2015 #5 Bouquet of Barbed Wire {by Alison Bomber}

2015 Theme 5: Deconstruction

Hello all, it's Alison (butterfly) here from Words and Pictures.  It's lovely to be back here at PaperArtsy to indulge in some Deconstruction.  It's no secret that I enjoy a bit of crackle and rust, so the theme for this month looked like lots of fun to me.  I've been playing with stamping in rust - yup, in actual rust - and to make it a hat trick of my favourite things, I played with my weathered crackle and rusty stamping in an old book - fully deconstructed, wouldn't you say?! 

I started by roughly applying rusty coloured Fresco Finish paints to the pages of my book - Brown Shed, Autumn Fire and, I think, a touch of French Roast probably for added depth. Then it was time for the Crackle Glaze, applied with a palette knife and in varying thicknesses to get different sized crackles in different places.

Once the glaze was dry, I added Chalk Fresco paint over the top and let the magic happen. Then it was time to try out stamping with the Rusting Powder.  If you've never used it, I highly recommend it, though you do have to deal with a slightly stinky craft room while it's working! I've only used it to rust metal embellishments before now, so I tried it out on scrap book pages first, and came to the conclusion that Perfect Medium was a good key for the powder, as well as giving a good clear image (and not being too messy to work with!).  So I stamped some of the spikiest, prickliest flowers from Darcy's new releases - these are all from EDY14 - in Perfect Medium (nice and sticky) and sprinkled the Rusting Powder over the top.

EDY14

You can see the grey granular powder adhering nicely to the stamped images here.

Then it was slightly heart in mouth as I spritzed the whole page with slightly diluted white vinegar - you need to get it quite wet to activate it, which means the powder will inevitably disperse a little - and left it to rust...

Here it's just starting to turn (after about half an hour in my particular craft room climate).  I love how the spritzing means the eventual rusting slightly blurs the image as the decay spreads outwards.

And I couldn't be happier with the end result.  I gave a little extra body to the thorny flowers with just some rough "colouring in" using Autumn Fire and Brown Shed again.

And how else would you bind a bouquet of barbed flowers together other than with rusty wire?  It's fed through some Brown Shed covered eyelets and you have to remember to bend and unbend the wire when you want to close and open the book, but I think the effect is worth it!

The words are the title of a 1976 TV series, adapted from a book by Andrea Newman.  It doesn't look at all an appropriate story for a seven year old, and I'm pretty sure I didn't watch it, but I've had the phrase A Bouquet of Barbed Wire in my head for most of my life so who knows where and how I absorbed it... but it was clearly the right phrase for this most uncomfortable bunch of flowers.  The Jet Black Archival stamped words are layered over tea/coffee soaked Wax Tissue Paper.

Indulge me with one final close-up photo... I just love the glint of the texture in the sunlight!

So that's my rusty stamping - something I'll definitely be doing again.  It works well with quite a strong, bold image as here, but I'm also really curious to try it with something more detailed - the spread of the rust should end up almost "colouring in" the image by itself.  I bet it would look great with some of the PaperArtsy Hot Picks or Ink and the Dog vintage images.  I also like the double whammy of weathered crackle and rusting... lots of decay for you today!

Thanks so much for dropping in, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how you play with Deconstruction this month.

Alison x
Words and Pictures

Wow..WOW! This made my heart skip a beat, I love rusty things, so beautiful in the right light. I think many people will have tried the rusting powder on metal/wood objects but you have shown how amazing this powder is with stamping.. A truly brilliant technique Alison, thankyou for sharing with us. ~Darcy

We would love you to join in with challenge #5: Deconstruction If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Deconstruction link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, March 22nd, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.