Adventures in texture

So, you know me, I like to create stuff that has a lot of texture and and it quite toned possibly muted in its colour scheme.

Well here is another one!

Crackle does fill me with delight, all that texture and shabbiness.  I'm a great fan of PaperArtsy Crackle Glaze but at Ally Pally Leandra showed me two new products she was selling: Golden Gel Medium Crackle Paste and Dreamweaver Crackle Embossing Paste.   they are very different to Crackle Glaze as you don't need paint as a bottom layer to see the cracks (I called it the jam sandwich, paint, crackle, paint at Ally Pally). You get the cracks and then put colour on the top and the colour (ink or paint) sinks into the cracks and makes them darker. Think tonal rather than contrast. Both need thicker layers than you would with Crackle Glaze and the Golden takes an age to dry, but the effects are quite stunning and I like. 

So this one, I first of all created the central panel with the Dreamweaver on a thick piece of Kraft card. Once dry (about an hour but you can speed it up a bit with a heat gun but you may get large pieces of cracked rather than fine lines of crack). Colour wise I think its its Squid Ink, Archival ink in Maroon and Magenta Hue, plus some Glimmer Mists in Bronze and Purple.  Some stamping with the new Hot Picks 1301  in Maroon and some eyelets sanded and stained with Stream Alcohol Ink. Some Spanish Topaz Treasure Gold sanding and stitching.

If you zoom in on the photo you should be able to see the cracks. It ended up quite leathery especially as the Kraft card was so thick so that sort of dictated what I'd do with, a bit industrial.

The 12x12" card was cut down to 11x11" to fit in my happy scrapbook. and was brayered with Cinnamon, Chocolate Pudding and Toffee Fresco paints, just randomly. French Roast and Chocolate Pudding were used over the metal plate stencil in the corners and then over that Mushroom through the Tim Holtz ruler stencil. A bit of sanding to knock it all back.

Stamping using Potting Soil Archival and the number stamp from Vintage ID09 and then the cogs from Hot Picks 1107 were stamped and embossed using Bark WOW embossing powder. 

The final top layer of the tag (made ages ago) and the heart were another experiment.  I recently bought a felting pad and needle to use wool roving's.  So I'd punched some roving onto felt and cut out a PaperArtsy heart.  It looked good, but "too clean" as I'd used pale roving. It need to be aged and distressed, would rusting powder work? Well lets give it a go and see!  So dabbed Versamark over the heart put the rusting powder on and liberally soaked it with vinegar and left it to react and dry.  It took ages as I'd really soaked it! It didn't give the rusting as I'd expected as it had sunk into e felt but it did make it dirty which I liked! On top is a scrap of linen, a safety pin stained with Alcohol Ink and a bit of the rusted paper the heart felt had been sitting on. 

Finally I stamped the live, work, create stamp from Hot Picks 1301 in the bottom left corner.  I first stamped in Blush fresco but I didn't press hard enough and the stamp wasn't crisp, so added a bit more blush in the area (repeated it in the other corners to make it look deliberate!) and stamped in Aquamarine Archival. the blue echos the Stream Alcohol ink used on the eyelets and the staples, but it may be a bit too bright and draw your eye to it rather than the whole thing, what do you think?

 

I'm really enjoying working in this 11x11" size and putting in my happy scrapbook (or is it a journal???), cuts down the amount of canvas lying around the house!

Right for once it is a glorious bank holiday here in The Shires and I think yet again I need to do something in the garden rather than just willing it to happen! If I do some strenuous digging and weeding it can replace a tortuous session in the gym today. 

Hugs

Jo

xx