Any Old Iron For Artist Trading Post Exchange. . . . . .

We have a new challenge at the Artist Trading Post Exchange which starts today and lasts for the next fortnight.

Our host this time is the very talented Ruth and she would like to see your rusty creations. Here's some picture inspiration for you followed by what Ruth has to say about her challenge:

'When I was on holiday I just had to take a picture of the texture on this rusty door on the harbour. So, the theme for this fortnight is based on rust. Use the lovely rusty colours of orange, brown and red. Or, maybe use rusting techniques, rusting powder, embossing powders or anything else you can achieve a rusty finish with. Perhaps you find the wonderfully knobbley texture an inspiration? Whatever you decide to use, we would like you to make a mixed media project which should feature some stamping - no digi images though please.'

Here's what I've made for Ruth's challenge:

I decided to use rusty elements to highlight a tag which I have given a textured patina finish.

A white tag was die cut from card and embossed with a Spellbinders folder. The tag was then given a patina finish with the products shown. The final coat was some roughly applied DecoArt Antiquing Cream in white (not shown).

Some scrap card is sprayed with acrylic paint mister. When dry a Tim Holtz image is stamped using archival ink. The image is then carefully cut out.

Card is die cut using a Spellbinders die and cut down to fit the tag. A rusty finish is then given to the die cut starting with some DecoArt texture Fierro and various colours of their media line acrylic paint .

A piece of scrap mount board is also rusted for the bottom of the tag. The stamped image is applied to the tag to appear as if she is stepping out from the die cut.

Some Tim Holtz linen braid is used to cover the join followed by some twirled rusty wire.

A piece of the die cut is used to finish the top of the tag.

The crown and wings are finished with crackle glaze and a small amount of antiquing cream. The wings are only partially glued into place to give movement and depth to the piece.

A light bulb image is stamped onto a scrap of spritzed card. This represents the child's balloon. Some rusty wire is attached to the balloon

The other end of the rusty wire is attached to the child's hand to look as if she's holding the balloon.

The flowers are die cuts from scraps of card. They have been painted with acrylics followed by some crackle glaze and some antiquing medium. The edges of the large flower have been given a little random powder embossing for extra detail. 

The centre of the flower is made with a scrap of twisted rusty wire.

I do hope you enjoyed reading how I made this tag. It's often difficult to gauge how many photos to add and I always leave out loads but I do want you to stay awake!

You must pop over to Artist Trading Post Exchange and see the work by the rest of the hugely talented team. It would be lovely if you found time to join in with us and post a piece of art. We are a very new challenge blog but if you love mixed media style work then ATP Exchange is the place for you. You never know, you may even end up winning the £10 voucher kindly donated by our hosts at Artist Trading Post (full of sooo many goodies!).

Thanks for visiting. I'm back from holiday and hoping to join in much more now.

Halloween At Artist Trading Post Exchange . . . . . . .

Good morning everyone. Time for another challenge at the Artist Trading Post Exchange. Before I share our new challenge, I just have to say how delighted we all were with your amazing entries for the last challenge here at Artist Trading Post Exchange! Don't forget our winner will be announced on Saturday 18th October so remember to check back on the blog to see if it's you! Looking forward to see what you come up with this time too!

Our host this fortnight is the very talented Annie. She asks that you use the theme of HALLOWEEN to make a mixed media project and link it up to play along with us.

The DT choose the winners and don't forget that our main winner will receive a £10 voucher to spend at Artist Trading Post on the goodies of their choice. No reason not to join in is there?!

Please take a moment to check our small number of rules for entering at the Artist Trading Post Exchange - we wouldn't want to lose anyone because they didn't follow the few rules that we have. 

I LOVE making Halloween projects so this one came hot off the press or Gelli Plate actually. Well, to be honest, the gelli plate print was done ages ago and was made into a tag and then put away. I had the odd look at it hoping for inspiration but it never quite fit the ideas I was having, so away it went. Until now that is! I knew that it would work perfectly for a Halloween piece with lots of black and loads of random colours showing through stamped images.

I made a tag because they are amongst one of my most favourite things to do and here it is:

Tag with hanging sentiment all created on a gelli plate background. I'm sorry I don't have an image of the gelli plate tag before I started stamping etc on it! I got carried away with my idea and by then it was too late. The gelli print was achieved by using a variety of DecoArt Americana acrylic paints, stencils and a brayer.

