Love Birds Floral Tag

- by Anita Houston

Hello everybody who loves flowers! Anita Houston here, of The Artful Maven Haven, to bring you a tutorial for making this Love Birds Floral Tag using tons of Wendy Vecchi goodness. I was inspired to create this tag, because over at the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group, the 4oth challenge was to use her technique for achieving a cracked glass look. I have done this several times, and love the end product of having a mini vase for flowers to use on my projects.

Cracked Glass

Step 1 I have used Wendy Vecchi's Cracked Glass Technique on plastic and glass. First, I primed my piece with Glue N Seal. I've used gesso before and that worked for me, but every surface is different. Here I used the plastic packaging from a Vintaj Glaze packaging because it was shaped like a bottle cut in half, and that is what I was looking for. I made sure to coat my piece well, not dripping but not sparse either. I set it aside to dry completely, which was about 30 to 45 minutes.







Step 2  After he piece was dry, I applied a heavy coat (this was dripping) of Distress Crackle in Rock Candy. I set it aside to dry for several hours.











Step 3 After the Rock Candy was completely dry and my half of a vase was covered in gorgeous cracks, I sprayed Perfect Pearls Mist in Forever Violet about three times. I turned the vase slightly making sure all cracks were filled in. I gave it a quick blast from the heat tool to make sure it was completely dry. Perfect Pearls Mists dry very quickly though and work on so many surfaces. My vase was now ready to go.

The Background

Step 4 Using a jumbo sized tag (8 x 4), I swiped Crushed Olive Distress Ink across it several times by just using the pad right onto the tag. This created a very interesting design and color that I can't get using an inking tool. It looks like I've used some sort of texture tool when I didn't. Then using an ink blending tool I lightly filled in the spots that were still manila looking with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. This created a lovely vintage coloration.







Step 5 I used Wendy Vecchi's Art Rules Stamp Set image of 'the row of mini flowers' with Dusty Concord Distress Ink. I stamped the image going vertically about 1 1/2 inches apart going from top to bottom. I dried this with a heat tool to set it after I finished stamping. Then I flicked water from a spritzer, using my hand in a cupped position and then I opened my fingers and just flicked. This created larger and smaller beads of water. I applied heat from the heat tool, and watched as the water spots bleached the ink. This gave my background a very vintage feel.






Step 6 I used Liquid Pearls in Orchid to dot the middle of each flower on the background. I set this aside to dry about 10 minutes. It now looks like vintage wallpaper like Grandma used to have!

Step 7 Using Wendy Vecchi's "In Love With Art" stamp set image of 'knitted lace tablecloth' with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, I stamped the image onto Specialty Stamping Paper. This paper allows every detail of the stamp to be seen. It is so crisp and professional looking. I use this paper for all my very detailed images now. I gave this a drying with the heat gun to prevent any smearing of ink. I cut the image out and inked the edges with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink. The two purples gave nice contrast and shadowing to the image. I adhered this to the bottom of my tag using Glue N Seal, and cut the over hanging edges off. All of the edges of the tag were inked in Seedless Preserves as well.

The Floral Arrangement

Step 8 I used 2 pieces of jute to make a nest for my two little love birds, which I purchased in the floral section at Hobby Lobby. I separated several twisted strands of jute and formed them into a nest shape. They stuck together by themselves, so there was no need for adhesive. I placed the birds into the nest and adhered them with Glossy Accents.











Step 9  I used a Prima Decorative Border piece in Flowered Tendrils Grape, as my main vine for the arrangement. I used the tiny attacher to adhere it to the tag, making sure to hide the staples under flowers so they would not be seen. I arranged all my vines the way I wanted, then adhered extra purple roses from Prima's Sugar Blooms Reflection set using Glossy Accents.









Step 10  I needed some leaves as fillers, but I didn't have any, so I cut the petals off of a large spare green Prima flower that I had for years. I arranged these around the purple roses and adhered them with Glossy Accents as well. The bright color green added great contrast to the already attached olive green leaves.






