Mixed Media Fest at It's Crafting Time Oct 2015

I'll be teaching at Nina's

Mixed-Media Fest in Cambridge on Sunday the 4th of October 2015

 along with Andy Skinner and Kate Crane.

(PS if you are having any difficulty in booking online, then please let me know in a comment, and I'll make sure your place is reserved and contact Nina when she gets back from Australia).

This is the canvas I'll be teaching.

But you can also make it as a journal page too if you'd like.

We'll be learning all about the techniques in adding mixed-media, layers and texture, as well as using paints, mediums and inks to make interesting, dynamic backgrounds. Techniques that you'll be able to use again and again in the future for making your own mixed-media projects.

A LITTLE EXTRA
Plus we'll be making something extra as well to put your new found mixed-media knowledge into practice. :)

The little EXTRA will be something like this little mixed-media canvas board.

Love using canvas boards because they give you quick awesome results, plus they make me so happy when I see them hanging in a little bare patch of wall. :)

Hope to see you there :)
Michelle xx

Just having a little play - waxy canvas

Thank you all for the amazing comments you left me on my final PaperArtsy blog post. I had such a blast designing for them. I love our crafty community xx.

You may have noticed lately that I've not been blogging as much, well there's been so much going on round here, that life just takes over and my crafty mojo has had to take a back seat. Poor mojo, it's jumping around in there, itching to get me in the craft room. I'm hoping that after this weekend at Alexandra Palace's craft show I'll be able to unleash the mojo and get some blog posts up next week.

I made this little canvas below at a playday at Art from the Heart way back in the beginning of March. We were trying out new products that had just arrived in the shop. I made a beeline for these new La Blanche stamps. They're mounted on thick foam, so there's no need for an acrylic block (which is always a bonus).

I stamped the images onto tissue and coloured the back of the images with the new Faber Castell Gelato pigment sticks. They have a creamy smooth oil pastel texture, but they're water soluble and they blend so easily. Very addictive to use, because the pigment is so vibrant.

I coloured the canvas using the Gelato's and then dipped my stamped tissue into hot wax and slid it onto my canvas. I also used a Tim Holtz sentiment on tissue too, to put in the middle of the canvas.

I brushed more layers of wax on the corners and stamped the wax for some extra texture. 

When the wax cooled I buffed the top to clear the cloudy wax and  to give it a nice shiny finish. 

I used some copper mica powder to brush over the wax in the bottom corners to give the texture some shimmer, then I dipped my figure into some black and purple Distress Paint to rub over the textured wax, to highlight the pattern.

I edged the canvas with black Adirondack Dabber.

I hope I get to see my blogging buddies at Ally Pally on Saturday.

I'll look forward to meeting you soon.

Take care

Michelle xxx

House warming canvas for my number crunching friend.

Thank goodness it's Friday! I think most people will be finishing work today and having a well deserved rest for Christmas. It feels great doesn't it?

I've made this canvas for a friend who moved away a couple of weeks ago. Her career is in numbers and her other half is just as nerdy too. The pair of them wouldn't look out of place in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. They won't mind me saying that because its a bit cool and trendy to be nerdy these days. Her other half specialises in probability mathematics hence the "probably" at the end of the quote.  I just know the pair of them are going to love it. 

I tore up some pages from a maths book, I found the ones with lots of equations on and covered the background of the canvas. I then painted over the scraps of paper with gesso, blue, yellow and green acrylic paint. I started adding layers of colour using number and pattern stencils with distress inks.

You can see the equations on the scrap paper under the letters. I like this. I've stamped numbers and texture stamps for even more layers too.  The letters are inked up Tim Holtz Grungeboard, I've used London Blue Dylusions inks and cosmic shimmers to give them a lovely deep blue colour. I've edged a few of them with some white paint, and stamped a honeycomb pattern with metallic copper acrylic paint on the letters and on the canvas. 

I used Tim Holtz flower stamp along the bottom of the canvas with yellow and orange archival ink, but I've also stamped paint too for some strong vivid colour.

It's in the post winging it's way to my friend right now.

I hope she likes it?

