Decorated Wooden Heart by Karen

For our 'Love is in the Air' theme this month, I have decorated a wooden heart I bought a little while ago. I recorded the process and edited it to a short video:

I love using Brusho as a stain on bare wood: It colours beautifully and brings out the grain pattern. This was my first treatment for the base. I mixed the Brusho with some water and brushed it on to the heart (the sponges are only there to prop it up while it dried).

Almost everything else I'd gathered to (maybe) use was painted with Eco Acrylic Gold paint and then all left to dry. I love mixed textures so in addition to the wooden heart, I'd gathered a chipboard key, some old lace, a square of scrapbooking paper and a metal butterfly. In the photo below you can see a duplicate bare wooden heart and the ribbon before they were decorated so you can see there is quite a difference before and after!

The painted ribbon was glued on to the heart and, while that dried, the chipboard key was 'aged' round the edges with Eco Acrylic Black. I also dry-brushed what was left of the paint round the heart to give it more depth and focus the eye on the surface.

Pewter Design-It paste was stenciled on to the heart and left to dry before sticking everything in place with Flexi-glue. Some word stickers and a twine hanging were the finishing touches.

I have to admit I am quite fond of my little heart and just need to find a nice place to hang it now.

Thanks for reading

Karen

x

Metallic Paint	Acrylic Paint	Design-It Paste	Clear Spray Bottle	Plastic Painting Knives
Eco Acrylic Paint	Golden haired nylon brushes	15g brusho	Brusho 24 Colour Boxed Set

Acrylic Paint Art Journal

Hello everyone! Today I want to share with you something I don't often do - an Art Journal. My main inspiration behind it was the need to do stamping... a lot of stamping!!! To make it happen, I used ArtFoamies stamps and Colourcraft Eco Acrylic Paint.

To start a glued and gessoed over two pages from an old book - I like how the letting can be seen thorough the paint later on. I also like highlighting some of the words by drawing boxes around them once the page is finished.

As background, I wanted an ombre pink-to-white with some lifted mandala designs (once done, turned out I didn't really like them so they ended up being covered... yikes!).

I also painted purple spots in three columns.

First layering of stamps was done by the humble paint lid.

I dunked it in teal paint and stamped on the page.

Next was the spotty circle and green paint.

Then lines and crosses - first in white, then (without cleaning off the white) purple, pink and even some teal - I like the uneven colouring.

I left it to dry before moving to the next/last stage.

With black and white gel pens, I outlined some of the shapes, drew a frame around the page, framed some of the background wording peeking through the paint and did some general doodling all over.

The end result - a bright page and fulfilled need of stamping.

See you next time!

Ewelina

Brushos for all seasons by Karen

I set out to make some Springtime cards and, in trying out two colourways, created Spring and Summer. Of course, I then had to create Autumn and Winter to match and decided to share the four with you today!

The tree stamp (an old one from Penny Black) is one of those which, having almost bare branches, lends itself to any season and I stamped on to light weight (160gsm) watercolour paper with water-resistant ink so I could sprinkle the brushos where I wanted them and wet them without the ink running. The Brusho colours I chose are: 

Spring : Alizarin Crimson and Lime Green;

Summer: Alizarin Crimson and Emerald Green;

Autumn: Gamboge, Sandstone, Vermillion, Moss Green and Light Brown

Winter: Cobalt Blue, Turquoise, Grey and White

After stamping the trees, I added colour to the branches in tiny amounts, not forgetting to add colour to the base to 'ground' the tree. I then misted them with water and added more colour if needed. I also keptea paper towel handy to lift any excess water if it starts to run.  Here is the point where I stopped adding colour and water to these papers, just before I then dusted them with Brusho 'SprinkleIt' in Irridescent Gold for the Autumn card and Irridescent Flash for the Winter card:

It was very hard to capture a photo of the sparkle the Sprinkle-It gives but in real life it is lovely as it catches the light.

To decorate the trees further I wanted to add more dimension on the spots along the branches and, for the Autumn and Winter cards I chose to add dots of foil highlights so I added Flexi-glue and left it to be almost dry. The nozzle of the Flexi-glue is fine enough that it was an easy job.

For the Spring and Summer cards I wanted dimensional dots of colour so I had a 'what if...' moment and mixed some Flexi-glue with Alizarin Crimson and it immediately went a very strong shade of pink that I used for my Summer tree. For a paler shade I added some white and mixed that in for a more pastel shade that was ideal for Spring.

As you can see, I mixed and applied this with the opened end of a paper clip! Again, very easy to do with no drips: A slight touch to the paper gave me a tiny dot, more pressure gave a bigger dot. I'm quite thrilled to know I can now have dimensional dots to match my Brusho colours or, by mixing them, to have any colour!

Once the glue was transparent on the Autumn and Winter cards, I applied the Transfoil metallic sheets in silver and copper, laying them over the glue and rubbing the sheet with the backs of my nails to transfer the colour. Where some bigger dots were still a little wet, I left them longer and went back over them.

I managed to get a few shots while the sun was out so that you can see the beautiful effect:

I ran a black pen around the edge of each paper and mounted them on a card blank with 2 mm thick foam.

I showed these to one of my papercrafting classes and got lots of complimentss and questions about how I'd made them so I hope you have enjoyed this explanation. I love the Lime Green and Alizarin Crimson for a Springtime look of a tree coming in to leaf with its blossom. What is your favourite combination?

Thanks for stopping by today. Karen x

Supplies:
Flexi-glue can be found < here >; Brusho Sprinkle-It can be found < here > and the the other supplies I used are as shown below with direct links:

Transfer Foil

Golden haired nylon brushes

15g brusho

Brusho 24 Colour Boxed Set

Art Journal Page by Susanne

Hi there!

I have a new art journal page to share with your. I used one of my favourite techniques. It is Brushos together with some embossing. I love how vibrant this turns out.

Here is a video tutorial:

 

Here are some close-ups:

Thank you so much for stopping by today!
xx Susanne

Supplies:

Gel Medium	Clear Spray Bottle	StazOn Jet Black	Golden haired nylon brushes	Aztec eco metallic paint starter paint
Brusho 24 Colour Boxed Set