My little crafting world....


Hi all
I'm a complete craft addict! I have a small business called Surrey Crafts teaching craft workshops from my studio in Esher, Surrey and at venues around the country. I teach mixed media, decorative painting, card making and papercrafts, jewellery making and creative embroidery classes. If you'd like to find out more just leave a comment, or take a look at my other social media pages:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/surrey.crafts
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/surreycrafts/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/surreycrafts/
Crafty hugs & stuff
Suz

xx

Wednesday 19 December 2018

Spirit Of Christmas for my Andy Skinner DT Post

A cynical Christmas journal page for you today, just for a bit of fun!

Take a blank journal page.....
 Brayer on layers of paint
Dab Prussion Blue Hue and Cobalt Teal Hue through a large stencil using a bit of kitchen sponge.
 Here' what that looks like...…..
 Crackle Paint through a star stencil...

 Here's what that looks like, lol.....
 To make a Father Christmas Hat for the skull head, I used the stamp to guide me on the size...
 Snow tex a punched circle and strip of card.
 Dab metallic gold onto the stars....smudge around a bit....use a stamp from Andy's Tech Tauma set with the same gold paint stamp to decorate the hat. And a red pen for a bit of depth. Clean your stamp straight away when using with paint. 
 Stamp the skull onto white card, use a pencil to discolour the teeth (I painted one gold too after this). Then I added die cuts of money symbols to the eye sockets. 
 Highlight the stencil image with a white Posca Paint pen, to bring it forward on the page. 
 Stick on the skull and hat. I used Cosmic Shimmer glue. Start adding a shading to the stars with a Stabilo All Pencil, and add water to blend into the page. This makes the start look like they are even more dimensional.
 Around all the letters I used a black brush Pitt Marker, then again my water brush to blend. Then back over again until I had the depth of black I wanted.
 A Sakura Quickie Glue pen and glitter to highlight the stars, and a gold Pilot Marker to bring back out the gold of the letters and symbols (which had dulled a bit with the shading) 
and to give him a gold tooth!
 I also went around the whole image with the pencil and pen to bring out the images.
 White gel pen around the money symbols in the eyes..... not sure if I will leave it like that...
 A few close ups....you can still just see the crackle with the gold paint in the cracks.



 Oh and then I added a bit of white to the letters with the white Posca pen.
 
Black archival ink around the edges.
So here is my finished fella. I hope your Christmas isn't filled with a spirit like this one! 
 
 Thanks for looking! Happy Christmas to you.
Suz 
xxxx



Friday 7 December 2018

Christmas Home Decor using Upcycled sideboard parts for the Craft Stamper Challenge

Hi all!
My project for the December Craft Stamper Blog Challenge is this Festive Wooden Forest
made from scraps of wood and a few basic craft supplies! There are some fab prizes to be one and the chance to be featured on the blog. Have a look here.
You probably know by now that I LOVE upcycling! So when hubby and I decided to give our old wooden furniture a make-over, we ended up with a few spare bits of wood which I HAD to find a use for. So this project is made with the feet and drawer front of a very old sideboard. All because the feet, when turned upside down, looked to me like trees.....so here's what I did with them.
We chopped off the 'feet' of the sideboard after painting the legs white so they had a bit of paint on them already, but not all over. I painted over the whole piece with DecoArt Chalky Finish paint in a gorgeous green called Enchanted and after two coats they were fully covered and even.  
 A wipe over with an anti static pad, then clear ink and stamp at the ready! 
 Heat embossed using a lush gold glitter embossing powder by WOW for a bit of bling! 
 Here are all the wooden bits I ended up using. 
After painting the feet, I added gems all the way around.
 I needed toppers for the trees, so out came some gold jewellery wire and flat nose pliers!
 About 12 twists of the wire using the pliers as my mark.....
 I cut the wire from the reel, then bought the two ends together and tweaked the shape to form a star.Then I had to work out how to add the starts to the tree tops. Got out my mini drill and put a hole in the top of each trees that was deep enough and wide enough for the two ends of the wired star to plus another section piece of wire that I wanted to wrap around the tree.
 Gave the cut out section of the wooden drawer front two coats of chalky finish in white (Everlasting). There was a split at the front but that just gave me somewhere to stick a sign! A generous coat of Matt Medium then lots of snowy stuff sprinkled on and patted down into the wet medium.
 To make the little sign, I stamped and embossed white card with Clarity 
sentiments and gold embossing powder.
I cut out the embossed words and added them to a rectangle of white card, 
matted with red card, then stick that on a section of a coffee stirrer and popped into the gap. To finish off I used a piece of Christmas ribbon to edge the front of the wooden base
 to add a little more colour.
This is where the base section was cut from.....following the drawer handle. Needed this cut out so the remotes would still work with the DVD and boxes (clever hubby!). 
 And here is one of the legs minus the 'foot' which is now a tree!
And here are 5 of the 6 'feet' and the front of the drawer, made into a cheap, fun, 
upcycled home décor piece!
I hope you like this fun piece. Thanks very much for looking and good luck with your entry to the competition which, as usual, has some lovely prizes for the winners! x