Autumn Love and Farewell - by Claudia

Servus and welcome back to "my" Calico Craft Parts Monday feature!
Claudia here to bring to you a kind of "farewell" project for one of my favourite seasons of the year - which is autumn.

Sadly over here there was a rather wet and cold "autumn" this year so not much of the usual beautiful and clear autumnal light and colours for me - so I created a piece that is meant to capture that at least.

Calico Craft Parts used:

- MDF Printers Tray Kit - Style 2
- Sitting Fox MDF Wood Shape - Style 9
- Flying Barn Owl MDF Wood Shape - Style 1
- Mushrooms Funghi MDF Wood Shape - Style 9
- Sheet of Mini MDF Wood Birds - Crows&Ravens
- Sheet of Mini MDF Acorns and Oak Leaves
- Sheet of Mini MDF Wood Insects - Style 3
- Spiders Web Corner MDF Wood Shape - Style 1

I started with cutting apart the panels for the inner compartments to get more random looking boxes to fill.

before

after

with all the shapes I wanted to use for my shadow box

I glued the printers tray's pieces together using matte DecoArt Decou-page. Once that had dried I started painting my tray with a coat of DecoArt Americana Charcoal Grey as a base. Afterwards I dry brushed on some strokes of DecoArt Traditions Phtalo Green-Blue and Medium White.

To tone it down (as the colours looked a bit too cold) I gave it a wash of DecoArt media English Red Oxide as well.

Then I started to "rust" my animal shapes:

I mixed some DecoArt Americana Dark Chocolate with some bird sand and dabbed the mixture on as a base coat using a piece of a kitchen sponge. Once that was dry I dabbed on some DecoArt Americana Persimmon and for a finish a bit of Primary Yellow in some spots.

This simple three steps treatment creates some gorgeous textured rust on your MDF pieces!

I did the same with the printers tray frame's fronts:

Some alphabet wood blocks were inked around the edges and then glued in place alongside all the other pieces using matte Decou-Page.

Et voilá! 

Winter is already at our doorsteps - so I hope you enjoyed this attempt of capturing a bit of autumnal warmth as much as I did! ;)

Thanks for stopping by and happy shopping with 

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia 

xxx