Resist Week over at Tando Creative

Morning all,

I have a post over at Tando today, showing how I made these Artist Trading Coins.  I hope you can hop across to check out the process.

Kindest Wishes,

Nikki.
xxx

Anything Goes week at Tando Creative

Morning everyone,

Today I'm over on the Tando blog for Anything Goes week, and sharing how I made a monochrome Tag using Tando Creative products and DecoArt paints.

I hope you can join me over there to find out more, here is the tag!

Come and join me and the rest of the team this week for some more inspiration. xx

Happy Crafting,

Nikki
xx

Tagtastic over at Andy Skinner's Blog today.

Morning all,

I'm very lucky to be part of Andy Skinner's Creative Team, and have a tag to show you over on his blog today.  

If you hop across, all the details of how I made it and the products used are there. x

Best Wishes,

Nikki

xxx

Crackle Week at Tando

Morning all,

I have a tutorial for you over on the Tando blog today, hop across to find out all the details on how this was done.  I love these new stamps from Illusionary Artists too!

I used an MDF arch blank from Tando for this piece, it lent itself to the stamps perfectly.

There's a lot of texture going on, and plenty of layers!

Hope you can join me to find out more, and catch up with my teamies makes, over at Tando Creative.

Happy Crafting,

Nikki
xxx

A new technique - Mixed Media Acrylic with DecoArt Chalk Crackle.

Morning all,

I had a brilliant weekend at Dare 2 Create this weekend gone, with Andy Skinner and Tracy Weinzapfel Stratton, and the fab Tando Creative Ltd.  It has taken a couple of days to recover!  I was demonstrating on the Saturday evening, and I had some ideas floating in the grey matter, to try a crackle on the back of an acrylic piece. Bearing in mind painting on acrylic works backwards, it took some working out, and hope that it wouldn't crackle all the layers.

Here is a full tutorial, and pictures of some of the pieces I have made since.

The Acrylic has a protective layer both sides.  I remove just one side to work on, and leave the other for protection on my work surface.  Stamp an image on to the acrylic using Carbon Black Fluid Media Acrylic. You do have to be careful not to let the stamp slip, but the bonus with acrylic is that you can wipe off any mistakes while still wet. Spread the paint thinly on your craft mat to stamp with.

Choose a paint colour, and colour in behind the heart, (always on the same side as your stamping), going over the black stamping as well (this will still show through in places).

When dry, colour in the missing parts of the heart, I used Venetian gold here.  You could colour the whole heart in, some of the gold would still show through the first layer of magenta.

Cover the whole heart in a layer of black, this seals the front colours, and stops light getting through further.  It also makes the black stamping clearer from the front.

Next, splatter some slightly watered down colour all over the acrylic.  You can use one or more colours.  Dry between applications so they don't make mud!

Apply the Crackle Medium to the acrylic.  I went around the edge of the heart, but you can go right over, it won't crackle normal acrylic, or what's underneath it, just what you put on top.  This crackle only works with the chalk paints.

Once completely dry, paint over with your chosen colour of chalk paint and let dry.

The final step is to paint behind the cracks in a contrasting colour.  

Then it's time for the final reveal, just peel back the acrylic from the other side and admire your artwork.

As you can see, I'm slightly hooked.  The best part is peeling away the protective cover and seeing what's beneath.

Hope it inspires you to have a go.

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xxx

Products Used:

Tando Creative Acrylic Cubbie Pieces/Media boards.
Andy Skinner/Stampendous/Laurel Burch Stamps.
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics.
DecoArt Chalk Crackle.
DecoArt Chalk paints.
DecoArt Dazzling Metallics.

Posting for Tando Creative today..

Morning all,

Over on the Tando Creative blog today I have a tutorial on creating a little heart sugar skull shelf.  Hope you can pop over and join me for more details.

Best Wishes,

Nikki.
xxx

Morning everyone,

I have a post over at Tando Creative blog today, to show how I made this quick Easter tag with very few crafting supplies as I was away.

Hop over if you can to find out more.

Hope you have a lovely day today, whatever you are doing.

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xxx

Tando Creative - Mother's day week..

Morning everyone, over on the Tando Creative blog today I have a step by step tag for you, in celebration of mother's day.

Hope you can join us!

