Free for All - Two frames with a single mask

Happy Easter everyone! We are having a 'Free For All' week, and that's a good opportunity for us to show off some awaiting works made with our Tando goodies that can not go in any other themed week. For me, I enjoyed playing with a unique mask, the Ocean Jellifish designed by Neil Walker. This endearing artist has made a large set of masks on Fishes and Ocean in particular, and some are really really fab... if you go here you will see all at a glance, and if you like water world and seascape you should not be disappointed! I love this mask (and the others, already on my loooong wishlist), I've also discovered that it is very versatile, allowing to create both gorgeous backgrounds but also very interesting and beautiful textures.  

I made two frames with this mask featuring the sea bed. To add texture on the edges, I tried two different techniques. The first frame is a plain canvas.

To decorate the edges, I used at first black Gesso to paint and prepare my canvas for the next layer. Then I took my mask and some Dreamwaver Crackle Paste mixed with a bit of remaining black Gesso, and applied the paste over different areas all around the frame, turning the mask if needed and using masking tape to maintain it in the good place. Let well dry. I next painted the whole canvas with several translucent paints (I used Acrylic Silk Glaze in African Jade, Bolivian Blue et Stargazer). Also added black paint again with a sponge to make the texture stand out... wiping out the excess. And last but not least, I used Treasure Gold Spanish Topaz to highlight the edges and the textured areas.

The background was also made with Ocean Jellifish, following the same process as the one used for my two last cards I showed you a few days ago (starting with a white silk card and playing with blue and black Dylusions ink, water and salt). The small translucent splatters you may see were done with Glossy Accents (at first I wanted to glue salt granules, but finally I removed them). I created my seascape by stamping the coral reef  at the bottom using black Stazon and two mermaids from a plate of four (love this design by klimt!). I also quickly stamped a small fish here and there with Brilliance inks (Starlite Silver, Pearlescent Poppy, et Rocket Red Gold) to complete the scene. I love the rendering... I mated the card on several coloured papers and affixed the panel in the middle of the canvas with strong glue.

Well I know, the shoe is ridiculous!!! But I had so much fun to play with this new fun VLVS stamp haha!! So I just imagined a stupid scenario where it had fallen on the seabed... and the curious mermaids got close to look at it! :) Well, I think it's not very important... I just wanted to show you the lovely texture this mask can produce, so don't look at the shoo if you don't like it!

Here's the second make. To make a change I had fun to alter a plain small red frame (21,5 x 16,5cm). 

At start I sanded the frame to remove varnish, then did the same application as above by gesso-ing in black the whole parts first. I sanded lightly some areas to let the red below pop a bit. I took my mask and some Grunge paste blended with a bit of remaining black Gesso and applied the mixture on the frame, proceeding by parts, and letting well dry each spot before doing another one very close. I used masking tape to maintain the mask in place. When totally dry, I recovered all textured parts with Studio multi-medium Gloss by Claudine Hellmuth. Next step was to paint over the whole frame using the same paints as previous, using more African Jade this time to accentuate the green shine. At each layer, I removed the paint over the textured areas with a baby wipe, the gloss medium acts as a resist and the final texture is fabulous! I also added Treasure Gold Copper to finish, both on the edges and on the texture... Love the shine and the final effect on this make thanks to this Neil's mask, hope you can realize how beautiful it can be even if very hard to render in photos!

Ocean Jellyfish

Thank you for visiting especially today as we are on Easter Monday, have a wonderful day everyone with good chocolate!!!  :) Hugs Coco xxx

Two cards in 'Black and Blue'

Hi everyone! I'm just back from Version Scrap, the most important Scrapbooking Fair in France which is held every year early April in Paris, and I must say that I have still my head in the clouds!!!...
For this Black and Blue week I share with you two double-cards on which I used the Poppy mask (which is an essential one if you love the nature I think) and also two flowers taken from my Flowers with stems grab bag. These flowers are just fabulous, really!!.... Here is the first card:

The backgrounds of my two cards are made in the same way: I used white silk cards by Crafty individuals and sprayed on them some Dylusions blue and black inks (Vibrant Turquoise, London Blue, Calypso Teal and Black Marble), added with water and coarse salt. After dry, I removed the salt and applied some Distress Black soot ink inside the Poppy mask with a piece of cut'n dry - also put a bit on the edges of the card -. I finally used my two stenciled backgrounds to create two variants of cards.

