Tando Art Block - by Zoë Sanderson

 This is my little block of Butterflies.

This is a very light hearted piece, playing with lots of different mediums and ideas.  As always it started with a Tando kit waiting to be put together.

As always precision cut making them easy to assemble with snug fitting sides.  I'd decided to leave one end of my block open so the picture above shows one piece less than the full kit provided.  The box is constructed with PVA art and craft glue.

                                

Once the glue had dried it was time to paint them.  On the outside Pretty Gets Gritty Chalk paints were applied with a sponge.   Both colours on the same sponge and blended together.

On the inside a grey colour applied.  Then of course another wait for the paint to dry.

An older Tando stencil placed over the corner on one side.  Now I did have the bright idea of applying a stencil glue to this to help keep it in place.

With transparent embossing paste pushed through glitter were sprinkled over.  Problem the residue from that stencil adhesive left on the box also attracted some of the glitter.   Fortunately it is a glue that is designed for repositioning the stencil and when the paste had dried I was able to brush away the mess, well most of it anyway.

Time to stamp and fussy cut a couple of butterflies, using one of my old trusted and favourite butterfly stamps.

With another stencil and gilding glue my favourite work Laugh had bee added along with some random lines.  Silver gilding flakes had been added here, and as the glue had spread under the stencil to make the word stand out a silver liner pen went over the actual letters stopping it from becoming a messy silver spolge.

As butterflies had become the dominate them I pulled out some Tando butterflies and coloured them with Pearlywinks keeping to the pink purple pallet.

Before the butterflies had dried they were popped into the tray with the glitter still in it.  A couple of them randomly picked up glitter.

A fun little muck around that with drying time, and other projects also calling for attention, actually took a few days to complete and is now a handy little box for the desk.

Products used

Tando Art Blocks

Tando Stencil 

Tando Butterfly Grab Bag

Heavy Gel Medium

Anita's Tacky PVA Glue

All Other items from my craft stash.

Using up some left overs - By Zoë Sanderson

This is not so much a project as a play with Tando bits and pieces.   Casting around for something, anything, to get inky and messy with my box of Tando provided some food for thought!   The end result is this journal page.   Which makes me smile every time I look at it, the bright bold colours and the naive style is very appealing.  Added to which it was a lot of fun!  If precise, neat and tidy is your thing then this is not for you.  But if you enjoy just messing around with no finale plan in place and prefer a more playful organic approach then you might find a few ideas here.

Having discovered the parts left in the Large Whimsical Birds kit (to be seen on TV 9am 4th March 2022) it occurred to me that they do not have to be legs and feet or cockerel combs but could also be plants/weeds/growing things.   So I laid them onto a blank journal page and added another Whimsical Bird to start my layout.

Pieces removed out came the watercolours and sprays to start a background.  Different shades of blue applied with a water brush and randomly brushed across the page.   Then the "plants" were put in place and strayed with yellow and white.

Then I started choosing colours to work with, in the end I used every single on in the picture below.   Strong Bright Bold Cheerful colours an antidote to the overcast wet and windy weather we have been subjected to recently.

By now some other Tando pieces had been pulled out, another Whimsical Bird Some Butterflies and a couple of Flowers.   Everything given a coat or two of acrylics right out of the pot.  It is not clear in the picture(s) but both of the Whimsical Birds and both flowers were given a top coat of the Interference paints.  These paints add a second tone that shows up as the page moves in the light.

When the "plants" were moved after spraying the masked areas of the page stood out bright and so I decided to offset the Tando pieces to allow the unsprayed parts of the page to peep through.  Everything attached with normal adhesive except for the now purple bird at the bottom of the page, on this one a glass gel was used on the main body which enhances the Interference further and gives the bird a very glass like finish.

To me there is something of an underwater world about this page but you might see it very differently.  Thats all part of the fun of an organic page like this.

Products Used

Tando Large Whimsical Birds

Tando Whimsical Birds

Tando Floral Grab Bag

Tando Butterfly Grab Bag

DecoArt Media Acrylics in Various colours

DecoArt Media Interference in Various colours

Watercolours, Sprays, Adhesives and Glass Gel all from my stash.

Tagged and Grabbed - Zoë Sanderson

Passing my craft table yesterday morning after locking the back door some of the things on said table sparked an idea.   How about covering the surface of a Tando Tag with glue stick and then covering it with Mica powder.   Then I went to work.  Returning home this is what the idea turned into.

First the glue stick was pulled down the tag.   The effect is so textural and interesting, various Mica powders sprinkled over.  They settled in the nooks and crannies of the glue as well as on top making things even more interesting.  Before starting on the other elements I swiped a white Brilliance inked over the top concentrating of the areas that the glue did not stick to.  The more matt appearance of the ink off set against the sparkle creates even more depth.

The two half circle cogs, from Steampunk Parts, on the sides were given an application of gilding glue and when that was ready they were dipped into gilding flakes.  The flakes went everywhere so it took a while to clean the cogs up and I even ended up with gilded fingers.   Next a hanging bar from the Assorted Plaques kit, this was given a covering of gold gilding wax.

