Bookmark

So, I was in a challenging kind of mood.

In the mood for a challenge!

I found just what I was looking for over at the Crafting Ireland blog. 

The task, make a bookmark, using at least one kind of paint and an image from a magazine.

Here's the specific post... sponsored by the lovely people over at Mixed Media Place.

 Step one - I painted a piece of kraft card with DecoArt 'warm White' acrylic paint.

Step Two - I thought I'd use some multi-medium to create a bit of a resist effect. So, I smeared a bit of it through a lovely Studio Calico stencil I have.

Resist closeup

Step Three - I then sprayed it all with some Dylusions spray.

Then used a babywipe to take off a lot of the spray.

Step Four - Annoyingly we tend to recycle our magazines about a nanosecond after we finished them, so I didn't have a lot of choice when it came to finding something to incorporate. I decided to cut out the word 'Home' from this flyer.

Step Five - Distressed the word and also painted a little chipboard bird.

Step Six - I stamped 'Home Bird' all over the bookmark. I also smeared a little texture paste (which had blue paint added to it) randomly about.

I finished the bookmark up with some bird stamps from Dyan Reavely and some bakers twine/ribbon through a punched hole in the top.

                               

I'm quite happy with it I'll boastfully admit - but to be honest I realised afterwards I shouldn't have added the chipboard bird - it's too dimensional for a bookmark! I'll be leaving dents in my pages!

There you go! Hope you like it :)

Gelli Prints and DecoArt Fun :)

The universe has been listening. It heard that my gelliplate has become most most favouritest thing in the whole world.

In fairness it would  have been quite hard for the Universe to have missed this fact. In fact, I suspect the Universe has been banging on it's ceiling with a brush handle, yelling at me to keep it down.

But, holding no grudges, she - the Universe is a woman, right? - sent me a wonderful surprise a month or so ago.

I got an email from the lovely people at DecoArt paints, asking me to do a little design team work for them with their fab acrylic paints and my beloved Gelli plate. I.Was. Delighted. Delighted :)

But I got a little bit of performance anxiety. I didn't want to disappoint. Such lovely, lovely paints and now (after a trip to the Hobbycraft fair in Birmingham) also a new GIANT Gelliplate. It was nearly overwhelming.

But, telling myself to cop on, I eventually dived in...

Here are the current results. I hope you like them :)

I grabbed a few fallen leaves from the Acer tree in the back garden and this is what I got :)

My Dad saw keyholes and I saw trees. I think he's right though.

Broke out a few of my old favourite hand-cut stencils for this one. Loving the pink palette.

The first of two Poppies studies. Love poppies. And the colour teal. This print has it all!

Those poppies again. But more multicolored. I love colour. Loads of it. I guess I'm just  not a subtle person :)

So, there you go. I'm hoping to try producing some videos of my process soon. I tried before but my camera kept falling over. Any and all tips on making videos very happily received!

See you next time :)