On the first one, I stamped some lovely butterflies, birds and flowers from a set of stamps by Crafty Individuals, and added a few embellishments like the floral branch die-cut and sentiment tag (both also by CI). Then I chose two different flowers in the pack that look fabulous even without any coloring, and painted them using a selection of Fresco Chalk Paints and a fine brush and water. When I was happy with the colours, I covered them with Clear 'Sparkle Medium' to make them shine.
Here's the second card, a bit funny... :)

On this card, to make a change, I outlined the edges of the stenciled poppies using a fine black pen. The final look is a bit different, but beautiful too... I also added a few splashes of white paint diluted with a bit of water on the background, and played with black UTEE, applied here and there and heated (I made a few dots underneath before with a Versamark pen). My proud hen is a VLVS stamp, I coloured it with watercolour markers and covered with Glossy Accents and a bit of glitter. The sentiment tag comes from the same plate by Crafty Individuals as previous, it's a new plate called CI-407.   

I used the following Tando products:

Thanks for stopping by, you can have more details on these cards by hopping over at my blog if desired. Have a wonderful week, don't forget to come back tomorrow to see other gorgeous samples by my dear team-mates, so talented! Hugs, Coco xxx

A spring card opening onto... Ice Creams!

Hellooo! Coco here today, I'm sharing with you an humorous card inspired by the spring and sunny weather we have had throughout this month (at least in France). My card opens on a small frame of....ice creams. Yum!... :D On the front panel we have four old ladies who are eyeing through the opening of the chocolate & ice cream man ...:D I used a humorous stamp by Art Impressions and old patterned papers that make me think to spring and sweets. I took a lot of pleasure to play with the new release Tando Minis - Ice Creams to decorate the inside. 

On the front panel, I had fun with my Ink Splatters mask to create festive and colorful splatters, looking like fireworks... With a small  foam pad I covered the holes with white paint first and then colored them using watercolor Derwent Inktense pencils and a water brush. I also used the Burning Rubber mask in the same way, to create a ground for my ladies.

My ladies are stamped on smooth stamping paper and heat embossed with fine black powder before fussy cut. Derwent Inktense pencils were also used to colour all my images, heat embossed in Clear at the end and glued in place with Glossy Accents. 

My card opens up to... Four ice creams, YUM-YUM!!!!

At top of the left side I have added a bunting strip from my Bunting Small Scalloped pack of 4. I painted it with acrylic paints (I used translucent PA paints: Zesty Zinc + Pumpkin Soup) and also put a bit of glitter stickles in lime green on the edges, then I stamped the word 'spring'.
I used my new Stitches Group mask to draw an irregular border line with Olive distress marker and outlined the edges with a brown pen. 

And here are the ice creams!!! To fit to the theme this week, I glued them on a small board with rounded edges from my pack of Mixed Media Boards. The size of mine is 80 mm x 116 mm, but they exist in two sizes. It's a great product, we can do and imagine many things with it!

To decorate my frame and my ice creams, I did the following:

For the frame, I first gesso-ed it (and also the ice creams elements) slightly. Once dry, I reused my Ink Splatters mask and coated the board with opaque yellow saffron paint over it (PA Haystack), then I applied a coat of translucent yellow paint (Zesty Zinc) on the whole board. I set my stencil at the same place again and added a bit of Claret (another translucent paint) over the splatters. A second coat (very rapid with the leftovers) of Zesty Zinc was applied at the end to enforce the shine of the board, and I also glued on the edges a bit of Lime Green Glitter Stickles.   