Step 11  I used round shaped pliers to curl the ends of each of my vines. This added a bit of whimsy to the arrangement as well as really finished off the look.

The Finishing Touches

Step 12 To add my sentiment I used Wendy Vecchi's Sentimental Art Stamp Set image of 'happy ending'. I stamped it with Dusty Concord on to Specialty Stamping Paper, cut it out, and then inked the edges in Seedless Preserves. I adhered it to the vines of the arrangement so it would be raised as if I used foam tape.











Step 13 I cut a strip of seam binding about 14 inches long, and inked it with Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves, on both the front and the back.












I spritzed the ribbon with water and scrunched it up while drying with a heat tool. This creates a very shabby chic looking ribbon with a vintage feel...almost like it's been used so many times before. I tied this to my tag. And, to completely finish the tag, I adhered the Cracked Glass vase to the tag using Glossy Accents.

The Completed Tag

Anita Houston is a design team member for Frilly and Funky and Our Creative Corner.  She is also a 2012 guest designer for Artistic Outpost.  A self-proclaimed dabbler in "scrap-booking, mixed media art, painting, crafting, photography, cooking and baking, and the general hand dirtying fun", Anita and her lovely artwork can be found on her blog - The Artful Maven Haven.

Eclectic Elements: Botanical Bunting

- by Brenda Brown

Bunting is certainly the most popular decoration this summer for Diamond Jubilee and garden parties in the UK. With Queen Elizabeth celebrating her 60 years of reign and the Olympics being held in London we are awash with the Union Jack as the main design element for all things decorative. To this end, I have brought to you today some Botanical Bunting for that quintessential English feel to a family and friends gathering whether it is in or out of doors. Celebrate something special and give it an injection of English festivity for an event never to be forgotten.

Of course, the most favourite flower that we think of for that old fashioned cottage garden is the Rose. Many of our best-loved heritage roses are named after women and there are countless beautiful rose gardens around the world. It also plays an huge part in our history of the Tudor times, especially when we think about the War of the Roses and on his marriage, Henry V11 adopted the Tudor rose badge, conjoining the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.

I have therefore chosen the rose as the main flower for my shabby chic bunting. I bought the scalloped triangle bunting in a pack of 15 for just £1 and pack of paper napkins, which cost me a bit more, and have combined them to produce the basis of this garland.

It is vitally important that you separate the plain layers from the patterned layer of the napkins to get the best effect. Here you can see I used two pieces of low tack masking tape to pull the layers apart, and even then I missed a layer to start with.

I tried out several glues for this but found that the napkins will tear very easily and, in the end, I preferred a universal PVA bond bought from a builders merchants.

To separate the bunting piece from the napkin, I watered the edges with a brush and gently pulled the napkin away. By rubbing my fingers all round the scalloped edges I obtained a smooth finish.

 For the backs I drew round a triangle and cut out 15 pieces from music paper.

 Once I had covered all the triangles and laid them out to dry, I set about making the rolled paper roses by drawing a spiraled circle on the back of patterned paper, cutting it out using wavy lines and then rolling, starting at the outside point, and twisting some of the edges outwards, to create the petal effects. As you can see they are all different and individual. Once they had dried, I used a quickie glue pen and added some glitter to them.

The rosettes were made by cutting coredinations card and music score paper with both Tim Holtz dies, Paper Rosette and Mini paper Rosettes.

This gave me three different sizes to work with and I cut some of them in half (lengthways) too. 

I used distress inks and stamps to give colour and more texture and also used the tattered florals and mini floral dies with crinoline to add the botanical effects.

As you can see, each one is different and original and I used some pretty gem brads for the centres.

Once attached to some white ribbon, this now hangs in my conservatory, waiting for a special diamond birthday party in July.