Best Wishes,

Nikki
x

Craft Stamper TIMI Challenge Reminder - February - Take a Stamp

Morning everyone,

It's challenge reminder time over at Craft Stamper Magazine.

My reminder DT piece today is this CAS card, with a little bit of grunge.

I used scattered straw distress ink through a stars stencil, and then took a ruler and a Posca pen, and drew lines in varying widths and lengths, dotted, staggered and straight, and then stamped a texture stamp in evergreen bough distress ink on top.  I added paint splatters in black, and a little star stamp sentiment that just fitted perfectly.

Hope you like it and can join us over at Craft Stamper for the challenge.  The prizes and guidelines can all be found over on the main blog too.

Warm wishes,

Nikki
xx

Products Used:
IndigoBlu Stars Stencil
IndigoBlu Tasty Textures Stamp
DecoArt Media Carbon Black Fluid Acrylic
Distress Inks: Evergreen Bough, Scattered Straw
Posca Pen - black
Free Star stamp/magazine

Proud Guest at A Vintage Journey - Going Round in Circles

Hi all,

So proud to have been asked to contribute over at A Vintage Journey, it's my first time as a Guest there, and I couldn't be happier!  The theme this month is 'Going Round in Circles', and I went 'small' for this one!

The matchbox was treated inside, and on the top, with DecoArt Media Crackle paste.  Once dry I painted in Media fluid acrylics in Prussian blue hue, and Quinacridone gold, using a wash of each colour, and letting one dry in area's before adding the other.  This gave a distressed old look.

I stamped the postmark and stain stamps in raw umber paint.  And dripped more quinacridone gold down the sides of the box.

The crackle and antiquing process was repeated onto a simple piece of card, to use in the circular necklace.

I cut the card to fit my circle bezel, glued and sealed with matte medium.  I stamped the Toxic word in raw umber onto a piece of card, and aged with quin gold.  Some cogs were added and glued in place, and then resin was added to dome in the bezel.

Inside of the matchbox and underneath were also aged, and the necklace fits perfectly to give as a gift.

I so enjoyed making this and following the theme, don't forget to check out the rest of the projects over on A Vintage Journey's blog.

Best Wishes,

Nikki

xxx

Products used:

DecoArt Media:

Media Crackle Paint

Media Fluid Acrylics - prussian blue hue, quinacridone gold, raw umber.

Stampendous/Andy Skinner Stamps - Toxic, Shabby

IndigoBlu - Diamond Resin

Matchbox, bezel, chain & cogs from stash.

Tag It Challenge - My first post for Tando Creative

Good morning all,

I am so proud to be able to finally say that I am now officially a DT member for Di and Tony at Tando Creative.  It's been a few months since we spoke about it so I've been very quietly excited!

For my very first post I have joined in with the 'Tag It' challenge, and came up with this tag.

Why not hop over to the Tando Blog to see more details on how it was created.

You can also see more of my new team mates work throughout the week.

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xx

Ministry of Mixology DecoArt/Tando Project

Hi all,

Just recovered from a fantastic weekend at the Ministry of Mixology in Coventry, and a fab day at Hochanda for DecoArt & Tando Creative.  I promised a tutorial on the acrylic pieces from Tando that we did make and takes on at the Ministry, and I showed as a demo on tuesday.

These acrylic pieces are a great size, and are easy to work with, and perfect for necklaces, key rings, christmas decorations, hangings, anything really.  I set them into artwork as well.  You can paint on one side and keep the other shiny.

Firstly I peeled one side of the cover off of the acrylic shape, and stamped in DecoArt Media Carbon black paint, with Andy's 'All Seeing Eye' stamp from the Curiosity set.  Bear in mind that if you use a stamp with writing on, it will come out backwards on your piece as we work on the same side right through.  I just waited for the stamping to dry, then rubbed off the letters.

Once that layer is dry, I painted the inside of the eye, (still on the same side), roughly with either titanium white or Titan buff, your choice here.  You don't need to be neat, just try and keep inside the lines of the eye.

Next I painted the two triangle lines with gold, and then over and around that I used interference turquoise, using my paintbrush slightly tilted to flat side, so you just dab and leave gaps in the paint.  This allows further layers to show through.

Then I used primary magenta for the next layer.

The following layer was cobalt teal hue.

