Using things up

I don't know about you but I have a whole heap of part finished projects on the go....actually, it's more a pile of elements than projects. They are mostly from experiments with either new products or an idea for a new technique so as I was at a bit of a loose end today, I thought I would try and assemble a few bits together into something a bit more worthwhile.

This was a background that I already had, it's Grungepaste scraped through a couple of stencils and a few blobby bits applied with my notched palette knife.

Then I painted it with Nougat and Mermaid Fresco Finish paint so that I was adding future layers to a background with more even tones.

Having painted it with Hey Pesto and South Pacific, I decided that actually I had changed my mind and wanted to go for a more shabby look so I watered down some Nougat and brushed it over everything. I liked the way that it kind of gathered around the textured areas.

There was still quite a lot of colour peeking through so when the first layer was dry, I repeated the process and this is what I got.......now this is what I had in mind!!

And with the addition of some Classic Treasure Gold, I was starting to really like it.

After distressing a die cut, corrugated cardboard tag with Nougat, I used Taupe Fresco to stamp

PaperArtsy's Mini 95 brickwork stamp.

The minute I stamped the first image of the brickwork, I immediately knew that it was too bold to be part of my background so I watered down a bit of Nougat paint to wash over it.....much better!

This is a new stamp for me. I don't normally purchase polymer stamps but I really liked this, it's made by Kaisercraft. I stamped it on tissue paper using black Archival ink and heat set it.

I painted the back of the tissue with Nougat so that it would blend into my background and used some watered down Beach Hut to paint in the butterflies on the front.

I glued the image to the tag with Claudine Hellmuth's Matt Medium and stamped some small script randomly on the tag. One of my script stamps was decidedly wonky so I added some strips of washi tape to hide my mistake....don't you just hate it when that happens!! Actually it doesn't matter really, I quite like the washi tape!

I dry brushed some Mud Splat before adding some Classic Treasure Gold.

I stamped the butterfly from HP1203 on some acetate using Black Stazon and allowed it to dry thoroughly before turning it over and painting the back with Nougat and Beach Hut.

Now it's time to use some of those ready made embellishments and pull this thing together. The little oval was filled with Pebeo's Fantasy Prisme paint....love that stuff....and when it was dry I had glued one of Finnabair's metal numbers to it.

The arch shape bezel is by Susan Lenart Kazmer (the lady behind Ice Resin). I made a little collage of stuff in this fabulous bezel and intended to fill it with Ice Resin only to find I had run out of Ice Resin so my substitute was Glossy Accents!! This piece has been sitting on my work bench for weeks so I was keen to use it before I damaged it or lost it!!

With the addition of some lace and a few more bits'n'bobs from my stash, here is the finished piece.

It was such a fun project for a wet and miserable Wednesday, just what I needed to take my mind off the fact that Kelly leaves tomorrow for Africa (see previous post).....and breathe!!!