Love Shack

I don't know about you but shows brings out the demon spender in me.  It doesn't matter whether its paper, fabric or food,  it encourages impulse buying. You are so caught up in the throng, the loveliness of everything, the "oh go on buy it, baked beans all month won't be so bad" that you come home with bags of goodies that sit in your craft room "for a very long time not being used".

I remember one Good Food Show my husband and I went to years ago and having got "tipsy" with the free samples by midday, impulse purchased a new oak refectory style dining room table.  How could we resist it was beautiful and such good value.  It was due to be delivered on Christmas Eve and I was cooking Christmas lunch the next day.  So not only the panic of will it get delivered (it was handmade in Wales) I had no  idea whether it would fit through the front door or even in the dining room. 

It was (delivered) and it fitted (in the dining room), but it  took a long while to ease it through the front door but we got there.

This birdhouse from PaperArtsy was another one such purchase (no I didn't live on baked beans, it was spaghetti hoops). But inspired by Michelle's work this week on the PaperArtsy blog I thought I'd do something with it this weekend. 

I started off with quite a few layers of Fresco Toad Hall, this really is a lovely green not too khaki and not too yellow. Next I gave it a crackle layer and topped that with Sky Blue. I gave it quite a heavy rub with sandpaper and removed bits of the blue and crackle layer.  If you sand it hard enough you can get quite big strips of the top layer to come off, the crackle acts like a rubber resist.

Next just started lots of layers of paint to add to the depth. I used Inky Blue, Brown Shed, Snowflake, sometimes full strength and sometimes watered down.. Wiping back and sanding to get the feel I wanted. Finally I stamped some script in Snowflake.

On a scrap of Kraft card I used Desert Orchid and Ruby and Sapphire Treasure Gold and then stamped in Plum Archival with the this heart stamp   With the spare ink left on the stamp I just randomly stamped over the birdhouse to use up the ink and add a random contrast colour. 

Finally paper and fabric flowers and buttons to add another layer of texture and interest. I also painted some wooden beads to act as feet.

The roof was really fun to do.  I gave the metal a good sand and then added layers of Brown shed, Inky Pool and Toad Hall. I didn't want a thick opaque cover so just lightly sponged on the colour.  I also added some rusting powder on the edges, the vinegar I used to activate the powder ran in places so added some interesting streaking. Finally I stamped this numbers from this plate and used Frantage aged black embossing enamel it's quite thick and has some gold / coppery larger balls in it which tend to sit on top of the black.

It wasn't quite what I envisaged as in you can't see any crackles, but I like it (and so does the cat who insisted on making sure it was positioned right for me to photograph, which meant his tail, face got in the way of the first photo's).

hugs
jo
xx