Supplies I used:

Distress Inks - Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo, Fired Brick

Various red patterned papers

Glamour Dust Glitter

Movers and Shapers Tattered Floral die

Rosette dies (as seen above)

This would be fabulous decorated with any themed napkins and rosettes and I can imagine me making one for Christmas too.

Evolution: Creative Growth - A Paper Clay Bouquet

- by  Deborah Powell

Hello Unrulies

It's time for a brew and a look at clay.  There are several types of clay: the wet claggy stuff you used at school which was heavy and cracked when drying; the clay you knead to softness and bake in the oven; two-part apoxy clays; synthetic clay that air dries and air drying paper clay and this last one is the one I will concentrate on for this issue.

I love working with clays - molding, texturing and forming and shaping things to form a 3D finished piece.  As a kinaesthetic person, it ticks all my boxes because it really is hands on.


There are two paper clays that I use, Hearty and Delight.  They are both light to work with like a soft and spongy dough and they are lightweight when dry. The clay is like a spongy dough, it is non-sticky. As the name says, paper clay is like paper to colour, but more of that later, let's get going!

Firstly, some rules - even if the clay says non-toxic, it is good practice to treat it as if it is because then you are in that habit for when you are handling toxic materials.  As always, work in a well ventilated area.  Don't worry - you can always knead and remold if it comes out wrong and you can always repaint.  Now let's play!

Impressions

There are various ways of using the clay - you can use art molds - the entire mold or, as seen at the top here, part of a mold.  Or you can make impressions from a brooch, a texture plate, a rubber stamp - anything that will make an impression into the clay.  This clay takes sharp impressions and if it doesn't work out then knead it and try again.

This is an air drying clay so you need to keep it in an airtight tub and only take out what you need. Although it is already soft, you should knead it a little to remove the excess moisture so it doesn't stick to the mold and it takes a good impression.

To prepare the can, be very very careful. I wasn't going to show this because I didn't want anyone getting cut - if you are in any doubt about doing this then  please don't try it.

This was a can I liberated from the recycle bin at the office and washed out. With a sturdy craft knife, cut an X in the tin and use pliers to open it out.  Cover the tin in  PVA glue and tissue paper and leave overnight to dry.  Then sponge it black and dry.   Sponge a brickish colour on and when dry rub over with a tarnished silver/grey or antique gray and use this to create a thick covering around the cut metal edges to protect yourself  from getting cut.

Glue a blob of dried heavy type clay or a stone into the base to weight it down as it will need a bit of ballast.


ALWAYS do more clay pieces than you will need, some might have an undesirable curl in drying as it is prone to this with lighter thinner shapes, also for any mistakes or breaking any shapes, it is good to have some on hand for disasters and for samples for painting.

Moulding the leaves

Molding the leaves, from left to right, you roll out a conical sausage and press it into the mold, rub away the excess but leave it at the bottom - click on the photo to enlarge and see the third leaf has the excess at the bottom which you pinch to the back as per the fourth leaf on the right, this is strengthening the stems for combining them into a bunch.

If you prefer to, mold some wire into the clay to help with binding them into a bunch, or some masking tape may have been as good or better.  Give them all a bend at the base for joining them together into a bouquet shape.



The mold is flat but as you can see I have curved the leaves to give them some shape and some I have twisted a little too.

As mentioned above, you can use just part of a mold and have lots of various size roses from this task as you can see from the photograph.

Drying can be a couple of hours plus, it depends on the heat and humidity where you are. When they feel papery and light they are dry.

Now for the fun part, colouring the leaves and flowers, you can use whatever medium you like to use on paper as this clay has a paper like quality and absorbency, so inks, water colours and paints all work.

TIP - test on the back or on any broken pieces to see how your chosen method works.

Pen and ink it!

On the left, the flower and leaf have been daubed with water colour pens and then spritzed with water as per the final result on the right.

TIP prop them up on tissue or dry baby wipes to create colourful inked backgrounds for other projects.