I'd like to wish everyone who comes passing by or leaves me a comment a very Happy Christmas.

I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to say something nice or just coming for a visit.

Thank you.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Have a great Christmas

Friends are like stars....

I made this canvas for my best friend's birthday, we've known each other since going to Uni together. She now lives nearly 100 miles away and I miss her loads, but we try to meet up at least 5 or 6 times a year. So the sentiment on the canvas really sums up our relationship. She's very creative too so I know she'll love this.

I've used the free star stamp we got in Craft Stamper last month and another free star stamp from Craft Stamper from last Christmas I think. There is also another hanging star stamp on here too, not sure who made that one. 

I've used some TH heart and wings dies and some chipboard stars too for some 3D interest!

I used TH Newsprint Letters, covered in acrylic paint.

I've also sneaked in some Beadazzles in little areas here and there.

What canvas wouldn't be complete without a bit of drippage?

This time its Tattered Angels Teal glimmer spray dripping down the canvas.

When you get your eye in, you can see I've used lots of stamps and gesso through stencils and distress ink through stencils too.

You know me I like lots of layers!

Looks like we might see some blue sky today instead of just thick white cloud.

Fingers crossed xx

Victorian Cats Canvas

This is my second design team entry for Try it on a Tuesday their theme for this fortnight is 'Lot of layers'.  Head over there and join in with the challenge for a chance to win a monthly prize.

I've also sent this little canvas to a mystery gift partner who I'm paired up with for Collabor-ART. But more about that with another post later this week.

You can just see my cat's tail sitting behind the painting at the edge of the table. She has to be in!

This canvas has lots of layers with a base of acrylic blue, white and teal paint. Then I added some texture from stencilled gesso (love the way the inks run over the texture). I used distress inks through a Dylusion stencil and used a text stamp here and there. I then dripped blue cosmic shimmer down the canvas (an essential bit of dippage!)

I stamped a crown stamp into heated Stampendous Frantage embossing powder and stuck down my Victorian cat image.

 I painted a tree directly onto the canvas and used liquid pearls for the cherry blossom. I added the cheeky sentiment and edged the canvas with blue and magenta paints.

This is one of my most favourite canvases, I'm so pleased my mystery gift partner likes it. 

Michelle x

Be Creative canvas

I've had a great weekend, went to Art from the Heart yesterday and made Dylusions Christmas cards. The new stamps and stencils are brilliant, they're so versatile you can do loads with them. We made heaps of wonderful backgrounds and two super big tags too.....I had to buy a pack of these, they're awesome! We listened to Jim Reeves and Michael Buble's Christmas songs to get us in the mood too, all that was missing was some mulled wine! I don't need much coaxing to get me in the mood for Christmas though, I love it. 

I've made this canvas for the It's crafting time design team and also for a very generous crafty friend Mel aka The Yorkshire Fox. She doesn't know it yet but she will do when she see's this post. Mel gave me her wonderful Believe tag because I loved it that much, so as a huge thank you, I've made this for you Mel xx

I started with sticking down some scraps of paper and fabric then gesso'd over the top. I added some subtle colour here and there and gave it a gold and burnt umber edge. I covered a Wendy Vicchi Art Part flower with some patterned paper and distressed the edges with vintage photo Distress ink.

I've used my favourite spiral paper clips with some Beadazzles in the centre of the flower.

I used bright green florist wire to make a hanger and made some spirals wrapped round the end of a paint brush. I love this quirky addition.

 I hope Mel likes it.

Michelle x

Beautiful Reasons to Bee Happy

I've been looking for a reason to get my Inktense blocks out, and this was one beautiful reason. I'm out of my journal again and onto my canvas, Dina Wakely's Out of the Journal is making my craft room very colourful, I love hanging them all around the room.

I started a canvas with masking tape and made a gorgeous teal & phthalo turquoise background. 

I just started to draw flowers with my Inktense blocks and then painted them in with a little water and gesso. The colours were bright, but not bright enough so I went in there with my oil pastels to make the flowers more vivid. I really like the intense colours. I used interference violet Golden Paint on the bee's wings, it looks cool close up. The Bee stamp is from Spring Tinchies which you can get from Its Crafting Time.

