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