo Myhill don't you think?
It's the usual culprits of PaperArtsy Fresco paints in the orange / brown autumn inspired palette and I really like the Vintage Lace panel in the middle to contrast against the Krunchy Waxed Kraft Paper leaf. The Walnut Distress /ink over the top of the crunches really shows the texture and gives it that natural look.
Yet again it's a shame you can't actually get to look at this in real life and see all the grungy texture from the Grunge Paste and how watered down Fresco paints really move around and soak fabric beautifully. I also really enjoyed spraying the paints as well and I'm currently trying that out more on a work in progress.
Right the whole day is ahead of me and I have two projects on the go, Sunday lunch to cook and a game of rugby to watch this afternoon.
It's a hectic life sometimes.
Hugs
Jo
xx
I quite like Autumn, the colours the sharp nip in the air, but boy I don't enjoy going to work in the dark and travelling home from work in the dark - I miss daylight and it plays havoc with crafting as taking decent photos to blog with is frankly hard work. I have been known to take art work into work to photograph in my lunch break I'm that desperate sometimes.
Anyway today I have a day off work to play crafting catch up and that includes photographs (it's a brightish day so great light), blogging, oh and some craft as well (really need to crack on with those Christmas cards).
So yes I still appear to be a bit obsessed with hearts.
I made this quite a while ago in terms of the background and the frame. It's my usual distressed texture style. The frame had layers of PaperArtsy Fresco paint on in a neutral palette, rubbed back in places and little bits of embossing powder on it.
The centre piece had a lot of Frantage embossing powders added over the corrugated card which again had been lightly painted in neutral PaperArtsy Fresco paints.
It had something else in the middle (fabric and paper stitched together with a small piece of driftwood) that looked ok, but just wasn't quite right and every time I looked at it I sighed and pulled a face.
So I ripped off the middle bit and had a re-think.
I had some spare hearts cut from Grunge Paper knocking about from a previous project so I played around with these adding more distressing with paint and powders and wrapped some strips of silk and wire round them.
And again it sat in my craft room and I looked at it and sighed and pulled a face. Not quite as bad as last time, but yes, it still looked too "clean" especially the copper wire.
So this morning I carefully dripped some Hazelnut Alcohol Ink on the wire and silk and added some burgundy WOW embossing powder to the heart. I also sprinkled a bit of the embossing powder on the corrugated background. And then added some light swipes of Plum Archival Ink on the frame to tie in the colours.
Now I look at it and smile, it's dirty enough to make me happy.
hugs
Jo
xx
