2024 Topic 10 : Gilded {by Etsuko Noguchi}

Hi everyone Etsuko (My favorite Things) here with you today, and sharing my project topic Gilded with lovely Raquel (Scrapcosy) stamps.

As we enter November, my image of Europe and the United States is that it's all about Christmas. So I decided to make Christmas ornaments and garlands using this cute ESC47 stamp as the main feature. I love the vintage colors that Raquel uses, but today I went for something a little more vibrant. 

For the quarter theme (Nature) I used small pine cones and acorns, and for the topic (Gilded) I used a generous amount of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Gold with embossing powder gold. Now, let's get straight to the point. I hope you enjoy it please.

These are the main supplies I used this time. I'd like to introduce some including Scrapcosy stamp set 47 and 07 (ESC47, ESC07), mini stamp EM84, PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Southern Skies, Weathered Copper, Gold, Pewter, Summer Sky and London Bus also Ranger embossing powder- Black, Silver, Gold, some Red, Blue with VersaMark. And natural items such as pine cones and acorns.

I started by making the base and decorations for the ornaments. To make the base and decorations I painted Smoothy (Heavyweight) A4 white card with Gold, London Bus and Weathered Copper and used powder to stamp holly and reindeer from ESC47.

I cut out each part. Although it's hard to see in the photo because of the shine, the base you see on the left is silver. 

This is the round illuminated part and the sentiment plate underneath using the ESC07 and ESC47 stamp set . 

I had a little time deciding on the design of the other ornament for the sentiment and the round part , but I ended up using the mini stamp EM84.

These are the finished before the shakers and the lights were added.

Now I'm going to make the shaker stuffing. Print the snow pattern of ESC47 on thin shrink plastic with Snowflake. (If the plastic is thick, the finished product will be large.)

Cut the printed snowflake pattern into circles.

Then I put it in a toaster oven at 200 degrees and shrink it. Then it will be just the right size.

Attached the Hello Light and circle shaker dome the sentiment paper at the bottom can be removed using a Hook & Loop Dot. 

The ring of the Hello Light is made of white plastic, so I cut out a motif of Dresden Trim and glued it around the ring. Also the shaker stuffing is made of shrink plastics, beads and glass glitter.

The other ornament was also decorated with Dresden trim.

Next I'd like to introduce another Christmas decoration 'garlands'. These are garlands made of small medallions and acorn dangles.

First, make the medallion printing paper. Paint each of the Southern Skies, London Bus and Chalk Fresco colours onto the Smoothy (Heavyweight) A4 white card I have prepared. Once dry, emboss the snow pattern and holly leaves from stamp ESC47 using VersaMark, in four colors powder (Gold, Silver, Red and Blue).

These motifs and acetate were cut into circles 3cm in diameter and made into medallions using aluminum circles.

This year again, there were a lot of acorns lying on the oak trees in the park, so I went out and collected some to use as material for garlands. I used a base of white gesso for the acorns so that the Gold color would stick well.

I then painted it evenly with Fresco Gold to make a gold acorn.

The Dresden trim motif is glued onto each acorn.

I added some red and blue rhinestones to the center of the trim and used a glue stick at the back to secure the gold thread as shown below.

The medallions and acorns were attached to red and blue ribbon with eyelets using jump rings to complete the garland. 

I made these with the idea that they would look lovely on a mantelpiece or Christmas tree as seasonal decorations. This is my last project of the year. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Etsuko xxx

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2018 #20 Foiling: For the Wall with I&D Stamps {by Leandra Franich}

 2018 Topic 20: Foiling

Tonight it's my turn to share an idea with foil. I'm obsessed by abstract art, and the Rothko style of canvases with blocks of colour is the basic idea I was emulating. I was also struck by an utterly gorgeous background that Debi Adams recently blogged here for stencil girl. 3 hours later, a new piece for my kitchen to fill a gap where a clock recently fell off the wall and broke. ~ Leandra

Hi everyone,
In this post I thought i'd go back to the old school gold leaf, the flaoty stuff that gets everywhere! Well i have a tonne of sheets that you certainly should use in a draft free zone!

I was thinking I would use Debi's colour palette as linked in the intro, but as usual, turquoise had to enter into the equation. Which actually turned out OK, because the wall in my kitchen is also that colour! So the piece has a home!

