Dreamy...

...and creamy... well, sort of creamy.  I LOVE this colour scheme!  Back in the old comfort zone of browns and creams!  Anyways... firstly, THANK YOU for all your fabby emails, comments, messages, Tweets, texts after yesterdays shows!  It was great to see you all loving the goodies on the shows.  I didn't get chance to do half the techniques I wanted to... time just goes waaaay too quickly... maybe I needs a two hour show ;O))   As promised, I will be showing you some of the samples close up this week and today kicks off with my favourite one:

Remember when I went to Wales a few weeks ago?  Well, there's a gallery in Portmerion and obviously, it is arty, so I ventured up 291 steps (ok, a slight exaggeration there... more like 20 but... ) and inside were some amaaaaazing paintings.  But, what caught my attention more (ever the crafter) were bundles of off cuts of mountboard!  10 pieces for a "parnd"  So I snapped up a few bundles and then made Grim carry my jazzy owl bag (well, he likes birds too... *snort*)  Anyways, the point of telling you this is... mountboard makes a fab base for art, it is great for book covers and pages, it is die-cutable (new word methinks) and because it is sturdy, you can paint it, cover with paper, cover with canvas etc etc.  I used to have a supplier when we lived in Lutonia, the old chappie in the picture framers used to give me bags of the stuff.. for free (I used to be the good citizen and pop a few bob into the charity box)  So, if you have a local picture framer, go and ask if you can save on their refuse collections and take some of their off cuts!  

So, on with the piece today... like I said (a hundred years ago) I like this one the best of all the samples I made... and this one was a "last minute" one using up some left-overs from my sampling sesh.  Yep, using cardboard for the arty bit, the mountboard is the larger piece at the back... that was painted with Pitch Black Dabber and then I added some Clear Texture Paste thru the foxgloves stencil and then smudged some Gilding Wax over.   The arty bit was made by spreading White Texture Paste through the same stencil and once dried, using Cut & Dry foam, pouncing Lake Mist and Mushroom Dabber paint onto it.  The script was added once the paint was dry.  Using Clear Texture Paste, splot a bit onto your craft sheet, spritz on some water to make it runny, stamp onto tissue with permanent ink (I used my old faithful, Jet Black Archival) and then apply the tissue, in patches, to the base.  Paint over the top with the runny texture paste mix... voila, a collage medium!   The embellishment is one of the gorgeous Studio 490 Embellish Your Art butterflies... I love this little guy and I added a few smudges of Gilding Wax to his wings to jazz him up a little. And there you have it!  I shall be back tomorrow with another technique using the Clear Texture Paste.

I shall away now, I have to unpack the boxes from yesterday, store the artwork (am so running out of room!) and then... I plan to try out my new steam cleaner (wow, what an exciting life I lead!) and then... there appear to be a large number of feathers decorating the lawn.  Apparently, someone fancied themselves a little pigeon snack yesterday.  No corpse has been found so we are assuming said pigeon managed to fly away.  My little Predator is getting ambitious!   Mind you, if it is the pigeon I think it is, he had taken to roosting on the lawn for some reason... roosting on the lawn of a garden owned by an AlfieCat isn't the wisest thing to do!   Anyways, hope you have a great day!  Thanks for looking... TTFN!


Hels x