A Lucky Charm Princess Piglet For My Niece's Birthday by Claudia

In Austria and Germany pigs number among our lucky charms.

We give little bought or selfmade pigs (made from marzipan, printed on chocolate wrappings, cast with resin or crafted from other materials) alongside lucky clovers, horse shoes, chimney sweepers or toadstools to each other on New Year's Eve and they are meant to bring their new owners luck.

Sometimes in the country even real piglets are given as birthday gifts on special birthdays (all of which does not affect the fact that piglets also end up as roasted sucklings on such events at the same time ;).

My wonderful niece lately celebrated her ninth birthday and I decided to create this birthday card with a lucky charm pig for her (as I wish her tons of good luck, success and happy moments of course).

Calico Craft Parts used:

- Rounded Rectangle Greyboard Mixed Media Board - Style 18
- Piglet MDF Wood Shape - Style 7
- Stars - Mini Greyboard Shapes
- Mini MDF Wood Crowns - Style 3
- Mini MDF Label Holders Wood Shapes

Of course it had to be a piglet princess for a princess - so my piglet got a crown. (I guess the weight of the crown is quite exhausting to carry...so the piglet has fallen asleep).

I started with painting the piglet and mixed DecoArt media fluid acrylics "Transparent Red Iron Oxide" and "Titanium White" to create the flesh tone. The label holder and crown were given a coat of DecoArt "Venetian Gold" Dazzling Metallics.

While these were set aside to dry I painted the stars and the mixed media board using Decoart Americana "lemon zest" Satin and Americana "Sea Breeze" acrylic paint.

Then I applied a thin coat of DecoArt "Carbon Black" Antiquing Cream to the crown and label holder. Once that had dried I wiped most of it back using a damp cloth.

I stamped some wood grain texture onto the dried mixed media board using black archival ink.

The stars got a thin coat of DecoArt media Crackle Glaze and once that had dried naturally (do NOT dry with a heat tool!) I used Carbon Black Antiquing Cream to make the cracks visible.

The quote for the label holder was written by hand and glued in place using matte DecoArt Decou-Page. The edges of the panel were inked with black archival stamping ink using a piece of blending foam.  Decou-Page was then used again for fixing all the finished elements to the mixed media board.

And this is the finished birthday "card". The back was covered with heavy white printer paper and used to write our birthday wishes on.

My niece loved it and she also allowed me to share her birthday card with you so you can create your own! (Thank you, Rosi dear! Mwah! XXX)

I hope you have enjoyed your visit today and leave inspired! Thank you so much for stopping by! See you next time!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia

xxx