Upcycled Artist's Stool and Brush box

Hi all

I felt it was time to have a go at using the DecoArt Chalky Finish paints. I was slightly nervous about it so I went onto a local social media site and looked for itemes that were free.  I found a couple of bits someone was going to throw away if not collected, and that's where the fun started. This pic shows two of the finished items.  Easy tutorial below with a picture of the products used. Go on, give it a try!

This stool as you can see was looking a bit 'well loved' so that was a 'no risk' start to playing. I gave it a good clean then sanded down the seat as it had lots of bumpy paint splatters and the edges were splintering then cleaned it again to get the dust off.

I turned the stool upside down and painted the legs and underneath of the stool and all sides/ bottom of the box with a coat of DecoArt Americana Chalky Finish Paint in a minty green ('Refreshing') and it's quite a bright colour so I mixed in a little white ('everlasting'). The white paint was a little thicker so I added just a few drops of water to get a buttery consistency that glided on beautifully and the flat 2inch brush was brill for getting into the nooks and crannies!
Once this was dry and I'd got a feel for the paint I painted the seat itself and the reverse of the sliding box lid as it was flat and I didn't want the brand name showing. I wanted to jazz it up a little AND to try out all the colours I had in the laziest way possible! And as most of the artists I know are a bit dotty that was the answer.

 The polka dots were added with 3 foam stencil brushes (which come in packs of 12 and in 4 sizes).

Finally, once all the paint was dry I coated with the cream finishing wax and tadaaaa!
Love how cheerful these bits now look!
Happy upcycling.
Suz

From Stars to Angels

This was one of those projects that began as a scrap of card that I couldn't throw away and started to play with - don'tcha just love art!!

So above here is the finished article and below shows the original scrap and tells how it grew from the start.....lots of pics as I was trying to catch the best light to show the amazing colours of the DecoArt Interference paints on the hearts as they change colour!!!

So in the beginning there was this scrap of card with some shapes die cut out of it (used to make a 75th Birthday card for my Dad a couple of weeks ago - pic of finished card at the end of the post).

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 I painted it with three colours of Media Fluid Acrylics

 Then I added a layer of crackle paint - in varying thickness to alter the cracks - but put it on a little too thinly in places so the colour underneath didn't show through as I'd wanted!

....so I used Patina Green antiquing cream all over, left for an hour then wiped some off with a baby wipe. Loved it!!!

I also embossed and painted some die cut and punched shapes to use in those spaces..

Painted the star with transparent red iron oxide and primary yellow. Then added gold and silver dry brushing to highlight the embossing. That was fine until I heard some really sad news from my friend which changed how I was feeling and consequently the direction of the project.

I painted over with pink (a mixture of titanium white and red). I then used white antiquing cream. As the paper was very porous I was able to wipe some off straight after applying and still leave enough behind.


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To decorate the hearts I adapted an idea from one of Andy Skinners YouTube tutorials on using Interference Paints (to see it click here) but instead of firstly diluting the paint then adding to the DG3 Art Gel, I used a layer of the DecoArt clear liquid glass and then dropped various neat interference paints into the wet liquid. On some I also took a pokey tool and swirled the paints to give a variety of looks. I left these to dry overnight. The interference colours look very different depending on the colour that was underneath them. With silver underneath they look like Mother of Pearl; on top of bright red they each pop - love em!

I took a piece of A4 blue card and journaled my thoughts over it in white pen. Doing this always helps me clear my head.  Then I spritzed it with a little bit of blue (primary cyan) and then white DecoArt Misters to hide the words I'd written, thought I didn't do it that well so have not included the close up of the background.

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It needed 'something more' so I used the Andy Skinner snake skin (Shedded) stencil with my original blue paints and also an Americana Pixelated stencil with titanium white fluid acrylics. I also used some of the left over blue paint to go around each of the apertures to add depth to the cut out shapes.  Next step was to layer up the die cut card onto the journaled background with some 3D foam tape to leave a nice gap underneath. 

At that point I could have left it but ended up drawing around the apertures with a white paint marker....not sure if I prefer it before or after so guess it doesn't matter!

 The following morning I added in the stars hearts and wings. Then I typed up a few words, inked around them and added them too.

Here are more pics of the interference paints....I'll be using this technique to make some jewellery I!

Hope you like my project and decide to have a go with some of those amazing media products! 

All the Best Suz xx

Oh and here is a pic of my Dad's card, the one that started this all off!

Oak House Studio One Stamp

Hi all

It was One Stamp weekend over at Oak House Studio and we were using the beautiful Sunflower Stamp.  Here is my quick make: a glitzy tag. Hope you like it!

I used a tag to mop up some DecoArt Americana paints in Turquoise and Teal Green (as you do) which I'd been using for a canvas project that I'll post a blog about later. There wasn't quite enough left to cover the tag so I added some beautiful spray inks also from OHS in French Mint, Blue Jeans and Pearly Silver (which gives a shimmer that I didn't pick up in the photo), then a little treasure gold around the edges to add a touch of drama (always need a little drama in your life!).

I stamped the sunflower and also the English Garden Words and in the middle of the tag the Iron Border stamp (which is one of my most used and ridiculously cheap)! I stamped the sunflower separately and coloured with water colour crayons before cutting it out and layering it on with some dimensional glue. I added a metal jewellery ring to the sunflower and a paperclip to the tag. Black beads to the middle of all the sunflowers and a good dose of platinum glass glitter around the edges which is a Finnabair Art Ingredient. To finish I just added a little red glaze sakura pen to the middle of the iron stamp. Love how it turned out.I've entered it into the Craft Stamper June challenge which is Texture (beads and glass glitter).

Don't forget to pop over to my Facebook page and see what else I've been up to!!!

All the best

Suz 

xxx