Shabby teasel

So I'm having some well deserved annual leave from work, not doing much just pottering around, doing some crafting, catching up on sleep and looking at the garden.  I should actually be doing something in the garden but I keep hoping that by just looking at it and thinking "those weeds need to come out" it will magically happen.  Postive thinking can only go so far. John is off from Friday and has a grand plan. 

Easter is always the start of the great gardening blitz in the UK, so it will rain of course.  If nothing else the potatoes have to go in on Good Friday.  I don't know why, folklore ancient tradition, something to do with the moon, it was always what Dad did and Pap did, so we do.  

Anyway enough of the rambling.

After the grand tidy up of the craft room the other week I found quite a bit of stuff started and not finished so I thought I'd try and finish some stuff and use some stuff (there is still a lot of stuff left and I haven't put away the Ally Pally haul).

As I've said and shown before I love taking photos and I love using my photos, so this is a mixed media piece using old stuff (the canvas) and new stuff: the Crafters Workshop stencil Specimen and the butterfly stamp from the new PaperArtsy hotpicks).

I did show some sneaky work in progress on Twitter and Instagram but here it is in its entirety.

I used a neutral palette of PaperArtsy Fresco paints of Chutney, Toffee and French Roast for a really dark base layer.  Crackle Glaze and then Mocha Mousse top layer to give really big crackles.  This was washed over with watered down Nougat and then watered down Elephant to give a slightly "dirty feel" to the canvas.  All very subtle and hardly seen, but adds to the distressed aged look.

A very thin layer of Grunge Paste with Taupe was added in the middle with a little bit of texture added with the palette knife.  I mixed some more Grunge Paste with Mud Splat and used through the stencil. 

Finally some embossing of text from a new Hotpicks using Birch WOW embossing powder to complete the canvas.

I decided to image transfer the teasel using PaperArtsy Satin Glaze on linen fabric that was "BondaWebbed"  to card and then had a layer of Grunge Paste to give a smooth base to adhere the image too.  I didn't mind the "hole" where it hadn't adhered just added to the shabby look.  

Added three eyelets, distressed the edges of the card and added some Pebble and Expresso alcohol ink around the edges and the eyelets to suggest rust and mineral staining.

The butterfly was stamped on brown card in Birch embossing powder and painted in Old Gold Fresco paint.  Some metal bits for its body and Raisin alcohol ink to stain.  Around the edge of the butterfly I added some Ruby Treasure Gold which I also added in places to the canvas.  

The meccano looking peice is actually a strip of Grunge Paper painted in Brown Shed and then rusting powder added. Really happy with how that came out.  The brown of the meccano piece was echoed in the leather scallop strip and finally a tag with a strip of linen and a button.

Really pleased with the composition of this, blank spaces to rest the eyes from the texture, the colours tone through the neutral palette and there is a repeat of butterflies and holes / circles  to make it all work together as a whole.

I also finished another heavily textured peice today, I'll blog that one at some time in between willing the garden to weed itself!

Hugs
jo
xx