Anything Goes Week - Autum Artist Trading Coins by Nikki

Morning everyone,

Today I'm sharing with you some Artist Trading Coins I made for a swap with a lovely friend.  I had missed the deadline to enter and she offered to swap just with me, so it was really nice and personal to trade coins.

We made three coins each, using Tando Creatives Artist Trading Coins made from Greyboard, which takes practically anything you throw at it paint wise.

These were my gorgeous coins from my friend, I love the fact they are 3 similar coins, and I had a thought to put them on the front of some mini drawers or something as decoration at some stage.

I made three coins also, and had fun following the Autumn theme.

The Leaf coin was triple embossed and a fern leaf stamped into the hot embossing powder.  The other side was painted with a rust technique, and then I used crackle glaze.  I wasn't happy with the finish so painted the rust back over the crackle glaze, which added effect.  The word Autumn was added from stickers from my stash.

The bird coin was first painted in Crackle paint, and then given a coat of quinacridone gold.  The tree branch was painted in raw umber, and highlighted with Metallic Lustre.  I embossed the bird and wing in two colours, and then edged the coin with Quinacridone Magenta.

The final coin was painted with Tinting Base, and then given a coat of crackle paint.  When dry and cracked, I gave it a wash of Raw Umber, and then Quinacridone Gold.  I used a bookplate and embossed, and added the word Autumn.  I put Triple Thick Glaze over the word inside the bookplate.

Hope you like them, I enjoyed the process and swapping coins is great fun!

Best Wishes,

Nikki K
xxx

Items Used:

Tando Creative Artist Trading Coins
Trando Creative Book Plates

DecoArt Media Line: Crackle Paint, Crackle Glaze, Tinting Base, Triple Thick Glaze, Raw Umber, Quinacridone Gold, Metallic Lustre, Quinacridone Magenta,

Stampendous Embossing Enamels.

Andy Skinner Fossils Stamp set (Fern).

Colour theme week with Brenda

It's a colour theme this week and here is the gorgeous palette. Winter is definitely heading our way.

I created a canvas board and used one of the Tando acrylic media boards, a Tando snowflake, DecoArt media acrylics and Stampendous aged silver embossing enamel.

The canvas board went through a couple of transformations but to start off I partially and randomly painted some broad brush strokes of white gesso over the surface and dried it.

I took out a palette of  cadmium red hue, quinacridone magenta, cobalt turquoise, raw umber, carbon black, titan buff and titanium white media fluid acrylics to mix and make similar colours as those in the colour swatch above.

Mixing the light blue colour first I made a water wash on a gelli plate and laid the canvas board over it to soak up some of the colour. I spritzed the gelli plate with water over the remaining blue wash)  and dipped the board again. I took some of the colour our by dabbing with a paper towel.

I repeated by mixing the pink colour ....

And then I knocked it back a bit and made it more ethereal by dipping in a watery wash of gesso.

 I found a really old wood mounted Penny Black stamp with this really pretty snowflake. Take off the protective paper from one side of the acrylic and stamp it using black stazon ink.

Remove the paper from the other side and start painting the arms of each snowflake in silver, gold and pearl metallic paints. I think I chose quite a difficult image so it didn't go too well ..... but I took a little cloth and dabbed on some surgical spirits and was able to rub some of the messy edges away without scratching the surface.
This is the painted side ....

...... and how it looks ok on the other side.

Next using a stipple brush dab over titanium white, titan buff and prussian blue hue on the back of the acrylic, I also used a little burnt umber round the edges which gave me a little frame effect. We will cover all the paint we have already put on the snowflakes.

When we turn the acrylic panel over the snowflakes in all their glory are revealed in the dark sky.

Once I knew what this looked like I could get back to finishing the canvas board for it to sit on.
Take the cadmium red hue, quinacridone magenta, carbon black and burnt umber media fluid acrylics again and mix shades to match the darkest red on the colour palette at the top of the post. Mix it with glazing medium and paint it round the edges of the canva board and rub back again. It worked well but was looking quite grungy so I totally changed the image. You can see with aged silver embossing enamel and some stippled blue, plus some blue and pink splatters it changed quite considerably. But that's what we do isn't it - change direction and follow our muse?

An embossed star and a grungy word band ........

 and I was ready to assemble.

Thanks for stopping by.

hugs Brenda xxx


www.bumblebeesandbutterflies.com 

Anything Goes week by Nikki

Hi all,

Today I have a Gothic Arch to share with you, in a bit of a pretty style for me!

I had a Gothic Arch that I'd painted in two shades of green, and already put some modelling paste on with the ferns stencil.  I wasn't convinced it was finished, so decided to play with it more.  I covered it in White Antiquing Cream, and left to dry.  Once dried, I took a damp kitchen towel and exposed the green again, muting the colours.

I added a couple more layers, firstly Matte Medium to seal the antiquing cream, and then a Primary Magenta wash.  I used a free stencil from a stamp set and Blue Green Light paint to stencil some background detail on the main panel.  I then gave both a wash with the same paint to tone the colours again.

On card, I stamped in Carbon Black paint, cut out and coloured the cats and butterflies with a wash of acrylic.

I decided the frame needed a little more, so took gold paint and applied all over sparingly with my finger, this bought the tones to an almost peacock shimmer.  The cats and butterflies didn't escape the same treatment, before gluing the pieces on.  I added a small flower from a leftover piece of Tando stash to add dimension to the background.