The first step was to stamp the main skull image using a Tim Holtz stamp using black archival ink. Embossing ink was then used to stamp the image again in the same position. This was followed by black soot Distress EP which when heated creates a lovely textured appearance. I love that this image allows all the colours and stencil details of the gelli print to show through.

The two hanging sections are made from mount board with some scraps of gelli print applied. The sentiment, again Tim Holtz, is stamped with black archival ink followed by two coats of  utee to give a wonderful sheen (sorry, it's not visible here). The two sections are attached to a piece of wool braiding that I've had for years.

Smaller skull images are stamped (using black archival ink) in various positions on the tag. As before, the stamp design allows lots of the gelli print to show through.

A third stamp was used on the left hand side which has a very lacy look. I used this to create further depth in the tag and a variety of detail.
The green spots which are seen here were all added to the gelli print using a stencil and brush.

A black pencil is used to shade around certain areas of the tag. This creates depth and allows some areas to recede and others to come to the foreground.

Enjoy your Halloween festivities this year! 

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my Halloween Tag and the products used to create it. Many of these products are to be found at Artist Trading Post so be sure to pop over and see what else they have on offer.

It's your turn now! Need further inspiration? Why not click here to see the pieces of art made by very talented Teamies!

As always, thanks for looking and reading my post.

Artist Trading Post Exchange - Anything Goes Mixed Media Style

Morning everyone. Today sees the launch of the new challenge blog for the Artist Trading Post called the Artist Trading Post Exchange and I'm thrilled to be on this amazing team! A new challenge will be set every fortnight and we'd love you to join us!

The Artist Trading Post Exchange ask that you follow the theme set each fortnight and work in a mixed media style - if you want to know more details click here to take you to the blog.

Artist Trading Post will provide a £10 voucher for the winner so even more incentive to link up with our first challenge.

For our first challenge we are offering the theme Anything Goes - my favourite! There are virtually no restrictions as long as you work in a mixed media style and avoid using digi stamps.

For my Anything Goes project I have decided to make a wall hanging using chipboard, acrylic spray paints, pencil,  a stencil, modelling paste, gilding wax, stamps and some ribbon.

Here's what I made along with some information about how I achieved the end result:

A two tiered wall hanging made with a chipboard substrate.

I started with a piece of watercolour paper which I had used to absorb the excess paint off the stencil used in another project.

The stencil was replaced on the design and some acrylic paint misters were used to add further colour.

Watercolour pencils are used to add colour to the unpainted areas of the design. The colours are blended with a waterbrush.

Matte medium is carefully applied over the surface to seal the design. The watercolour paper is then adhered to the chipboard which has been cut to size. Don't worry if the watercolour pencil areas move slightly - you can add more later on top of the matte medium which can then be sealed with a suitable spray sealant.

Stamp the chosen design (I've used a Tim Holtz plate) onto the surface using Archival Ink. Use the inked areas as a guide and paint the design using black acrylic paint of choice. The stamp chosen is too small for the space so I simply extended the image to the edges of the chipboard.

Add more stamping with Acrylic paint until desired effect is achieved.

Black modelling paste is applied through the same stencil as used previously and left to dry.

Use a black pencil to add detail where chosen. 

Metallic lustre is applied over the dry modelling paste using a paint brush. If I try to use my fingers it goes everywhere but the place I want it to go!

The hanging section at the base is created from watercolour paper applied to chipboard. The background is sprayed with a mixture of the same acrylic sprays as used earlier. The large letters are mapped out using a die cut stencil and pencils. The small letters are die cut from card which is coloured with the same pencils. The stencilling is done using black modelling paste and some metallic lustre.

Eyelets are applied to top section with a crop- o -dile. I didn't have the right colour eyelets so I coloured these to match the project with alcohol inks. You could also use paint but be careful because it can chip off.

The lower section of the project is joined to the top section using some black grosgrain ribbon (from a chocolate box!).

Some further images to show full details:

All the edges of the chipboard are finished with black acrylic paint applied with a piece of cut n dry foam.

