A day in the studio

Yesterday, I spent a very happy day playing around in my studio. With all the recent family celebrations, it was a gentle reminder of how important family is to me. Both my parents are not enjoying the best of health at the moment so I thought I would make something that included an old photo of my Mum. I think she was about 18 in this photo, already married to my Dad as he was in the army and off to Hong Kong. I love this photo, I love her dress, her hair style and she really looks like my late Grandmother.

I started with this fabulous burlap panel that I bought from the PaperArtsy guys at Ally Pally last week.

I thought I would make an Anna Dabrowska style piece that I can hang in my bedroom as we are redecorating at the moment. I started by brushing a patchy layer of Stone Fresco Finish paint over most of the panel.

I wanted some texture on the panel so I scraped some Grunge Paste through one of Donna Downey's floral stencils. Then I positioned my other stencil and masked off the bits I didn't want before adding more Grunge Paste.

I also used a palette knife to randomly scrape more Grunge Paste on the panel to fill in a few gaps and then started arranging stuff on it. I find it really helpful to take photos of the layout I like as I can never remember where things were when it comes to the gluing stage!!!

I did paint some of the items before sticking them down with a heavy body gel medium and I also painted the whole panel again with Stone Fresco to blend in the Grunge Paste. I even painted those gorgeous velvet flowers which I've had in my stash for some considerable time. There's also a lot of Classic Treasure Gold on this project too, it really brings everything to life.

Oops, that's my finger in this picture!!!! I love how this project has turned out. The only downside is that my printer has run out of ink and I don't want to use the original photo of my Mum, but that cute little frame shown at the top of the post is destined to on top of the memories banner.

Here are a few close up shots of some of the other areas.

I hope you all have a fabulous Easter weekend.......don't eat too much chocolate!!!

Lin x