I first discovered Finnabair & her work a couple of years back, love her work! And now she's just started a new Facebook group - Finnabair & Friends - Open Studio, so many talented crafters out there... just amazed by everyone's stunning offerings! And we now have a challenge, for a background inspired by one of her creative team's examples (on her blog). So I had a play on several tags, & decided in the end to go with my take on Rebecca's textured background,.
Using a 5" x 7" canvas, I added strips of papers, hessian rectangles, lace trim, finishing off with texture paste through 2 different stencils.
Then I covered with a coat of white gesso.
Then for the colour ... What to do? I wanted to get away from my current bright pastel turquoise/teal/green/purple palette, so I decided on a fairly dark & gold 'grungy' theme...
After several false starts... sprays (the red was too red), shimmering mica powders (again too red!), it looked a real mess!
So, I still liked the texture, & it's only a canvas (!), and as I'd decided to go dark, I covered the whole thing with a coat of black gesso ... that was better, & because I'd used the shimmering powders, it ended up looking quite metallic.
Eventually, I used gold paint on the lace and stencil stripes, and most of the small stencil dots & added a coppery paint to the remaining dots. A few days ago, I found some micro beads I'd bought years ago... the black, gold & light brown were just the thing to add a little more colour texture - background done!
After trying out several brass/gold toned embellishments, which weren't quite working, I wondered whether it would work better 'landscape'... yes, everything went together quickly after this, and so I finished my canvas...
I enjoyed this, even despite the many re-colourings!
A couple of detailed photos...
I can't believe it's been 5 months since I've blogged! Where has the time gone? I've still been crafting, but I have to admit I've somewhat got out of the habit of blogging. So here goes with the first of Tim's 2015 tags that I've managed to complete before the end of the month!
Today Tim's new Fossilized Amber distress marker came, just in time to add to the butterfly (from Tim's new Watercolor stamp set)! I've decided to buy initially just the marker for each new month, (love all the colours so far, too hard to choose a favourite!) and wait 'til the mini-pads come out in sets of four..., so I've already got the 4 new colours in marker form, so I used these to create the tag, just adding vintage photo on the edges & a spritz of Gathered Twigs, as this is the darkest marker colour I've got.
I love using watercolour cardstock, markers & water - love the effect!
I haven't (yet!) any of Tim's word dies or individual letters, so I used an old Sizzlet die 'Love' & die cut letters from Tim's Chip Block letters die onto a spare piece of similarly coloured watercolour paper to give the effect of the letters being cut into the kraft card.
Finally I lightly coloured a flower 'gem' with Lake Mist alcohol ink (just to take off a bit of the brightness) & coloured the ribbon with Crushed Pistachio & Fossilized Amber markers.
Hopefully I'll be back next month with May's tag (if not before!)
Back soon! Kay
