Twelve Tags of 2016 Remix Challenge ~ July

Well ! It's been a whirlwind of a month for me. I have said my goodbyes to all my wonderful colleagues and the marvellous children I've worked with and after more than 40 years of teaching, on and off, I have finally retired. It hasn't really sunk in yet, I suppose it won't seem real until September. However, I'm really looking forward to this next chapter of my life and hope to fill a big chunk of my time, pursuing my love of art and craft. What better way to kick start my 'freedom', than with a little tag making, for Tim's Twelve Tags of 2016 Remix Challenge. This month Tim has revisted, 'Watercolour Resist' and 'Layered Words'. You can see Tim's wonderful tag  here, with this link. I've used a few improvisations and settled on this lovely circus elephant stamp. I've used an off cut of corrugated card for my tag and the star brads have been 'enamelled' with embossing powder. So that's it for this month, I'm looking forward to seeing what Tim's got in store for August. I shall also, of course, be tuning in to the third installment of Tim's Creative Chemistry course, as CC103 starts on Monday. Hooray !!! x

Tic Tac Toe ~ New Challenge for Stamps and Stencils

Hi everybody! It's my turn to host the July challenge over at the Stamps and Stencils blog. I've chosen to do a Tic Tac Toe.  My teamies have done me very proud with some fantastic art work, based on their selections from the grid.

I've made this assemblage piece using elements from the top row of the grid, flowers, corrugated card and lace.I started off by peeling back some of the smooth surface of the cardboard to reveal the texture. I painted the surface with gesso and stenciled some vertical lines using modelling paste through one of Tim Holtz's layering stencils.

I then adhered a piece of textured lace with matte medium and a selection of metal,  plastic and lace flowers. I used a hot glue gun to attach these pieces.

and........

I then painted everything with a couple of coats of gesso. Once this was dry, I added several thin washes of colour, allowing it to drip and pool in the texture. I used deco art Media Fluid in Prussian Blue

Left this to dry thoroughly, and then used a stiff brush with white gesso to dry brush the surface. This really enhances the detail of the different textures.

The crackled photo frame, is the underside of a small canvas. I applied Deco Art Crackle paste over the surface, and rubbed some Antiquing Fluid into the cracks once  the Crackle Paste was dry.

This is a photo boothe picture of me and my Auntie Sue, I think I was about 14 or 15 at the time. I used my mum's old typewriter to type out the phrase, which is something that stuck in my head after listening to Adele on the TV. It is perfect for the reflective mood I find myself in, as I am on the verge of retiring after teaching, on and off, for the last 40 years. Ha ha ! bring on the next chapter !

If you fancy a bit of playtime with a game of crafty Tic Tac Toe, hop over to the Stamps and Stencils blog and you'll find all the details of the challenge, as well as some fantastic inspiration from our multi talented design team.