So I usually start with putting something on the blank surface, in this case, I decided that it didn't need to be too lumpy, so grunge paste was out, and instead I opted for layers of old papers and tissue. Knowing that they would likely be obscured, but also liking that they would still catch the paint, so I did deliberately ensure there were wrinkles in the tissue.

 

Here they are in place, directly onto a Canson Mixed Media board, they are quite thick, a bit like grey board, but more sucky of moisture...which means they do tend to buckle. As ever keeping things vertical and horizontal, just in case words ended up visible later on. Call me pedantic! But, I cannot cope with stuff on angles!

No process pics sorry, but I was literally using my whole hand to add and spread the paint (I was NOT going to pick up the phone to take photos!). How to apply, well, paint a blob on, and then I used all my fingers to massage the colour into an area. A fine misting of water to blend it out was helpful, as Fresco dry soooo fast. If things got too heavy and opaque, I did use a baby wipe to knock things back a bit. It is just a matter of adding, blending , rubbing and so on until you get it how you prefer.

I tried to keep Midnight, Chocolate Pudding, Mahogany and Sargasso to the lower section. 

For the upper third, Buff, Terracotta, Stone and Chalk were my selections.

I did occasionally use Seth's technique of painting onto a piece of card, and pressing that onto the surface, and that worked really well with the paler shades at the top section to pick up the highlights. Overall, start dark, then work to your lighter shades so the depth is trapped in the lower layers.

I only added Sargasso after building all the other colours, I created a defined line between the two zones, knowing the foiling was going to be used as a bridge. There was a natural division with the straight edge line of some papers I had deliberately placed at the beginning. I do fine, when you add a contrast colour, you immediately get something 'wow' with contrast.

I found some foiling adhesive from a cazoodle years ago that had literally gone off in the bottle. I remember it as a thin, runny glue, and it was now thick and gluggy and curdled. Once dry, it stays tacky to accept the leaf, so  I figured it would still work, and used a finger to rub it along the 'line'. Within a minute of so I plonked a gold leaf sheet over the top, and found a soft brush to apply some pressure onto the gold leaf. As expected, it stuck to the adhesive, and fell away from the unglued areas. Another bonus of chalk paint, gold leaf will not stick to it!

I then added some stamping in archival inks. I knew I was going to add more paints on top, and I had lost my words underneath from the tissue, so I figure I might try to reinstate some stamped interest.

The round pattern is from Seth Apter Set 08 (ESA08)

and the rest are old Ink and the Dog sets.

Clocks Set 6 (C6)

 Words Set 4 (W4)

Here's a close up of the foil. I tried to rub it away so it wasn't totally solid.

 

And you can see some of the stamping on the backgorund here...although once again, not to stay visible for too long!

So my next plan was to try and soften both the upper and lower sections with more paint, ideally chalk or buff. I kind of wanted peeks of the deep colours showing through, but an over all white-ish, minimalist piece. However, distracted in trying to get the balance right,  every time I added white, I kept going back to adding more midnight, more chocolate, more buff, and so on until the words had all disappeared again!

And then I had it pretty much neutral, but added infusions (Black Knight, In the Navy) to the lower section. I also used a water based pen to add a black line along the 'dividing line' and then used a damp brush to blend that out for a bit of structure.

Next to the frame. I have a bunch of 12x12 wood frames that arrived here with the glass all smashed. I kind of knew this piece would need something to pop off. There was an insert, plywood, which I painted black, and then rubbed a dark Treasure gold over that so it looks almost chocolate colour. Onto that I stamped Words Plate 1 (W1) in Jet Black Archival ink.

That was dropped into the Little Black Dress painted frame, onto which I pressed Midnight pre-painted onto card randomly, to create a subtle contrast.

And here is the finished piece on the wall, in daylight. 

Chuffed how this has turned out, however I just wish it was bigger! I MUST buy a huge canvas and create a much bigger version for a wall, maybe the lounge. We have recently had it redecorated, so there are spaces waiting for something!

Thanks for joining us again, and I hope you get a chance to do some foiling before the challenge closes on Sunday!

To join our challenge and win a PaperArtsy £50 gift voucher:

Simply make something arty relevant to the topic, and link your creation from any social URL (eg. Instagram, Pinterest, Blog Post etc) sharing your original make to this challenge page.

The current topic link Topic 20: Foiling will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, 25th November 2018, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

Please make sure we can contact you as a prize winner - it helps if you share your contact info from the platform you opt to use.

Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!