Warrior Girl

I made this card for my niece, an amazing young woman who I love to bits; she is a true warrior.  I've used it as my Inspiration piece (because she inspires me) for the latest Craft Stamper blog challenge.

Here's how I made this card.....
I stamped the gorgeous headdress from Aall and Create stamps  (you can find both the stamps I've used here on the Artist Trading Post website!)

 Masked it off...…..

 Stamped and coloured face...………...also Aall and Create....

 Forgot to take a pic as I got carried away, but I used just 2 Paperartsy Infusions (Golden Sands and Are You Cerise). Then Kuratake pens to colour eyes, hair and headdress.

 Added hair. Used the top of the headdress to stamp a border and painted gold Metallics inside the feathers.....

 Printed the workd out. Did the same with Infusions and stamping on a piece of card to layer up the text...…..

 Added my own scratchy lines to the text to match the look of the stamp...……….

 Love how she turned out.

 After pics I changed the eye colour to brown as my niece has brown eyes.....❤

There's a  chance to win a fab Tattered Butterfly Bigz Die up for grabs and be featured in the mag if you enter the challenge and win! 
Thanks so much for looking.
Suz
xxx

Mechanical Fish

Hi all

Here's my February project as part of Andy Skinner's Creative Team. I've used some of Andy's Greyboard Kits and DecoArt paints and mediums to create lots of layers and texture. Here's the finished project, and how it came together....

 Most of the elements came from Andy's 'Tagtastic 2' kit. Then I added the pointy bits from his 'Industrial Shabby Tab' kit. You can find all his kits here. I played about a bit then took a pic once I was happy with the layout

 You know me, I don't like waste, so I decided to use the remnants of part of the kit as a background, This would give me a few gaps to play with behind the tag. I cut the tag into a more curvey shape as it would finish up being a sea coloured background for my fish.

 A layer of good old DecoArt Crackle Paint on the now reshaped tag....

 Some lush Snow-Tex around the edges of the greyboard waste...…

 While the two background pieces were drying I glued my fish together using 

Decoupage glue - it's fab for this kind of sticking, grabs really quickly.

 Once the wavy piece had dried and all the cracks appeared I began to layer up paints. 

And a few more colours..... 

 Next the base greyboard layer....

 Now back to the fish. First layer was the leftover mix of the 3 colours used on the base - with a bit more white added, so a lovely pastel teal. Then a round brush to add 

a watery Paynes Grey to all the areas I wanted to stand out.

 A wash of Raw Umber over the top of the Paynes Grey, 

then another wash of Titan Buff over everything...…

Here's a closer look....love this. 

Back to the mid layer greyboard to add white Antiquing Cream to define all the crackle. 

Sorry about the messy labels! Once the cream was dry I wiped most of it back off with a damp cloth as you'll see further down the pics.

Bring on the Metallic Lustres. I'm a bit addicted to these! 

They work fab over textures like the painted snow tex 

and are a great way to frame the edges of a piece.

Same metallic lustre treatment to the fish. 

Now for rusty wire wrap, this was why I knew I wanted to use the waste greyboard with all those lovely bits missing, those gaps made it really easy to add the wire. 

I decided to add ANOTHER layer under it all. So took a canvas board and added a wash of Phthalo Blue Hue KEEPING it darker around the edges.

Time to layer them all up, glued with heavy gel medium. I added a heavy weight 

on top of the fish while the gel was drying to help keep them all pressed together. Once dry I also wiped away more of the antiquing cream.

At this point I felt it still needed something more, something metal - so I got out my mini cogs! I popped one over the eye, and then added a metal bead for a proper 'fish eye' look. And to go with that, clock arms at the base of each fin. 

Then I wired a variety of cogs all the way around, attaching them to the rusty wire.

 I didn't add more to the fish as felt it might overpower the lovely fella.

Here is a pic of the products I used, apart from the wire and cogs.

Thanks for looking. 

Suz

x

And here's a link to Andy's blog where you can see lots of other projects!