Mixed Media Monday - Dancing Dragonfly

Hello all!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, we had a nice time at my sister's for dinner and the children seemed to enjoy their presents.  I always feel that this time inbetween Christmas and New Year is like being in limbo! 

However I got out some of my crafting supplies this weekend and instead of making a whole project decided to have a bit of a play/experimentation.  It didn't turn out exactly as I planned but it has given me the incentive to try out some more ideas.

Before Christmas I ordered a new stamp and die set from Sheena Douglass (perfect partners Dragonfly Dance) as I have wanted a dragonfly set for a while and these are a good size and will hopefully complement the butterflies in my stash.

Here is most of what I used...

I bought my Angelina fibres and fantasy film quite a while ago, and although I have used it I have to admit not as much as I should.  It is fun to work with but I do find the fibres get everywhere!

My first use of the fibres on their own didn't give the wing look that I wanted so I started again.  This time I used baby's bonnet fantasy film to sandwich some of the fibres as well as some glamour glitter from Chloe.  This is what it looked like before heating...

To fuse the fibres and film together heat needs to be applied, and I used a craft iron that I have.  It is important to remember to place something between the fibres and the iron to stop a melty disaster!  In the past I have used baking paper, but as I couldn't find it I used a piece of thin heat proof mat that I had already cut up for using with my melt pot.  Here is what it looked like after it had been heated...

I wasn't sure if this would die cut or not, so decided to give it a try.  The die is a thin metal die and I used it with my Grand Calibur, it didn't cut through entirely with one pass but it did enough for me to be able to just snip parts, and I was cutting parts away so it was not a problem.  If I had put it back through again I think it would have been fine.

Then I cut the dragonfly out again in white card and also embossed it this time.  The die leaves a lovely raised pattern which I hope you can see in the photo...



Using frosty sky and frosty aqua colour cloud inks and some smoothies I then coloured the dragonfly.  This ink goes on beautifully and blends brilliantly, I have to admit that I spent quite a while deciding whether to buy these inks or not as I have so many different colouring mediums and brushes etc, but in the end I gave in and am just getting some core colours to add to my other products.





The colours do not show up as well in the photos, but you can  layer up more colour to make it more intense.

Finally I added a bit of silver pebeo gilding wax to the card to highlight the raised lines, and decided that I needed extra bling so sprayed it with some pearl diamond varnish from Crafters Companion. 

Originally my plan had been to layer the dragonfly with the fibre layer on top, but I realised that it isn't transparent enough to see the detail of the embossed wings through and so put the card layer on top.  I still quite like it and I think it looks better in 'real life', but I will continue to experiment with perhaps acetate or a paler fibre/film to get the look I originally wanted. 

Here is the final dragonfly...

My plan is to create some more and add them to either a plaque or a card. 

I hope you all have a great new year, we will probably stay at home as my youngest is only 4 and will struggle staying up, but we will more than likely stay awake to welcome in 2016!

See you next year and happy crafting!!

Jane x

Mixed Media Monday - Vintage Canvas Clock

Hello to you!

 

I have decided that I will start my blogging journey by publishing a post each Monday (this may build as I get used to the process!!).  As I love mixed media I thought I would be very obvious and call these my mixed media Monday's, not exactly original but it does the job!

 Next year I am going to be attending some Vintage/Craft fairs near to where I live and so wanted to get started on making some items that would fit with the theme.  Having recently bought some lovely clock kits by Indigoblu I spent an afternoon making one up, using a variety of products that I have lurking in my cupboard!  I was very inspired by the demonstrations I have seen by Kay Halliwell-Sutton, but also added in a touch of 'Finnabair', if you haven't seen her work and love mixed media do search for her on YouTube or Pinterest.

 Here is the kit that I used, it contains a canvas board, MDF square and clock mechanism.  The papers were from other kits as was the stencil, all still by Indigoblu.  The papers are Vintage Memories, in 6" X 6" and 12" X 12".  I chose the pocket watch theme as I wanted to try to make a more masculine feeling piece, I have already decided that the other clock in my set is going to be very flowery 😊

I  started by painting my MDF with black gesso and left it to dry.  I cut my large piece of paper to the canvas size and attached it using mod podge then did the same with a piece of 6" X 6" onto the MDF clock face.

I then watered down some Indigoblu gold finger paint and covered the sheets, dabbing some off with kitchen roll and drying with my heat gun.  My  BoBunny texture stamps with archival ink added texture, mostly around the edges, and I used more than one impression from each inking.

 

As I love gilding flakes I had to add some, especially for the vintage feel, but wanted to use a cog stencil rather than stamps.  So I used flitterglu on a piece of phat foam through the stencil at opposite corners on both pieces, then applied chocolate box gilding flakes, burnishing with a scoochy sponge.

To add even more layers and texture I then used Cosmic Shimmer gold texture paste through a diamond stencil and allowed to dry thoroughly.

 

 

The edges around the canvas were still a bit white (which I didn't like) so I used my blending tool with some archival ink to blend them out and then did the same on the clock face.  The numbers were then added to the MDF using a stencil from Indigoblu and decadent oak texture paste from Cosmic Shimmer.  I wasn't entirely happy with how this looked so once it was dry added some pebeo gold gilding wax, I preferred the more vintage look it gave.

 After marking where the clock face would go on the canvas I made a hole and then placed some cogs and other metal clock themed pieces to go across the clock.

Once I was happy with the arrangement I stuck them down with some pinflair glue gel then added some Prima Finnabair microbeads in thick matt paste as a finishing touch.

 

Finally I put the clock mechanism together through both layers.  I now need to decide whether I want to add a time related quote to the bottom of the canvas or not, what do you think?

Well as it is now almost Christmas I shall be spending the week on the last of the wrapping, luckily I am going to family for dinner so no prep to do there!  I hope you all have a peaceful Christmas whatever you are doing, until next week...

 Thank you for reading, happy crafting,

 

Jane  x

Hello and welcome to my new blog!

I am a mum of 3 living on the Isle of Wight who loves to craft.

I have been making things for most of my life and started off with cross stitch back in my teens.  Nowadays I love to try all sorts of mediums and techniques, often the more inky, painty and sparkly the better, so I thought that I would write a blog to share some of my crafty journeys with whoever would like to read them!

So please do pop back to take a look at what I am making and hopefully I will post on a weekly basis to start with.

Happy crafting,

Jane x