Winter Magic ~ Guest Design Post for A Vintage Journey

I am absolutely delighted to have been asked to be a guest, over on the blog,'A Vintage Journey'. It's truly an honour to be featuring alongside such a talented team. This year, I have had the great fortune to have attended workshops by Kate Crane, Andy Skinner, Mark Gould, Finnabair, and AVJ's very own, and wonderfully talented, Brenda Brown. I've tried to bring a little of what I have learnt, from each of these artist's, into my work for this guest designer spot.The host for this challenge is the lovely Deb, and she has chosen  'Winter Magic'. I love the theme and was inspired to create a project featuring lots of frosty colours, textures and of course a touch of sparkle. This is how I got started.....

I started off by adhering strips of torn fabric and pieces of lace, to the frame of a reversed canvas. I then put this to one side, and worked on a separate piece of board, as it is much easier to use stencils I on a flat surface, rather than to try and manipulate them inside a frame.

I used Andy Skinner's 'mega crackle' technique, to create the background, and stenciled the tree branches over the top using Crackle Paste. Once the stenciling was complete, I was able to place the board inside the frame, before continuing.

I then gave all my embellishments a coat of white gesso, before arranging them inside the frame. Coating them with gesso gives uniformity and for me, this made it easier to get a sense of whether the arrangement worked before attaching them permanently. 

I used a hot glue gun to adhere the embellishments and sprayed it in patches, with diluted cosmic shimmer. I then proceeded to dry brush everything with white gesso. It took several layers to lighten the surface, drying each one before adding the next.

To finish off my frosty canvas, I added a trail of holographic glitter, a few gems and a crown for my wintery angel.....

It's been an absolute pleasure to make this project for A Vintage Journey. I must say it rounds off what has been a lovely year of crafting. Many thanks to all of the team over at 'A Vintage Journey' and a big  thank you to all of my lovely followers and all of the people who have taken time to leave me such uplifting comments. May I wish you all, a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year !x