Saturday 30 September 2017

Once upon a time - GD Kerstin

Welcome!

Kerstin is back with a new mixed media fantasy project.
 It's an artist trading block and my inspiration was a very romantic fairytale.
 Can you guess which story I mean???
A little bit difficult, isn't it? 

...Lost in the forest, Belle's father Maurice seeks refuge in the Beast's castle, but the Beast imprisons him for stealing a rose. Belle ventures out in search for him and finds him locked in the castle dungeon. The Beast agrees to let her take Maurice's place.... 




How I did it:


before and after
 


Colour technique wooden shape 

  1. firstly a thin layer of diluted grey and black acrylic paint
  2. clear DecoArt Crackle Glaze  on some places
  3.   DecoArt White and Raw Umber Antiquing Cream diluted with water for creating drip lines with a brush
  4. sprayed with water to make them run and spread


 some close up's 



side views




+++++++++++++++++++++++

Witching Hour
 and another inspiration for you

I live near the  'Harz' mountains. Their highest peak is the 'Brocken' and it has always played a role in legends and has been connected with witches and devils.  I love these fantasy stories about spooky forests with misty figures and phenomenons, where the fog creates eerie visual  effects.
Halloween time is near and so I had a lot of fun to create a little witches house with the amazing wooden shapes from Calico Craft Parts.



Calico Craft Parts wood shapes used:


this is how it looked before I started with decoration and painting

mainly painted with DecoArt Chalky finish Paint Vintage   and Glimmermist 'Woven Burlap'
plus a little bit diluted black paint



some close up's




I'm  always fascinated from this natural wooden shape look and I think it isn't always necessary to paint them, or?!
I only used orange and black acrylic colors, 
the classical Halloween shades with a little bit shimmer, to paint some wooden shapes






 


oh what is that??? a phenomenal magic effect ;-)


an old weathered roof


a long post with a lot of inspiration for you, I hope :-)

I really had a lot of fun to work with the amazing Calico parts and I am sure 
(in preparation for the time for creating Christmas gifts) it will certainly not be my last order.

Thanks so much for your invitation as your guest designer this month,
it was a pleasure for me!!!!

Happy crafting!
Kerstin


Wednesday 27 September 2017

Treat or Treat Goodies by Lesley

Hey people. Well........its nearly the month of October, which can only mean one thing, HALLOWEEN! Yay!! Possibly my most favest time of the year.

I have a little mixed lot of doodahs today for you. I emptied out all my Halloween craft parts and basically just had a play around with them. Really simple ideas.


The cake toppers are a simple idea. Just painted them black and then embossing powder on the top. And a stick glued to the back.



I used one of the oval shapes for the tag and painted it black. A skull stencil and then the mini craft shapes glued on.


The teeny box is my fave. How diddy is it! This was glued to together and again painted black. I used a cobwebs stencil from my stash for the sides and top. And found these fab skull beads which I used for the legs. A calico spider was glued on top to finish it off.



I bet you can guess what i'm off to do? Yep.......eat those cakes! :)

Thanks for reading.
L.xx

Ingredients used.
Birch plywood box kit, small
Mini MDF Halloween motifs, style 2
Bat MDF wood shape, style 2
Skeleton hand
Skull and crossbones
Witches hat, style 2
Spider, style 3
Oval birch plywood plaque

Sunday 24 September 2017

Adventure Awaits by Julie Ann

Hello, it's great to be back at the Calico Craft Parts Blog as Autumn works its magic. This is a special time for me, not only because of the seasonal gold, reds and oranges, but also both our children were born in the Autumn! This year, instead of a birthday card for my daughter, Matilda, I chose one of the Calico Artists' Trading Cards - and a story!



When Matilda was a tot her obsessions were cats and stories! Even though she knew the contents of the well loved books inside out, she would still cuddle up and wait with anticipation for the adventure to unfold: if those adventures involved cats that added to her delight! Edward Lear's 'The Owl and the Pussycat' was a great favourite!



 Matilda has a real adventure to look forward this birthday - a trip to Venice, a gift from her partner, Elliot. In the ATC I have created for her, The Pussycat dreams of the adventures that lie ahead for her and her new friend, Owl in their beautiful Pea Green Boat.



Calico ATCs are the perfect substrate to work on - the possibilities are endless. I began my project with vintage map paper, which I aged with spatters of water-colour, and a scrap of lace trim stiffened with some heavy gel medium...



The Pussycat's gown was originally worn by Mary Queen of Scots! How Miss Pussy got her paws on it I'm not quite sure, but I love the bold red with the autumnal brown. The fun of collage is that you can create a wardrobe for your own characters in no time at all and their character begins to emerge!



There are a whole range of Calico ATC frames to choose from and they add another dimension to the adventures too. Here I used some design paper with a linen weave pattern coloured with water-colour and some tea-bag fragments to add texture around the edges. The Pea Green Boat was coloured with acrylics, diluted with acrylic glazing fluid and touches of water-colour pencil.