Little Felix is still growing bones fast asleep with his paws in the air!

Look Inside You Canvas

Well this is my first design team piece for It's Crafting Time. It's Crafting Time is a bricks & mortar shop in Shepreth in Cambridgeshire cram packed full of the latest crafty stock, if you're in the area you should have a pop in. They also have an online shop as well, although everything in the shop isn't on the website don't be fooled into thinking they don't have it. Just ask they'll have it in, I got a webcam tour, trust me. Nina and Helen are more than happy to give you a virtual mooch.

I really like being given a task and making something with a theme. The theme for this piece was "Faces", I know there's only one on here, but it's a particularly nice face called Isobelle from Inkylicious. 

I'm heavily influenced by two artists at the moment Kasia Krzymińska & Anna Finnabair and I was thinking about their style when I created this. I like caking everything in gesso then adding colour over the top. It seems to pull everything together so well. like all the bits and pieces belong there. My next two projects seem to be following the same kind of style too. 

I started off painting the mini canvas 12.5 x12.5 cm square with gesso and left to dry, then spraying with Dylusions inks in mini misters for a smaller spray coverage.  I had 2 misters one with Bubblegum Pink Dylusions ink and the other has a mix of Pure Sunshine Dylusions ink, TH Walnut stain re-inker and the Pastel lemon chalk mist Cosmic Shimmer.  This gave me a nice chalky rusty orange colour that I can spray.

  

I stamped the Inkylicious  Isobelle & 7 Gypsies Venice stamp onto white tissue paper and stuck it to my inked canvas.  I added some embellishments and the Tim Holtz rosette with Pinflair and let it dry.

I painted all the embellishments with gesso and left it to dry.  

I then sprayed the gessoed embellishments with the rusty orange spray, when this was dry I randomly painted areas with Adirondack Lemonade and Watermelon dabbers over the rosette and the leaves.  Distress the edge of the canvas with the Pitch Black Adirondack dabber and used the Tim Holtz Eifel Tower stamp with Archival Espresso ink. I made the sentiment with Hampton Art mini alphabet stamps. 

I thought I would include this in Dina Wakely's "Out of the Journal" too.

Dina is a wondrous source of inspiration.

What's your poison?

Shame there's not a bottle of Bombay Sapphire on here, because that would be my poison of choice for sure! Only another 4 weeks to go before I'm off work for 2 whole weeks! Sheer crafting bliss if you ask me. I'm gonna be a crafting hermit and only surface for food. Oh and one day of pampering at Seaham Hall health spa with my best mate. I can't pass that one by. I'll only be dreaming of creating something anyway, so technically I'll still be crafting in my mind.

What's your poison? 
mini canvas

The canvas above started life with 2 Dylusions inks Vibrant Turquoise and Crushed Grape. What a wondrous combination, I can't help but keep looking at how gorgeous they look together. I also used Dylusions Alphabet Jumble stencil and the Inkylicious Latin Script stamp.

I couldn't resist using some bubble wrap too for some darker dots. This is a great cheap way of creating more layers. I used Dylusions dotty stencil and a baby wipe to dab off some of the colour in the top right hand corner.

I used an Indigo Blu crackle stamp for more interest

I wanted some texture on there so I used some modelling paste mixed with purple metallic acrylic paint and turquoise mica powders. I used a spatula to spread the modelling paste through a key stencil from 'That Special Touch', and some small sequin waste, the effect looked great especially with the mica powder in it.

I did a mop up tag from my excess Dylusion inks on the craft mat and decided to use up the rest of my modelling paste as well on the same tag using the flower stencil from Crafter's Workshop. This will pop up on the blog later probably.

Once the modelling paste was dry I painted the keys with some black paint and rubbed some purple metallic paint on here and there. I stamped some Old Curiosity Shoppe set 3, Bottles onto white card and used water colours to give them a bit of colour, cut them out and stuck them on the canvas. I finished off the painting with some black and metallic blue streaks, some yellow circles, a Tim Holtz bird stamp and the caption What's your Poison?

Think I'll go finish off that tag, bye for now xx