Enjoy the little things

Hello everyone,

and welcome to my blog where today I have the second helping of inspiration for the challenge over at Country View Challenges. The theme is 'crackle' and it was chosen by the lovely Evelyn !
I did a mini art journal spread with a little tutorial and this is the finished project :

And here is how I made it :

I painted the pages with Dylusions paints using a blending tool.

This is what that looked like..

Next, I painted Distress Crackle paint over the dried pages. 

While that was drying I stamped the mouse to add to the page. I had coloured this cat on holiday with my coloured pencils so I coloured the mouse in the same way. I later added the milk bottle...

After the Distress Crackle had dried I painted over it with Paperartsy Crackle Glaze, hoping I would get some big crackles... 

While that dried I stamped the milk bottle and coloured that too. 

Unfortunately the second layer of Crackle didn't work so I went back to the Distress Crackle and put another layer of that over the top and that did seem to work.

I accentuated the crackles with DecoArt antiquing cream.

Next I used a Tim Holtz stamp set (CMS260)  and some brown Archival Ink to add some more interest.

This is how it looked; I also went around the edges with the same ink pad to grunge it up a little more. 

Next, I decided it needed some white so I took this Tim Holtz stencil (Dot Fade) and some Deco Art Crackle paste and added that to both pages. 

It didn't crackle very much but I was happy with how it looked. 

The mouse (by Katzelkraft) and the cat (Crazy Cats by Tim Holtz CMS251) were stamped on the page to get the little details like the whiskers. You can then cut these off the stamped images you have coloured. 

Of course it didn't stamp very well on the white dots but it looks OK in the end. Here I have added some more stamping using the other stamp from the Tim Holtz set (CMS260) and some orange Archival & Distress Inks. 

After adhering the cat, mouse and bottle to the pages I added some shading underneath using a Faber Castell Big Brush marker. 

And this is the finished result ! I added a sentiment from an Eclectica stamp set by Paperartsy (EKD02).

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you will play along with us this month ! 

Star light, star bright !

Hello everyone,

and happy June.. Can't believe it is June already.
For this month's challenge over at Country View Challenges the lovely Evelyn chose the theme of 'Crackle" and I made a little wallhanging out of a paint stirring stick ! haha... so much fun !
Here's how:

First, here's a photo of the finished project. I quite like how it came out !

and here are the steps:

First I had hubby drill a hole in the top so I could hang it up. Also I covered it in Gesso. One layer is enough. 

I used my PaperArtsy paints and also their crackle glaze... So brown first, then crackle glaze, dry and then the Stone colour. 

Here is the stick covered in the brown paint, not very pretty is it ? 

Actually I panicked after applying the paints and crackle glaze as there was hardly any crackle... Maybe my glaze is too old.. Anyway I rubbed some of the light paint away with a baby wipe and some elbow grease... and had a think of how I could get the result I wanted. 

I then remembered I had a pot of Distress Crackle by Ranger (Tim Holtz). So I just painted that all over the stick and what I didn't expect to happen, happened... Some great big crackles developed ! Yay .... very happy with the result. 

Next I used a brayer and Dylusions paints to create some colour to stamp on.

I used this Dina Wakley stamp set. Had it for ages but not used it very much. A great excuse to get it out and use it ! 

Here's the stamping... I changed my mind in the mean time and stamped some more...

When I finished stamping I cut them all out with a little border. I also stamped the sentiment from the same set. 

I adhered the cut out shapes on top of some scrunched up twine onto the stick and I think it looks rather nice... 

Here are some close ups....

I like it !!! I Hope you do too and I've given you some inspiration to play along ! 

Make sure to read the rules first though ! 

Thank you so much for stopping by !