Listen to Your Heart

The Très Jolie Mediums Kit for November is packed with a variety of mediums, a wooden heart, a package of flowers, and – best of all – an 8” x 10” metal piece, perfect for an incredible piece of home decor.

Here’s what I came up with…

A few close-ups…

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And here’s how it all came together…

I decided to use a canvas from my stash for a background full of Heavenly stars.

First, I mixed a small amount of the DecoArt Media Crackle Paint with a healthy serving of Distress Stickles Dry Glitter.

I applied my mixture through a Creative Embellishments stencil onto the canvas. The paint is thinner than actual paste, but leaving it out for a few minutes thickened it enough to work.

Once the stenciled image was completely dry, I sprayed it with a mist made with the Prima Mica Powder and water.  

After removing the twine on top, I covered the wood heart with a thick coating of crackle paint to ensure a lot of texture.

Once the paint was set, I applied Inka Gold Paint (this is more like a wax) over the surface, using a stipple brush. (I like to pass the loaded brush over a paper towel before applying it to the surface to prevent clumping.)

After allowing this to set for a while, I sprayed the surface with my DIY mica mist.

I attached my wings to the canvas using a nut and bolt through back mount along with E6000 glue.

I cut and layered 3 pieces of packaging and attached the pile to the center of the wings.

I waited for the glue to set, and then attached the heart.

I selected a few of the Prima flowers and treated them with Metallique Wax to match the metal wings.

I applied the same treatment to a sweet fairy that I had molded some time back.

I highlighted the flowers and fairy with Inka Gold Paint.

I arranged the flowers around the heart, using Beacon 3-in-1 glue.

Next, I glued the fairy down, allowing her to appear to dangle from the twine.

I applied a very thick coating of the Crackle Paint to a couple of Creative Embellishments chipboard vines that had come in an earlier kit.

I allowed the paint to set; then I coated the vines with Metallique Wax…

… and highlighted them with the Inka Gold Paint.

Using Beacon 3-in-1, I tucked the stems under the flowers.

I selected a few Tim Holtz quotes and backed them with thin strips of packaging, then ran the edges through the wax that was left on the paper towel to create outlines.

I glued them to the heart and called my project “done”.

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*****Supplies*****

***Très Jolie November Mediums Kit***

BCI Crafts – Salvaged – Metal Craft –Metal Angel Wings – 8 x 10 – Copper Patina #METANG

Viva Décor – Inka Gold Paint – Turquoise #VD1204-92236

P. Graham Dunn – Craft Décor – 3.5 x 3.25 Craft Ornament – Heart #CRA0069

DecoArt Media – Crackle Paint – White #DMM15

Prima – Paper Flowers – 16 Pcs #599454

Ranger Ink – Tim Holtz – Distress Stickles Dry Glitter – Clear Rock Candy #TDR35879

Prima – Finnabair – Art Ingredients – Mica Powder – Silver #962517

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******Other******

AC Moore – 8” x 10” Canvas

***Embellishments***

Creative Embellishments – Laser Cut Chipboard – Flourish 30

Advantus – Tim Holtz – Idea-ology Collection – Metallic Stickers – Quotations #TH93559

***Mediums***

Prima – Finnabair – Art Alchemy – Metallique Wax – Bronze Age #964023

***Tools***

Creative Embellishments – Stencil – Falling Stars

Art Prosvet – Mold – Three Fairies #ARTMA0012

Prima – Finnabair – Art Basics – Small Stencil Brush Set #965228

***Other***

E6000 – Permanent Craft Adhesive

Beacon – 3-In-1 – Advanced Craft Glue

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As always, I want to thank you for peeking into my blog; your visits mean a lot to me.

Maremi's Art Journal Challenge #1

Marta Lapkowska (aka Maremi) is hosting a great challenge on her You Tube channel, all about art journaling - just the thing to inspire me to grab one of my long neglected journals, roll up my sleeves and start creating.

The title of the first challenge is 10 Minute Art and that's just what it is - create an art journal page in just 10 minutes.

I'm going to admit to a bit of cheating. I'm using a sketch book that I picked out of the bargain bin some time back. The pages are just too thin for mixed media, so yesterday, I adhered adjoining pages together using matte gel and now they can take anything that I want to throw on them!

We are allowed to gather all of the things that we'll be using, so I selected a sheet of Kaisercraft pattern paper, a bunch of tags, journaling strips, a jar of trims, clear gesso, heavy gesso, seed beads, mica powders (Prima Art Basics in Teal and Pale Silver), a Blue Fern Studios chippie, a black ink pad, a stamp, and a stencil. Oh, and my focal item - a wood icon in the shape of a clock in honor of the 10 Minute Challenge.

Time to start, and I cannot believe how quickly I worked!

First, I gave the pages a very rough coating of clear gesso with my palette knife. I wasn't careful to coat the entire surface and I left a lot of small hills and ridges here and there. A quick blast with my heat tool and I was ready for the next step - applying heavy gesso through my stencil here and there around the pages. Another quick blast of heat to (mostly) dry the surface and on to the next thing - I ripped the paper into pieces and layered them with the tags, stapling them together when I was satisfied with the shape. (I learned this stapling trick from Cindy Brown and I use it a lot when I'm layering papers.) I used heavy gesso to glue on these layers and a bit more to adhere my chippie pieces, the trims and my clock.

And now came the fun - I dusted the mica powders around the page with an old brush, spritzing with water and tilting the book to spread the colors, then slightly drying. I did this several times to create layers of color.

Next, I spread a bit more of the heavy gesso around and left some of it bare and covered some of it with seed beads.

One peek at the clock and gahhhhhh! I'm almost out of time!!! Quick - a few dabs here and there with my stamp and - yes, I can do it! - a couple of journal strips and I made it!!!

I'm usually such a slow scrapper that I was really surprised that I could meet this challenge and end up with something that I'm pleased with.

Thank you so much, Marta, for coming up with this!!!! 
Interested? Here's a link to the challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vQiIAjZI8&t=0s