How regal the Pussycat became as I gathered calico parts and little broken jewellery pieces to add. The Owl, the love of her life, became a troubadour, singing to his feline lady of adventures in undiscovered lands. From the day she first heard his beautiful music throughout all their adventures together, the Pussycat wore a tiny miniature of him around her neck, along with her jewelled carved cross. Thank You so much for stopping by today. I hope this Autumn will be a golden time for you. If you're planning craft projects now the days are shortening, do pop over to the Calico Shop where you will find so much to inspire you!
Calico Craft Parts in this Project
Plain ATC Wood Blank with Boat on Waves frame
Word Elements Travel and Explorer
Fleur de Lis Cross style 2
Hearts mini Greyboard shapes

Wednesday 20 September 2017

Ahoy There Me Hearties : by Jennie

Hello! and welcome fellow pirates (and crafters!) ..... 


I have always been fascinated by ships in bottles and we have quite a few here at the house collected over the years. When I saw this little wine bottle I thought I would try to create a ship "on a bottle" instead as that is probably the nearest I am ever going to get to making one!


If like me you like altering bottles, it is worth looking at some of the "mini" bottles of wine in the supermarket. This was a small bottle of Mateus Rose - I can't say that the wine was very great but I did like the shape of the bottle!

The fact that it has a nice flat rounded shape meant I could add embellishments without them standing too proud.



After being coated with the brown acrylic paint I then used a palette knife to add DecoArt Crackle Paste over the body of the bottle. I wanted a thicker finish than usual and using the palette knife achieves this.


I stamped some nautical images on tissue paper and added these over the crackle to add a few highlights - the crackle was nice but a bit bland!


And then the glorious pirate galleon! I did my usual dabbing of white paint over the sails - I always love how the burnt brown seeps through. The hull and masts got daubed with brown acrylic paint and I added a little gold here and there to highlight parts of the boat.

I absolutely love the wonderful new word elements and although it doesn't look as though I have done anything to it it has been coloured with a little brown ink and a light dash of gold paint over the top.


I finished off with some shells collected from beaches here and on the west coast of Scotland and some jute twine around the neck.

I really enjoyed creating this little bottle - it was a lovely size to work with and didn't feel too daunting in terms of decoration. Now I am off to the supermarket to see what others I can find! see you in the wine aisle!

As always thank you for joining me today.

Jennie x

Calico Craft parts used:

Monday 18 September 2017

Summer Farewell - by Claudia

Servus and welcome to "my Monday" over here at Calico Craft Parts! In Austria summer is in its last throes and autumn is already in the air...so I decided to create a little summer farewell mixed media project that still captures summer's glory but also already has a bit of an autumnal feel to it.



This time I only used one single wood shape from the wide wide range of beautiful Calico Craft Parts as I think this one deserves to have the stage on its own:

the Wildflowers, Grass and Bird MDF Wood Shape from the absolutely fantastic collection of Wild Flower Wood Shapes.



I used the largest size as it gives enough surface to use some of my favourite DecoArt media on it like white Crackle Paint and Texture Sand Paste. ;)

I found a piece of white cardboard that fit the size of the wood shape perfectly! I used a palette knife to cover the whole surface of the card with DecoArt media white Modeling Paste.


While the paste was still wet I simply pressed the wildflower wood shape into it and put a heavy pot of acrylic paint on top so the card would not warp while it dried. I left my piece to dry naturally over night. 


The next day I sealed the wood shape with a thin coat of matte Decou-Page. 


While that was drying I applied some DecoArt media Texture Sand Paste around it randomly with a palette knife.

That was followed by some white DecoArt media Crackle Paint here and there on the sealed wood shape. I left everything to dry naturally. 


Then the messy fun began: I diluted some DecoArt Raw Umber Antiquing Cream with water and created drip lines that I sprayed with water to make them run and spread. This time I went in with my heat tool to dry the piece. 


I repeated this step with some Brilliant Turquoise Shimmer Mister. 


To make the wildflower wood shape more visible I sprayed the whole piece with water and added a mix of Carbon Black and Raw Umber Antiquing Creams around the craft part and also in the inner sections. I used a wet brush to spread the mix to make it fade out and blend with the background. 


Once the Antiquing Cream had dried I very carefully used a baby wipe to lift off some of it here and there. (don't rub too hard or you will end up taking off some of the Modeling Paste and Texture Sand Paste as well...which actually adds to the worn and textural look but I know this isn't to everyone's taste ;).



Using my fingertip I added some Gold Rush DecoArt Metallic Lustre to the textured areas  (from the scraped on Modeling Paste and Texture Sand Paste) and also partially to the wood shape and all around the edges of the cardboard. 


See how the Metallic Lustre makes all the yummy texture pop and shine? I looove that!


I finished off my piece with two little words that I cut from an old dictionary. 


Done!



some close ups:






and once more the whole finished project:




I hope you like my little Summer Farewell greeting! There are so many beautiful wildflower woodshapes to find at Calico Craft Parts - maybe you will find your favourite and try a similar project too sometime.

Thanks so much for stopping by and as always...

hugs and happy crafting!
Claudia
xxx