For the ice creams, I played with several acrylic chalk paints and inks to colour them. I used PA Vanilla, Rose, Limelight, Chocolate Pudding, Orchid, Lilac and Eggplant, and a tiny drop of Dylusions Bubblegum Pink ink (the great flashy pink colour!) and Fresh Lime over Limelight (giving this yummy shiny Green). For the final touch I also added a bit of Glam Pink Stickles and 3D brown paint to create small chocolate chips. Slightly sanded the brown strips also to finish... 

You probably don't have all these paints, but you can easily adapt and use any paint or ink you have in your stash... 

New Releases:

Other Tando supplies: 

Hope this card has put a smile on your face haha! Have a great day! Hugs Coco xx

"Forget Art - Put your trust in Ice-Cream" (Charles Baxter, the Feast of Love)

Same but Different... A funny AJ page and its tutorial!

Helloooo, it's my turn (Coco) to show you what I've made with the new 'Flexistrips - Grass' product...
This new product is thinner than chipboard but thicker than card, and also very flexible so it can easily be used on 3D projects, like Karen showed you beautifully just before me this week! Today, I chose to put it simply as a gorgeous embellishment on an Art Journal page, it is a quite funny page, hope will will like it as much as me... I have also a tutorial for you on this piece, click on the first image below for the link.

Apart the Flexistrips - Grass product into focus, I used several Tando's masks and chipboards on this project. I had a great fun to play with all my Tando goodies, they are really perfect to create and embellish AJ pages...  This page forms a charming combination with a previous page on the left side of my Journal, it was a bit fairy-tale page, you will have an insight into it at the end also... Hope this style of whimsical AJ pages will make you smile and inspire you! :D 

My background is made using various Panpastels as a base for other mediums, acrylic paint here and there and a bit of metallic gilding wax on the leaves and the edges... All my textured leaves are created with my new Tando mask 'Long Flourish', this one is so BEAUTIFUL!! The three different leaves you can create with it are really gorgeous. I also played with the new released mask 'Bullseye' (another new great one!!) for the central image, combined to a Stampotique stamp having by chance similar design. I was a bit inspired by the English fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" everyone knows I think... even in France haha!  

Here are some photos, but you will find all the details, photos and needed supplies enclosed within the how-to file I made for you, to download a PDF with full instructions, click on the picture below.

I show you the two pages of my Art Journal together...

I used the following new Releases:

Flexistrips - Grass

Mask - Bullseye

Mask - Long Flourish

Others products:

Squirrel Woodland Set

Grab bad of Clouds

Andy Skinner's Mask/Stencil - Accessorise

Thanks for stopping by today, this really was a great week! Hope you have appreciated all the pieces we have showed you throughout the week in different styles to inspire you... have a wonderful week-end! HUGS Coco xxx

Footprints and Flourishes...

Hello everyone. I (Coco) am also using this Free for All week to show you a couple of makes (a card and four bookmarks) done with new Trade Show Releases. I was lucky enough to receive a few bits before the last Stitches trade show, to try to make a few samples for Di to take to the show. Maybe some of you had a chance to see the two first ones below... I would have loved to have been there, unfortunately it's very difficult for me to move because of my kids and the distance between France and UK! Well, I should warn you that this post is picture heavy so maybe go and grab a drink before you start!

I mainly played with  Footprints. I must confess that as soon as I saw it, I fell in love with this mask!!! The texture you can add over it and the way you can highlight the various areas using your Creative Expressions Metallic gilding wax and/or your PA Treasure Golds is terrific.. This is exactly what I did, I used several tints of both types of products since I have a few items of the two brands, to create various traces and shades under the feet....