So I think it turned out kind of 'grungy pretty'!

Thanks for stopping by today,

Happy Crafting,

Nikki K.
xxx

Products Used:

Tando Creative: Arches - Large

DecoArt: Matte Medium, Fluid Media Acrylics - Blue Green Light, Primary Magenta, Metallic Gold, Prussian Blue Hue, Green Gold.  White Antiquing Cream.

Stampendous: Stamp set: Laurel Burch Indigo Cats with free stencil.

Anything Goes week by Nikki

Morning everyone,

Nikki here today.  I wanted to share a make with you for my 'anything goes' theme this week, that I made for a make and take recently for Tando Creative and the Ministry of Mixology retreat.

These are the Tando 'Cubbeys', and are great fun to assemble in any way you wish.  Each one makes up a box, either with a solid back or a cut out, that you can add acrylic or acetate or leave empty, and put lights behind if you wish. You can stack them however you want too, or put certain sizes together if you prefer.  And you can add more at any time.

I painted and stamped mine before assembling them, using DecoArt media cobalt teal hue mixed with tinting base to get a pale aqua colour.  Each box was then stamped in a slightly darker shade of the blue, as background stamping.

I kept to two tones of the blue, and pyrrole red for the stamping, and changed the stamps around in each box.  The acrylic shapes are stamped in carbon black, and then painted from behind in layers, starting with the one you want to see from the front first.

The skull box was stamped and his teeth painted white, then I added Stampendous Frantage embossing powder in Aged Scarlet for his nose, keeping to the red theme.

I left the centre of the main acrylic piece clear, so you could just see the writing in the heart, and it looks lovely with lights behind of an evening.

Thanks for stopping by for the 'Anything Goes' week.

Best Wishes,

Nikki K.

Products Used:
Tando Creative - Cubbeys, Acrylic pieces for Cubbeys, mini hearts, cogs small.
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Cobalt Teal Hue, Pyrrole Red, Titanium White, Metallic Gold, Carbon Black.  Media Tinting Base.
Stampendous - Andy Skinner stamps - Skulldoggery, Toxic, Handle with Care, Steampunk, Curiosity.
Frantage embossing powder - Aged Scarlet
Nathalie Kalback Marks stamp.

Urban Queen art journal page with Irit

 Hello my dear crafty friends and welcome to my last January Tando inspiration.
This week we are sharing projects made with Stampendous products together with Tando products and my share is this pretty large art page.
I need to say that I am a totally urban  girl. I never liked the country side or too much green around and I adore the city skylines and  all those millions of people around.
So this page was made as my tribute to this urban Love and I made the title sayings: I am an Urban Queen" and added some sticker saying to say more, like " this is my lifetime adventure" and " timeless everyday inspiration".
The art journal page was made over thick white cardstock, covered with gesso.
Then I used Stampendous Urban Cling stamp set stamp set and first the stencil that is in this set.
I added random spots with this stencil and Crackle paste over the page.
The city skyline was stamped over the page with white DecoArt acrylic and as usual, white on white is not much seen.
The green  houses that are seen were stamped with the background of  the foam stamp and the cling stamp and then heat embossed with clear powder and hand cut to be added to the page.
The  walls were cut from Tando Grid Rectangle chipboard and painted with white acrylic paint.
The title was made with Tando Alphas letters over Tando Speach Bubbles pieces and  the whole page, titles included was misted with a mix of several mists.
The last Tando piece  added is this key piece and it means that this Queen got the city key for her own use.

I really hope that you like my Urban inspiration and see you again in a couple of weeks.
Tando products used:
Grid Rectangle 


Alphas sheet style block


Speech Bubbles Large


Set of 5 keys


DecoArt Media Line

Urban Cling 3 pieces stamps and stencil

Metallic Tool Card

For the metallic theme I've made another card with bits from the soon to be released card kits:

I've inked the bottom half of the card and then inked through the {Mini Cogs Stencil} on the card.

I've painted a square of the backing card from the Tando packaging and then sprinkled Aged Teal Embossing Powder from the {Teal Frantage Jewel Kit} and heated it.

I painted some of the {Mini Tools} with silver and teal acrylic paints, then added some {Clear Liquid Glass} onto the handles.

Everything was stuck into place and finished with a stamped greeting.

Kaz xxx

Splatty Flower Card

Following on from most of my other recent posts, I've made a card using another of the soon to arrive card kits:

I've inked through the {Mini Splatters Stencil} onto white card and cut them out. I've added water to the ink from the ink pads and added small splatters to the card blank.

I've painted some {Minin Flowers} with acrylic paint and once dry, added glassy accents to the centres. I've then added Bronze Glass Glitter fro the {Stampendous Bronze Frantage Kit} to the centres. One dry, I've used acrylic paint to colour them before adding doodles and a stamped greeting.

Kaz xxx

The August Recipe!

Hello, its Karen here to kick off this months recipe:

1 SQUARE, 2 STAMPS and 3 BUTTONS

I have made a little 2inch square book for my project...

The pink cover has been stamped with Stampendous' Mish Mash Stamps.  I stamped a face onto some cream card and overlaid the smallest scalloped frame, which was painted lilac. 

I used some hessian for the spine and threaded on the 3 buttons for decoration.

Thank you for coming to take a look, Take care, Karen x