Love, love, love by Astrid

Hello Calico friends, long time no see..... I've been away and so this is my very first post in the new year and it's nearly February....

Anyway, that being so, I thought I would share my first Valentines project with you:

Have you seen some of the new Valentines Craft parts? You can find them right on the home page at the moment.

I used the Mini Valentines Wood Shapes set 3, some amazing new corners
Baroque Floral MDF Wood Corner Embellishment - Style 35, and the word Love from the Create you own Word craft parts in the Coventry Garden Font, but that is a story by itself that I will tell you in a moment.

I started with one of the Shaped Profile Grey Board mixed media boards and started by adding some texture with the help of a couple of stencils and texture paste. I then gave it all a good coat of gesso.

Next I selected my chosen craft parts and arranged them on the board. I also used a metal embellishment from my stash to complete my composition.

Next everything was covered in a further layer of gesso.

And then followed my favourite bit, adding colour with the help of various paints and sprays from my stash.. However, before showing you some detail about that, as you can see, there is quite a gap on the left, and I felt it really needed a sentiment. Now I had a complete phrase "Love is in the Air" cut from the Coventry font, but...... I had not been careful when ordering, and it was huge and far to big for my project. I'm telling you that, because I know I am not the first one who has made that mistake, so beware and be careful, take out that ruler before ordering!!

Anyway, all I have space for was the word Love, but as it turns out, the good thing was that the shape of the word mimics the shape of the arch on the grey board, thus balancing the design quite well I think.

Here you can see what it looked like after I altered it, to give it a worn rusty look.

This was achieved by adding some Decoart Crackle paint and when dry colouring with various sprays and paints. I then added some Antiquing cream in Burnt Umber, and then when I buffed it and rubbed it off, also peeling some of the crackle paint away again. In order to stop more crackle peeling off, you then need to seal it.

Here is the centre part, while adding colour I had also added some glitter that was then covered over again to take away the sheen but just leave some texture. As that unfortunately obliterated the text on the heart (cut into the actual craft part), I then added a wood sticker to give it more of a focal point..
Below are a few further details still:

Shadows around the craft parts, to create more depth to the colouring.

In my world no project is complete without at least a bit of background stamping.

I love how the metal embellishment and Craft Parts seamlessly work together once altered in the same way with gesso and paints.

And here a bit a closer look at the final project once more....

Thank you for visiting