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Monday 23 February 2015

Family Canvas for Memory Maze

Hi all. It’s Jodie here and I am back as promised with a canvas reveal this time. Now I did pre-warn you that it may be a little long, so if you haven’t already done so you may want to grab yourself a cuppa before you get too into it. There is plenty of Memory Maze chippies used on this one, and I used a few techniques that I haven’t tried with chippies before, but am really impressed with the way they turned out. So let’s get into it.
To begin with I started by selecting a picture that I thought would go nicely with the frame chipboard that I had (I actually had 2 that I couldn’t decide between as you will see in the following pictures). Then I searched through my Memory Maze chippies stash to find others that might work with these. After a few minutes of playing around with the layout I had one that I was quite happy with.
Selected Layout.

Option 1 photo.
Option 2 photo.
Then it was onto preparing the canvas. This would be the background of the piece so I wanted it to have some texture to it, but also match in with the theme of the piece. I initially stamped a floral image several times on the canvas and then out came my leaf stencil and modelling paste. While the modelling paste was still wet I grabbed another smaller leaf embossing plate that I had, and pressed this in to a few areas of the paste. This gave it just a bit more texture as you can see in the following pictures.

Products used to prepare the canvas base.
The texture on the canvas.
This was then allowed to dry (with some assistance from my heat gun), and a coat of gesso applied over the top. I only had a little gesso left in my container so decided to add a few drops of ink to it, to give the background a bit of base colour. This was then heated again to speed up the drying time.

Products used to cover canvas texture in a coat of gesso.

Close up of the gesso covered canvas showing the texture provided.

Then came the fun (but messy if you are anything like me) part, colouring time. I spritzed the canvas with a little water and then added drops of inks in random places over it, followed by more water and inks, a little heat and then more of the same until I had something that I was reasonably happy with.


Inks used to create colour on canvas.



Close-up of the colouring on the canvas.

I then decided to add a little more ink to the background, but this time I added it to a baby wipe first and then sponged this over the canvas randomly. It gave the ink colours a completely different look, and gave the base colours that bit extra it needed. Once this was all dried a coat of matt medium was brushed over the top to help seal it all.

Inks used to finish off the colouring process on the canvas.

Then it was time to move on to the other elements for the canvas. There was the main frame chippie, the Family sentiment, the butterfly halves, and the other word sentiments and small ornate frames that all needed preparation before being able to stick to the canvas backing. The word sentiments, ornate frames, butterfly halves and large frame were all given a coat of gesso and then covered in acrylic paint.

The Memory Maze chipboard elements after covering with gesso and acrylic paint.
The Memory Maze frame chipboard after a coat of gesso and acrylic paint.
I then concentrated on the butterfly halves, by giving them a coat of crackle accents. These were left to sit and dry while I worked on some of the other elements and after a little while you could see the little crack marks appear. This was when drops of alcohol inks were placed over the top of the crackle accents and left to soak in. Check out the effect in the pictures.

Inks used to create extra colour on butterfly sections.
Close-up of the coloured crackle effect.
They needed a little bit of lightening, so I did the same again with some liquid acrylic ink, only this time it was only left for a minute or so and then the excess sponged off.

Acrylic ink used to add additional colour to butterfly sections.
Close-up of the butterfly sections.
The smile and laugh word sentiments and the ornate frames (that had already been painted in black), were prepared in the same manner with the crackle accents and alcohol ink droplets soaking in. Here are a few close ups so you can see the effect of using this process on these pieces.

The coloured crackle effect with the black acrylic paint background.
Close-up of the coloured crackle effect on the chipboard.
With the family word sentiment I wanted it to be a bit lighter than the others, so before it was covered in crackle accents I sponged some white acrylic paint over it lightly. Then instead of adding the alcohol ink drops directly to the chippie piece, I applied them to my craft mat (which already had a spritz or 2 of water on it to help the inks react). I then turned the chippie over and left it to soak up some of the liquid colour (crackle accents side down in the ink). Be careful when lifting this as it will be very wet and fragile. I then heated it to help it dry a little (both front and back). As you can see from the close up below the difference in colours is a lot more subtle than the direct ink approach. I then covered the piece in the green liquid acrylic ink and wiped it off after a minute so that it seeped into some of the cracks.

