Helen Chilton #3 .... All About The Finishing Touches

"Today I'm back sharing my finishing touches to Monday's project and Tuesday's"

 

To finish these tags I thought I'd play around with some Fresco paint and make my own paint chip bits. Spread a layer thinly on your craft mat in your chosen colour and dry with a heat gun.

Then just crumble it up into tiny pieces - very quick, much cheaper than the shop bought stuff and the exact colour you want! Stick them on with glue.

 

I also decorated my staples by threading them with beads. I saw this done years ago on a site, can't remember whose, but thank you - I love the effect. The easiest way to do this is to thread a new staple with the beads, bend legs back into position, take out the old staple and insert the new staple into the pre-existing holes. It's a bit fiddly, but fun.

Hinge it together and add wool.

Tuesday's Project:

Next I stamped the long row of buildings on some white painted cream card. Then I scribbled the oil pastels onto my craft mat and picked them up with a paintbrush and water and watercoloured my image. I tend to use a wide flat brush as this keeps your painting loose.

I also coloured directly  over the top because I like the look of the pastel strokes:

Then I scraped some white crayon and squashed blobs onto the buildings to add highlights

I was enjoying that so much that I squished some through the diamond stencil to create more texture.

Finally I cut loosely round the buildings, leaving a little on each side for a tab and hinged it onto the tags. If you look carefully you'll see the larger images echoed in the smaller row of buildings.

I'd like to say that was deliberate but it wasn't - it was pure fluke (and good stamp design)!

Add wool and a shell gem to finish.

Leandra Says: Paint chips! So what you are saying is I don't need to clean my craft sheets anymore! Sold! 

Gillian Says: Who knew paint chips could add such interesting detail, like Leandra I will never have to clean my craft sheet again .... a box full of paint chips! Brill!

If you have time to create some interesting backgrounds with your Portfolio Oil Pastels, or some other similar water soluble crayons, then have a go, and share with us. You may be the random winner of rubber this week! Link here.