Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 215

The challenge for this fortnight is hosted by Jackie, and the theme is to use at least two dies, or two punches, or one of each. Otherwise, your project can be anything you like!

At the time of scheduling this post, we have just put our house on the market. Prior to that, we did some re-arranging in our kitchen, and the pictures we've had on the wall for many years no longer worked, but we were left with an expanse of wall that needed to be filled. So, I headed into my craft room with three Hobbycraft box frames and set to work

The Final Result

I started with some mixed-media paper, and added acrylic paint in black, white and silver which I brayered on in varying proportions. When that was dry, I stamped some background fragments, and finally, stencilled on some embossing paste in silver.

I made a range of flowers using dies mainly from Sizzix, but also from Cheery Lynn, Tonic, and, I think, Joanna Sheen. I stamped, die cut and coloured a Crafter's Companion butterfly,

I don't know how the whole moving enterprise is going to go. There definitely seems not to be much on the market, so we might end up deciding to stay if we can't find anything we like enough. It's definitely going to put a cramp on my crafting activities. As it is, the woman who came to take photos refused to use the one of my craft room (even though it was uncharacteristically clean and tidy) because it looked 'too busy'! It's all changed since the day we bought this house (32 years ago) when the only photo was one taken of the outside, and visits accompanied by estate agent personnel were pretty much limited to empty properties.

I do hope you can join us this time!

International Art and Soul Challenge 2

Our theme this fortnight is Recycle. Other than that, no restrictions, although it'd be better if it's obvious what you've recycled!

I do a lot of recycling, but normally just take a container and use it, not bothering to decorate or anything. I've got an IPad box that was being thrown out at work that holds my blending sponges, for example. Very useful, but not really attractive. So, for this challenge, I had to put in some effort.

So, I took a coffee tin like that one, and wondered how on earth I could cover it. I don't do a lot of that sort of thing, so I had to try something a little different. In the end, I decided to try using embossing paste. I've had some jars of that for, probably 15 years, and have never really had much success with it. In fact, when I checked out the jar of metallic gold paste, it was rather too thick for this purpose. The copper was ok, and so I used it to cover the tin. When that was dry, I applied a Sheena Douglas masking stencil to the tin. I applied more paste through the stencil, and added glitter to this layer. The stencil wasn't big enough to cover the whole circumference, so there was still a smooth panel. This, I decorated with some die cut flowers, cut using dies from Crafter's Companion and Sue Wilson and completed the effect with some braiding. And that's about it! I'm not sure I'd do another one of these, because I'm not completely happy with the result, but it's definitely better than the original coffee tin, so I'll use it!

I hope you'll play along this fortnight!