The small dots of modelling paste were achieved by using a leaf stencil which just happens to have this design. Sequin waste can also be used by I felt the circles should be small so they don't attract all the attention.

 Now you've had a look at what I've been up to, why not hop over to the ATP Exchange and see what the rest of the talented team have come up with! We'd love you to join us for this new adventure too so why not make something using the theme Anything Goes and link up with us. Can't wait to see what you make!

A wealth of art and mixed media products on offer here!

Thank you so much for spending time reading about my latest project.

Go Rust-ic! . . . . . With Our Creative Corner

Hello everyone, today sees the start of a new challenge at Our Creative Corner. Our host this month is the hugely talented Laura and here's how she introduces her challenge:

I really love Autumn and find it very inspiring with all those textures and colours we see in nature right now.  So I decided to bring those textures and colours into a challenge here and see all that rustic creativity at Our Creative Corner!

 We want to see a huge variety of items, so make anything you like - but add some RUST!

Now you can take this Rust-ic creativity to any level you like - You can use just use some rusty autumnal colours or you can really go for it and work with gorgeous, rough textured, grungy, real or faux rust. 

So.....How 'rusty' are you?....

How happy was I when I saw this challenge?! I love all things rusty as many of you know and I don't need any excuse to play with rust again. This is a wonderfully open challenge and if textured grungy rust is not your thing then go for using those beautiful autumnal shades that are just starting to appear in UK or wonderfully rustic country piece in shades of rust and neutrals. My very talented teamies will be showing their inspiration too, so why not hop over to Our Creative Corner and see what they've got to show you?

Here's what I made for Laura's challenge this month:

When I first saw the Spellbinders embossing folder which I used to create this tag, I just couldn't get this line from Sting's song out of my head. I added it as a sentiment because this bird fits the song perfectly.

Dies and embossing folder from Spellbinders are used for the tag base and the layers on top. In addition, tattered floral flower strip is used for the flowers.

This was one of those projects which I just started one day and then left to come back to and complete. Therefore, I don't have any photos of the early stages - sorry. The paints and mediums in the photo were all used to develop the embossed tag.

The tag base was embossed with the folder and given two coats of gesso. When dry, the DecoArt media line acrylics shown in the image earlier were used to colour the tag. Finally, the surface was antiqued with DecoArt Antiquing Cream. This was followed by adding DecoArt Crackle Glaze to chosen areas and leaving to dry. Quinacridone Gold was then added over the glaze to fill the cracks.

The top of the tag is decorated using part of a piece of Spellbinders lattice die cut. The small piece has been given a rusty coating using one of Andy Skinner's techniques which he teaches in online classes - sorry I can't share!

The sentiment was made on a label maker then grunged up with inks. The line comes from Sting's track called 'When We Dance'. It's a beautiful song but so sad as the subject is lost love. Click here to listen to the track.

The flowers are made from die cut card which was embossed then given the same rusty finish as the other elements on the tag. Rusty wire has been twisted and used in the centre of the flowers.

Another Spellbinder's die cut given the Skinner rusty finish. The leaves are some skeleton leaves I've had for ages. They were given a couple of coats of paint to subdue their original bright colour.

I really love this little bird! I love him even more with his rusty finish. If you haven't used the Spellbinder folders before (which I had not) I can honestly say they are fab! Wonderful deep emboss which lends itself to all kinds of techniques.

The section at the base of the tag is made of metal and used to be part of an old photo frame which broke. I saved it because I hoped it may come in handy at some point! This has been given the same rust technique as before.

For the top of the tag I twirled some rusty wire and added tiny rusty bells.

The final step was to give the tag a coat of Ultra Matte Varnish to tone down any gloss areas caused by paint, crackle glaze etc.

I hope you like my rusty offering. I really do have to tell myself off from time to time because I like adding rust to anything - thanks Laura for giving me the opportunity to do it without guilt!

So now it's up to you! Remember to head over to Our Creative Corner and check out the inspiration from the rest of the team. Do have a quick check of the rules whilst you're there too. You have the chance to win a prize from our generous sponsor for this month which is:

The Funkie Junkie Boutique

You could be chosen as one of our top three or even be in our spotlight! You have to enter to get one of those chances so get creating your Rust-ic creations!

Your turn!!