Out of the Cold

8 years ago

Hello Dear Friends –

It was a beautiful day here and due to the President’s Day holiday I was able to work from home. I did take a little bit of time to play in my craft room as well. I had the window open, the sun was shining in, and it made me yearn for the warmer, longer days of summer. Although it has been unusually warm over the past couple of weeks I know that we’re not quite done with winter! A much needed bit of snow is in the forecast by the end of the week so maybe, just maybe March will come in like a lion and leave like a lamb!

Today’s project was inspired by the latest challenge on the Frilly & Funkie challenge blog – Out of the Cold. The challenge blog is generously sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique. These photos are not the greatest but my beloved is traveling so your stuck with my version of blog photos!

I know that my box of the latest Tim Holtz goodies are on their way to me but today I decided to play around some more with the Tim Holtz Distress Crayons and the oldie-but-goodie Tiny Tattered Florals thinlit. And while I’m waiting for the new Distress Oxide Ink to arrive, the “regular” Distress Ink worked just fine!

When I began the project I didn’t quite know where it was going to go and while I had the challenge in my mind I wasn’t sure that today’s project was going to be the one I submitted. I decided on a French theme as we will soon be headed across the pond for our spring vacation to France and also decided to just play with creating some different textures and just try things out to see what happened!

When I started, I had a spare piece of chipboard that I covered with gesso and then antique linen distress paint. At this point I just experimented so next out came the Papillion stamp with the French script and stamped it in archival ink. Initially I was worried that it wasn’t a crisp stamped image but that’s because of the paintbrush strokes on the chipboard. I also stamped it in a color range I don’t normally use – orange. I decided to keep going….out came the stencils. I picked up the brick stencil and used texture paste in random areas.

As the texture paste was drying I inked up some Distress Media Cardstock for the flowers and die cut them. I also die cut the greenery.

After the texture paste was dry I decided I wanted some texture to the non-stamped, non-bricked areas. I grabbed some soft matte gel and put down some cheese cloth pieces and mini art stones. I didn’t want too much but something that looked like the wall had been filled in or mimic the old ivy vines that run up the side of houses in Europe.

Next came the Distress Crayons. I colored the brick, the cheesecloth, and mini art stones with antique linen and then distressed them with frayed burlap and vintage photo. I then realized the stamped image to the back was a bit too bright. While I was hoping for more of a cracked look, I decided to try the Distress Collage Medium – Crazing. While I didn’t quite get “crazing” out of it, I did manage to “rough up” the stamped image.

Then I started to piece it all together. I grabbed the bird from one of the Tim Holtz ephemera packs and tucked him into the greenery. I also happened to have the clock on my craft table. It was a piece that I did when I had some extra paper clay from one of my recent projects and decided to use it. While I was painting it I realized the clock numbers are not quite right…oh well, not my fault!

Once it was all together I grabbed prills and filled in my flower centers and then put a border on the chip board piece. I didn’t distress the greenery as I wanted it to pop and keep the project bright. As I decided what to do next, I saw this top from a small crate we received leaning up against the wall in the craft room – I probably put it there to use it for some sort of project or use it to fill with stuff like extra tape runners. It’s the perfect size! I found some extra wood in the garage to add to lift to my project and attached it to the crate top! Now I’m off to the store to get some thick jute rope and attach to the back of the crate top and hang my little project!

I had a great time and now have a project to hang when spring finally makes its formal appearance! Now to figure out what to do with the crate box…

Items used for this project:

• Mediums: Prima Finnabair Art Basics Soft Matte Gel; Distress Collage Medium (Crazing); Ranger Texture Paste; Wendy Vecchi White Gesso;
• Embellishments: Prima Art Extravagance (Mini Art Stones); Tim Holtz Mini Layering Stencil (Brick, Set 3); Prills (Stop Wining, Fuzzy Navel, and Go ManGo); Prima Iron Orchid Design Vintage Moulds (Baroque 6); Tim Holtz Ephemera;
• Die Cuts: Tim Holtz (Tiny Tattered Florals and Garden Greens);
• Paints/Inks/Etc.: Tim Holtz Distress Crayons (Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo); Tim Holtz Distress Paint (Antique Linen); Prima Art Alchemy Metallique (Steampunk Copper and Ancient Coin); Prima Art Alchemy Opal Magic (Rose Gold); Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Gathered Twigs, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey, Wilted Violet, Worn Lipstick, Shaded Lilac, Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry); Ranger Archival Ink (Venetian Orange);
• Paper: Tim Holtz Core’dinations (Dried Marigold, Forest Moss, Shabby Shutters, Mowed Lawn);
• Stamp: Tim Holtz #106 Papillion;
• Miscellaneous: One crate top from a Mantry crate