For the background and the chipboard embellishments (one small compass and a few leaves from the new Minis - Leaves 3 sheet), I used a selection of my Fresco Chalk Paints, some Dreamwaver Crackle paste for extra texture at some places, and covered all my embellishments with Ranger Cracke Accents for the finishing touch. I also played with some Paper Artsy stamps.. You should find the complete list of items I used if you have time to pop over to my blog also here. 

Here are some details of the card:

Love these small leaves above...  they are really easy to use and reveal to be a fab addition!! 

I also did a large bookmark using the same mask... Just love it.

On this I put some odd bits remaining from a previous project, like the leaves stamped on black cardstock and cut out (coming from my last 'Masculine' card also shared with you).  

Well, I had tons of fun with this mask as you can see! (at least I hope you can feel it... it's hard sometimes for me to explain all my inspirational process in English although I'd love to, sorry).

That's not finished... I have now three others bookmarks for you using another fab new mask: Long Flourish. Well, you know how much I love my Owls stencil... As soon as I saw the Flourish mask, I had the idea to associate them. Love the following bookmark, I couldn't resist to keep it for myself this time haha! :)

And here are the two smallest bookmarks I did with the remaining parts of a Manila A4 sheet that I entirely painted and divided into cards and bookmarks recently.

Phew! I did tell you there were lots of photos. If you survived this far then well done and I hope you enjoyed seeing different things and makes showcasing some of the just released products! Now pop over to our Tando’s blog in the days to come, you should see new other gorgeous samples from the rest of the team using the new Releases maybe... Kaz has kicked off this week with three beautiful samples, and Karen yesterday has showed a fabulous new Stationery new box, don't hesitate to scroll display backwards now if you missed them! 

I used the following new products:

and also:

Have a great Sunday, hope we will have some sun!! Thanks for stopping by. HUGS Coco xxx

Two Arches with Owls

Hello everyone. For this Black and Red theme, I (Coco) have just finished a trio of lovely arches made with the inner boat pieces of my previous 'layered boat with oars' project shared with you a few time ago. They are fantastic leftovers!!!
I have created a textured and painted background, playing at start with black Gesso on the first arch, and white Gesso on the second one to try to produce two variants for the same combo. I added texture using only white Gesso and my Sequin Waste stencil. 
When dry, I used various red shades and dark/black acrylic paints (I used mainly PA Fresco Finish London Bus, Claret for the reds and French Roast, Chocolate Pudding, Mocha Mousse, London night and Little Black dress for the brown/black shades). On the first one, I added some Treasure Gold (Ruby) on the edges and on parts of the circles, and on the second one I inked the edges with Brilliance Graphite black and a bit of black paint.   

I stamped and cut out the sentiment and the bird on separate cardstock using Archival Jet Black ink. The bird was coloured with my Distress markers and a watercolor small brush, and then glued on a piece of leftover rubber to give it extra beautiful dimension. At the end I also stamped directly on the edges in white (using Brilliance ink) and black (with my Archival Jet black) some text to add even more interest to my two arches. My text and sentiments are Crafty Individuals stamps.

Here's the second one, I really enjoyed the process of creating different owl faces!...  Love this Owls Andy Skinner long Mask/Stencil, that's a great one! The little tree and birds are still Crafty Individuals stamps (I used a set of just mounted stamps sitting on my table, ready to be used haha!), I stamped them on tissue paper first, then glued with Satin Glaze (but you can use any other medium) and finally slightly painted over it... I also highlighted some areas thanks to a white Posca  marker, and then again with some light brown Distress markers...

Well, I also had fun to use my new Cosmic Shimmer Gold Twinkles you can see here and there haha!! I put a tiny drop of Liquid Pearls in Ruby Red on the eyes of this second owl...
To finish, I just added a few buttons to embellish my two arches. Et voila!

It was not an easy theme for me as Black and Red colours are not my favourite ones...  But love the result... what do you you think? Which one is your favourite?... 

I have used the following Tando products:

Thank you for popping by! Come again tomorrow for more inspiration in Black and Red! Hugs, Coco xx