The butterflies from a Butterflies grab bag were painted with Starlight paints.  The flowers from Floral grab bag pressed into an embossing ink pad and coated with Stampendous thick Shabby embossing powder.  PVC glue stuck everything together.

The picture above taken this morning in natural light angled to show the sparkle of all the different mediums used.  The picture below, taken moments later, has the tag laid flat and so is a better representation of the colours used.

Next time I want to create a running water/waterfall effect this is how I will do it.  How would you use this technique?  we would love to see you work in our Facebook group.

Products used

Tando Tag size 10

Steampunk Parts 

Assorted Plaques kit,

Butterflies grab bag

Floral grab bag 

Colouring mediums, glues and embossing powder from my stash.

Layered Butterfly Card

For this week's Anything Goes theme, I'm sharing a card I made for my mum's birthday:

I soaked one of the {Butterflies} for about an hour in water, then very carefully separated it into thin pieces and left them to dry completely. This was a whiteboard piece so I had the white layer as well.

I painted the greyboard parts with gesso and when dried, sprayed one of these and the white layer with the inks I'd sprayed onto the card base.

The other gessoed layer was stamped on using one stamp from the {Mish Mesh Stamp Set}.

I stamped and embossed onto the top layer and then stuck the layers together making sure every layer could still be seen.

I took a heart from the {Mini Hearts Set} and painted it then sprayed with spray ink. Once dry, this had a thick coat of {Liquid Glass}.

Everything was then stuck onto a card. The feathers are actually post it notes!

Kaz xxx

Color Theme - Butterfly Mixed Media Board

Hi! Dana here today sharing the Mixed Media Board I altered for the color theme this week. I had a lot of fun playing with texture and this bright color palette! I started this piece by applying a base coat of teal paint to a Mixed Media Board. Once dry, I used a small sponge applicator to add dots of green acrylic paint in a random fashion to the board. Next, I applied a strip of felt tape to the board.

I colored two butterflies with ink and glued them together. I then added two buttons to the center of the layered butterfly. I further embellished the butterfly wings with dimensional paint. I added a puffy butterfly sticker, a sentiment sticker, and more dimensional paint dots to the board to finish this piece.

You can find the chipboard I used for this project in the Tando Creative Retail Store. We'd love to see your creativity! Share your work with us in Tando's Creative Zone on Facebook.

May - Anything Goes

I'm kicking off this month's anything goes with a trio of quick and easy cards for if you're in a rush.

I've used the {Tangled Yarn Stencil} over a masked off section of the card blank. For the first, I went for a low stripe and the the second a high one. The large butterfly is from the {Butterfly Grab Bag}. The rest of the butterflies come from the {Mini Butterflies}.

For the last card I used one of the stamps from the {Mish Mesh} set.

For all of the butterflies, I've used acrylic paint that has been watered down until it's the consistency of cream. Purple, turquoise and white paint has all been put into one pot, but not stirred and then poured on the first big butterfly. 

The other butterflies have been dipped into the paint that has run off from the sides creating swirls.

The single butterflies had a coat of {Decoart Clear Liquid Glass} and white paint pen added when dry.

The trio of butterflies just had the white paint pen added. You can see the detail of the dipped paint effect here:

Kaz xxx

Reflect change door hanger for Soak the chipboard week

 This week on Tando blog we were challenged to make something that was SOAKED.
Like soaked with water or mists  or anything similar.
So I really soaked this Tando door hanger in the water and then make it look it this soaked way and to work over it when it was totally dry.
Then I used paints, texture paste, crackle paste and made this butterflies door hanger that says " Reflect change".
So true and so much fit the butterflies change.
 Look how thick and layered Tando chipboard is!
So many soaked layers that give this unique look to this usual  door hanger piece.

I hope that you will try to add water to our Tando pieces in the future and will get your own unique look on your own unique projects.

Tando products used:
 Door Hangers Style B


Word Reflect


Grab bag of butterflies


 Wrought Iron Gate small

Sparkly Door Hanger

Hi Gez here, I am delighted to be sharing a creation with you today using the latest colour theme..

I have decorated one of the [Door Hangers] that comes in a set of two..

First of all I set about choosing the paints and chipboard embellishments to decorate the hanger..

[Mini Flowers] 

[Butterfly Grab Bag] 

Colours chosen were Dark Chocolate, Spiced Pumpkin, [Cobalt Teal] and [Titanium White]

Everything was given a coat of [White Gesso] and the embellishments were set to one side while I created a background on the hanger using brown and orange along with a gorgeous little [Brick - Mini Mask]  

work in progress !

Then I got a bit lost in the process and forgot to take step by step photographs but here are a few close-ups !

 As you can see I had fun creating a messy background including a few paint splats !!

The butterflies were painted using teal and white acrylics then embossed using white embossing powder.

The flowers were painted in the same colours and finished off with a delightful sprinkling of glitter from the [Frantage White Jewel Kit]

Here is the finished door hanger..

Thank you for calling and leaving a comment if you get the chance.

Happy creating, Gez