'Dark' - Featuring Andy Skinner's New Creative Expressions Products

Morning all,

I've been a bit busy of late, lots of projects going on at the same time, and painting and decorating at home too.  Hope you are all ok out there.

I have a blog post over on Andy's blog today, hope you can hop across and join us to find out more.  It's using his new products for Creative Expressions, some lovely new paints and a fab Structure Paste, along with his brilliant stamps.

Kind 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

Caution!

Morning all,

Well it was going to be just a quick post today, just wanted to share a fun card I made recently.  I had an idea when I saw Andy Skinner's Toxic stamp set.

But before that... I have some news....

I'm so proud and happy to say I am now a Decoart Helping Artist, I had confirmation last night from Decoart and I'm absolutely made up to be part of the scheme.  You'll notice a shiny new badge on the side of my blog.  So I will be bringing you a lot more projects and ways to use Decoart products, in my usual style of course, and will be getting out there with workshops and demo's too.

I'm currently doing a 'happy dance', so it's probably just as well this isn't live or on video....

Now back on to my 'quick' make..

The background was created using Andy's rust technique (No 3), but to create the cogs, I used a stencil, and Decoart modelling paste, to make the cog background.  I then coated the background and some of the cogs with Decoart Texture sand paste, to give a rough feel, and made some of the edges higher with my fingers.  The rust was then applied.

The layer behind the rust, is plumber's aluminium foil tape, applied to a square of card slightly larger than the rust piece.  I then passed it through an industrial style embossing folder, to make the metal effect.  It was too shiny, so a few layers of carbon black were applied and wiped back with a baby wipe, to age the metal.

I painted another piece of card with a mix of primary yellow, and pyrrole red, to get the vibrant orange colour used for the Caution sign.  That was stamped in black Versafine.  I also stamped the scratches stamp from the same set over it, to age it slightly.  It's cut out and layered onto the rust background.  The rest of the sentiment was computer printed, I just thought it worked well.  I aged it with raw umber before glueing to the card.

The outside frame is just a lovely washi tape I had, and fitted with the industrial feel of the card.

Have a good day,

Best Wishes,

Nikki
xx

She had a weakness for pretty things . . .

Hi all,

I'm relaxing today, had a hectic but fun weekend, my Monday blog post is up over at Indigoblu here.

I made a canvas for the August Indigoblu challenge, but never got round to actually telling you how. . so here it is.

I've called it 'She had a weakness for pretty things' as that's exactly what the book page says in the top left corner, I thought it was amusing and apt, as I'm not normally a pale pink kind of gal myself!

There were so many techniques in this, I started with using slap it on to glue and seal book pages, music pages, and stamped tissue paper to the canvas. 

Once on and sealed, I watered down some white gee so good, and painted over the canvas, to mute the colours in the background.  I then used flitterglu and megaflakes to add some flourishes and general shabby detail. 

Each little canvas was painted with Cottage paints, in Iced pink gem, and then stamped, one with script, and two with itsy bitsy backgrounds.  The mdf heart is also painted with iced pink gem, but then kroma crackled as well.  I added lace to give it a feminine feel.  Before all the components were glued in place, I spritzed the canvas with a glimmer mist, in an antique rose kind of colour.

Elizabeth Bennet was stamped, torn around, coloured with Distress markers, and aged with Tea Dye distress ink.  The metal embellishments were added, and then the Rue Romantique bezels were made up by stamping an image, colouring, then using flitterglu to glue it in to the bezel.  This is then sealed with slap it on, and Ice Resin mixed and poured on top, for the lovely shiny clear hardwearing finish.

The September Challenge is running now over at Indigoblu, you have plenty of time still to enter before the 21st, and the theme this month is Things with Wings.  The DT have made some inspirational pieces, why not have a go - there are some beautiful stamps up for grabs each month.

And remember, it doesn't have to be a bird or a butterfly, you can give anything wings (And you don't need Red Bull, just cardstock!)

Have a great week,

Love and hugs,

Nikki K.