Do the colours separately - they will bleed into each other and you will have a horrid mess!
Spritz with a complimentary shimmer ink if you want a glimmer to them - a light shade or one that you can water down.



This project was painted, using paints from metal tubes, Windsor & Newton, Daeler & Rowney and Golden all have good and high pigment acrylic paints.  Remember, if it goes wrong, you can always paint over and start again!

Before painting the long leaves, bind them a bouquet, glue them up and leave the glue to set. (I am annoyed I didn't get a photograph of this), try some masking tape round the stems to help the glue adhere and it really is trial and error and a bit of fiddly faffing to get them to combine to a bouquet.

Painting methods

Top row - the leaves (these are samples from broken ones!) - use a dark green to colour the entire leaf - a blob of paint with a drop of water to help it spread but maintain the richness of colour.  When dry the leaf had some metallic green rubbed over as per the middle leaf.  The last leaf had a bit more water mixed into the paint and the surface dabbed with a dry tissue to give a lighter surface coverage - if you have taken too much off then put a little more on.

The bug was painted in the same green paint without any water added and when dry it was rubbed over with metallic green paint - use your finger or a brush.

So with your bouquet, use dark green paint on the leaves, some with a drop of water and some with a little more water added to the paint. Leave to dry then rub over with metallic green.  NOTE: this is a 3D work, people will pick it up and move it around to admire it, so as you paint your leaf bouquet move it around tilting at all angles to ensure all is painted.

The smaller leaves on the left had an undercoat of yellow, left to thoroughly dry and then a coat of the same green with water added, when this is dry add a second coat and let it run and pool into the recesses.

The roses were coated in a deep red and then the surface wiped over with a wet baby wipe, repeated if all the paint comes off! (click to enlarge)

The froth on top!

Naturally, an old rusty can that has been shaken back to life must have some froth!  I stippled white paint onto the roses - white on white - bit of a task, you could give them a lick of pale grey to give the light/dark of bubbles.

When completely dry, glue them onto the can - a few flowers were shaped over the rim and left them to dry in situ, as once dry this clay is quite brittle.



Now the fun part, glue it all together.

Assembling

With the bouquet of leaves in situ in the can, arrange the smaller leaves and the flower heads to cover any gaps that might show the inside of the can and the stem of the bouquet.

Place a few smaller green leaves in the middle and when happy glue them in, then add the flowers and leaves to suit.

Not all glues are suitable for this clay, use a clear 'all types' glue in a tube. However if you paint all  over the clay will be protected from the glue.

Then glue your bug and any other critters into desired position.

Base covered

Footnote - this is a 3D item, tactile, pick me up and look at me - make sure you do something on the bottom, for a finishing touch or a surprise or wow factor, it is a little secret that you will reward the inquisitive with when they pick it up and investigate.

This has a large rose and an oxidised metal look with a charcoal grey and silver rubbed over.










Growth.  Have you ever seen things growing in the most obscure and hostile industrial or urban environments? Amazing isn't it? How things beautiful things can grow where you wouldn't think they had a chance or after the harshest of winter conditions and that growth ensures the whole ecological structure.

Growth

Be inspired, nature is a wonderful thing. 

Thank you for joining me with this session on clay.

I would love to see what you make if you have been inspired to use the clay 

or indeed to show growth in the unlikeliest of places in whatever method you choose to do it.

Use Lace Readers RAQ Showcase

When we asked our readers to "use lace" last month, we were in for a real treat!  Unruly Readers created classy cards, fabulous frames, charming canvases, and beautiful bottles! 

Use Lace Showcase

Artwork by Michele S.



Artwork by Cathy Calamas



Artwork by Michele Champion



Artwork by Stacy



Artwork by Anita Houston

Want to see what everyone's been sharing for this month's Reader Art Quests?  Check out our June themes - Spring Thing and Best Bouquet and vote for your favorites starting on June 26th!