The chipboard piece after soaking up the water and inks.
Then it was onto the main frame. I thought that this needed a bit more texture to it so decided to clear emboss a leaf stamp randomly onto the top of it before I added any more colour. The glossy sections are where the leaves have been heat embossed.

The heat embossed frame ready for some more colour.
Ink drops were then placed on a sponge and these were sponged over the frame to give it some additional colour.

The additional colour added to the frame piece.
Now it was time to start assembling all of the pieces. I decided to change up the original layout idea slightly as you can see from the pictures. I chose the main picture that I was to go with and this was cut down and glued to the back of the main frame. I also printed out some of the photos details on a spare piece of photo paper and cut these out and glued to the back of the ornate frames. I covered the front of the details sections with glossy accents. These were then glued in place on the main frame as were the butterfly halves. The sentiments were glued down to the canvas and the main frame was glued to several sheets of cardboard before being adhered to the canvas (to give it some added depth).


The End Result.


 
There you have it. Sorry about the length of the post, but there were quite a few steps involved in this one. Enjoy the rest of your day and keep creating!
Until next time.
Happy Crafting.
Jodie.

Tuesday 17 February 2015

My first posts as a DT for Memory Maze

To begin with I have a Birthday card that I made for my 2nd child who turned 7 earlier this month. It was a really quick card as I was under the pump with this one. I have used pieces of plain cardstock in black and grey for the bases of this card. Dies were used to cut the shapes out of the black and grey card and a piece of watercolour cardstock was placed behind the shield shape window (it was coloured with several alcohol inks). There were 3 Memory Maze chippies used on this card; the Happy Birthday, Crazy Kid and Best Wishes sentiments.

 
The Crazy Kid chippie was painted with light green acrylic paint and then covered with green glitter glue and glossy accents. The Happy Birthday sentiment was painted with Lumier acrylic paint in indigo, and then topped with glossy accents. Check out how much shine this can add to a chippie in the pictures.
 
On the inside of the card the Best Wishes sentiment was coloured with green alcohol ink and then covered with the green glitter glue again.
 
The edges of the grey card were all inked with brown stazon ink. Once all of the pieces were prepared they were pieced together and Hey Presto!

The second item I made for my Memory Maze post will be here tomorrow. Now I will warn you that it has quite a few steps and pictures to it, so check back in tomorrow for that one.


Until Then,

 Happy Crafting,

 Jodie.

February's Stick It Down Card Challenge

With a new month comes a new lot of challenges over at Stick It Down for card makers and scrap bookers alike. Check it out for some inspiration or to join the challenge yourself. This is the sketch given for the card challenge for this month
 
Yes being February everything pretty much revolves around Valentine's Day. I guess I'm one of the lucky one's in that I have found my match in my husband. Then again, I've got a pretty special place in my heart for 2 more 'little men'. Let's face it every mother has a special place in their hearts for their kids. Anyway, my husband isn't exactly what one would call an overly romantic or incredibly metrosexual man, he's more of your manly man, if you get what I mean. So all things pink and red, and frilly really isn't his thing. So this is what I ended up coming up with.

 
It was made on some plain white cardstock, and the coloured cardstock were some off-cuts that I had in my stock (Kaiser Craft I think). The ribbon was some white velvet that I put drops of blue and green alcohol ink on to dye it. The stamps come from Kaiser Craft and were inked in Stazon ink, which was also used to enhance the edges of the cream cardstock.
 
 
I also sprinkled some very fine glitter over the front of the card in spots as you can see from the above picture. On the inside is a simple stamp from my collection.
 
 
Although Valentine's Day is the only major event in February for most, it's NOT in our household. We find that December and the first 3 months of the year are incredibly hectic here. From school holidays and Christmas to New Year's and then lots of birthdays, it is full on. I'm sure some of you out there in blog land know what I mean.
 
Until next time,
 
Happy Crafting.
 
Jodie.