Then another coat of gold, but nearly all over.

Final layer is black, cover the whole of the back of the piece.  This stops any gaps showing, and also makes all the other colours pop.

When dry, turn your necklace over and peel the final piece of plastic cover off of the acrylic, your colours will be revealed!

Here are a few pics of necklaces I made from my pieces, just adding a leaf bail with pinflair glue gel.  I then added Liquid Glass on the back, to protect the paint layers, and secure the bail further.

When you move the necklaces around, they shimmer at the front from the interference paint.

I also made this Media Board tag, with the same principles on the acrylic.  I pushed clear acrylic pieces (covers still on), into modelling paste on a board.  I 'pinged' them back out, leaving a recess.  Left to dry, I then stencilled Andy's 'Codebreaker' stencil in the gap.  Layers of cobalt teal hue, quinacridone magenta, interference magenta, interference turquoise, and I think a bit of paynes grey and quinacridone gold, gave me a grungy, rainbow oily type of effect.

 I painted my acrylic pieces as the above tutorial, and put aside.  A final layer over the numbers of interference turquoise, made them stand out.  Finally the acrylic pieces were glued back into their places.

I hope this gives you some inspiration.

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xx

Materials Used:

Andy Skinner - Codebreaker Stencil
Andy Skinner - Curiosity Stamp set
Andy Skinner - Toxic Stamp Set

DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics - Titan Buff, Primary Magenta, Cobalt Teal Hue, Interference Turquoise, Carbon Black, Paynes Grey, Quinacridone Gold, Metallic Gold.

DecoArt Liquid Glass

Tando Creative - Media Boards, Acrylic Shapes (shapes are new, may not be on website yet).
Tando Creative Mini Stencil - Leaves 1.

Craft Stamper August TIMI Challenge Reminder - 'Stencilling & Masking'

Hi all,

Today is Craft Stamper Take it, Make it Challenge reminder day, and our theme is 'Take a Technique' this month.  So the technique we have given you is 'Masking and stencilling'.

My inspiration contains stencilling today, and lots of it!  

I started by painting a 12 x 12 canvas board in DecoArtMedia paints, Hansa Yellow Medium, Cobalt Teal Hue and Primary Magenta, all mixed a little with Tinting Base to give me lighter shades.  On top of the base, I used a stencil with distressed elements, and stencilled the three colours neat, through parts of the stencil on co-ordinating base colours.  These are the sequin waste dots, pink lid rings, stripes etc.  

I then sprayed the canvas to tone down the base colours, with DecoArt Media's 'Media Mister', in White shimmer.  This gave the lovely splats and toned down the background.  
More stencilling with Andy Skinner's stencils commenced, I used the 'Industrial Elements' stencil.  

I added circles with Tinting base and a Sharpie pen lid, and then stamped Andy Skinner's crackle stamp from the Toxic stamp set in Versafine black.  I added Tracy Weinzapfel Stratton's gorgeous dots from her Totally Tracy Textures stamp set, both in ink and Tinting Base, and then edged the canvas with my fingers and DecoArt Media's Quinacridone Magenta, and added lines with the edge of an old credit card in the same colour, and a few smudges with my finger.

My trusty Acrylic Sharpie pen then came in to squiggle in a few of the circles from the first stencil, and add dots on top of some of the black stamping.  

I added some lines of washi tape on top of each other, and used one for the fab Whimsy Girl   stamp by our very own Trish Latimer (available in her Etsy Store).  I stamped her on card and watercoloured her with the same palette of DecoArtMedia acrylics as in the background, mixing a little yellow, pink and tinting base for the face, neck and arms. 

A few more white dots with my Acrylic Sharpie, attached her to the canvas and gave her some grounding with a little Payne's Grey watered down. 

To finish, I took an IndigoBlu sentiment from 'Floral Fantasy' stamp set, heat embossed and cut out, and edged with a gold Sharpie pen.  I also pencilled around the words on one side and bottom to ground them more.  

Hope you like her :)  

Our wonderful sponsor of the random prize this month is the gorgeous Gio, with her own range of stencils:

You can see all the Design Team's work, and the prizes on offer, along with the guidelines and how to enter, over on the Challenge Blog.

Hope you can join us!

Best Wishes,

Nikki

xxx