Aunties Birthday ......

It was my Auntie's Birthday and I really did want to make her something special. So I had a shifty around and suddenly, there it was, inspiration! ....and where was I getting this revived mojo from? Hels Sheridan of course and her box canvas May blog.

This gave me oomph! I needed to get going - and this is what I ended up with several hours later ......

I found a 4 x 6 box canvas in my crafting stash. Gave it several layers of PaperArtsy Fresco acrylic paints jumping between Hey Pesto, Limelight and HoneyDew. Then some PaperArtsy Grunge Paste with my diamond shaped mask to give some dimension and texture.

I rummaged around my stamp draw and found a lovely little butterfly and flower stamp from KaiserKraft. It's such a delicate, fine lined stamp - really pretty. Using black versafine, I stamped that on to some single ply tissue paper (just like Hels did - she is clever thing!. Then using a generous helping of diluted matte medium, stuck bits of the stamped tissue reverse side down, here and there on the box canvas, picking at the edges so it looked more natural.

This technique can take a while to dry ( I can remember this from an altered tin class I did at the Birds in the Barn ages ago). A heat gun can be used, with caution - be patient!!

Once dry, I went back in again with my paints to blend it all together but this time adding some London Bus around the edges. I really love these greens and reds together - hmmm yummy!

Then I started to build the layers up: anything you fancy goes and I settled for some plasterers scrim, a pretty floral die from Memory Box and then the beautiful flower heads and leaves from Lin Brown - they are so good and I have had sooooo much fun playing with them. The small Vivienne Butterfly die again from Memory Box finished off the other corner nicely.

A few shiny embellishments along with 'Beautiful' 'Day' JOFY stamps just about did it. I felt very pleased, so much so I made another one -

.... same technique, just different colours and embellishments and some treasure gold.

a day with JOFY

What a great day with the talented Jo Firth Young at the Birds in the Barn, Great Tey.

Stamping on canvas can be a bit tricky, so it is always great to learn about the different techniques that clever peeps come up with. JOFY being a very, very clever peep, used cardboard, stripped off some bits around the edges to show those little fluted bits, then used that as the base.

We painted the cardboard with PaperArtsy acrylics then stamped, painted and cut out some of Jo's flowers from some of her very own JOFY stamps. 

The fab arrangement was then mounted on the canvas (which had been given a quick lick of fresco acrylic paint)

The group's collective efforts. Well done to everyone and thank you to Jo.

I am now off to have a play and be creative with cardboard.....
watch this space!