2015 #5 De-constructed Configuration Box {by Lin Brown PA signature Designer}

2015 Theme 5: Deconstruction

Hi, Lin here this evening to share a project with my take on deconstruction. What a fabulous topic this is. There is nothing I like more that de-laminating corrugated card, ripping pages out of an old dictionary to use in my work or altering a book. These are things that I have done many times before so for this project, I decided to re-purpose a Configurations Box, designed by Tim Holtz. The project still remains a box, but now it has a hinged lid in stead of a lift off lid and will probably be used to store jewellery.

If you are not familiar with Configuration boxes, this is how a new one looks. It has a lift off lid and contains lots of small boxes which you can lift out and rearrange in different configurations if you so wish. For this project, I will not be using the small boxes but will keep them as I have been known to reassemble them in other ways for other projects.

Step one: I used a sharp craft knife to cut away the two shorter panels from the sides of the lid.

Step two: I covered both the lid and base of the box with a selection of washi tape. Washi tape is not the stickiest of tapes, so I used a layer of Matt Medium over the top of the tapes to prevent them lifting.

Step three: Using Snowflake Fresco Finish paint, I stencilled some images over the box. I used PS001, PS002 and PS014 

Step four: I watered down some Caribbean Sea to paint a watery wash of colour over the whole box and dry brushed some Bougainvillea around the edges. Both of these colours are from my latest set of Limited Edition Fresco Finish Paints.

Step five: The box comes with a sturdy sheet of acetate which creates a nice window in the box. I used it to create my colourful panel in the lid of the box. It is important to use the correct ink when stamping on acetate, I used StazOn which in my opinion, is the best ink for stamping on shiny surfaces. 

Step six: After stamping the first image from ELB16 on the acetate, I stamped a couple of these on paper and used them as masks until I had stamped a complete row of the large flower.

Step seven: I repeated this technique with the small flower from the same plate of stamps until I had completely filled the acetate with flowers.

Step eight: Working on the back of the acetate, I used a small detail paintbrush to add some highlights to the images. At this stage, it always looks really messy but you just have to bear in mind that this is the back and it will not be seen.

Step nine: Start filling in the flowers with colour. Hey Pesto is my "go to" green.

Step ten: Bougainvillea next. This colour is a semi-opaque paint and required two coats to achieve good solid coverage.

Step eleven: Banana and Tangerine Twist finished the rest of the flowers off beautifully. Both of these colours are translucent and needed more than one coat to achieve the solid colour that I wanted.

Step twelve: I filled in the gaps with Caribbean Sea which is an opaque paint so only one coat required.

Look how amazing it looks from the front. It's really tricky photographing acetate but I hope you can see how the gold highlights bring it to life.

Step thirteen: I used some red line double sided adhesive tape around the edge of the window and carefully lowered my acetate panel into place. This is the view from the back of the panel.

Step fourteen: I added a decorative knob to make it easy to open the box. This one needed a hole punched through the box and a screw inserted in the back to hold it in place. I prefer this type, it's much stronger that gluing a handle in place.

Step fifteen: I lined the box with black felt.

Step sixteen: The final step was to adhere the lid to the box. I thought long and hard about which type of adhesive to use for this. Should I use red line tape which is pretty strong or use a wet glue which allows some manoeuvrability? I decided on the wet glue option and used Pinflair's bookbinding glue.....this is pretty strong stuff and worked a dream.

So there we have it, a bright new storage box with a hinged lid. I hope it inspires you to join in with the de-constructed challenge. Looking forward to seeing your entries.

Lin. 

Blog - Yours Artfully

Thanks Lin, this is a fabulous repurposed box. The stamping on the acetate is just genius and oh wow how does it pop. 

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.

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.

2015 #5 Rusty Shrine {by Julie Ann Lee}

Hello Everyone, Julie Ann here, delighted to be joining PaperArtsy tonight with a post on rusting. 

I confess I have a passion for what some might term 'junk'. My favourite childhood haunt was my Grandma's attic, where I found treasures such as one-eyed teddy bears, rusty tins full of buttons and a battered old family Bible. My imagination loves to ponder the stories old and unloved objects might tell. And I'm not above giving something relatively new a fantasy history by distressing it. Tonight I'd like to share with you how I aged a little Nicho or Mexican shrine.

Step 1: Fabric Prep

I began by painting a piece of white curtain-lining material with Fresco Finish  Chalk Acrylics in Beach Hut, Snowflake, Wisteria and Lin Brown's Limited Collection Tangerine Twist, Bougainvillea and Banana shades. I then stamped and heat-set the beautiful Elizabethan image from LPC031...

 ... onto the fabric. I cut my fabric into different sections, which I would fix to the Nicho. I applied extra layers of colour to the face and ruff, which I blended using Fabric Medium.

Tip: When stamping on fabric, either use a brand new ink pad or re-ink your pad to ensure your image will be clear and crisp on the fabric. When it is dry, coat it with several layers of Satin Glaze, making sure each layer is fully dry before applying the next. Jet Black archival Ink is great onto fabric, and it is permanent once heat set.

Step 2: The rusting process! 

I painted my metal shrine with PaperArtsy Fresco in Vanilla. When this was dry I slapped on Gel Medium, not worrying too much about how evenly I applied it. I embedded various charms and embellishments in the Gel Medium and applied some Crackle Paste to the heart at the top. I punched a hole at the bottom of the shrine through which I looped a 'dog chain' and a decorative key. 

I then sprinkled Rusting Powder over my shrine. Rusting powder needs to be glued to the surface you work on, so in this case the crackle past also acted as the glue.

Tip: Crackle Paste can take a long time to dry. I waited a couple of days before adding some Treasure Gold and a touch of Tangerine Twist to the heart.

Step 3: Rusting Powder magic

I mixed some water and a few drops of vinegar in a mister spray and spritzed my shrine, re-spraying from time to time. To rust, the powder needs to be kept damp, and vinegar or lemon juice speeds up the process as they are acidic liquids.

Here you can see that I embedded a resin rose in the Gel at the top and fixed some cut-out pieces of the painted and stamped material into it too. These would eventually blend in with the rusting.

Step 4: Rust everything!

While I was in a rusting mood, I took some masking tape and attached lace to it with Gel Medium before sprinkling it with the Rusting Powder and then spritzing with my water and vinegar mix. I planned to fix this to the back and sides of my shrine.

I was able to stick this lace to the back and edges of the shrine and to begin to 'touch up' any gaps with Florentine Treasure Gold, which has a lovely orange-rusty glint. For contrast I also rubbed in some Sapphire Treasure Gold in places.

Tip: After you have painted your tape with one coat of Fresco, make sure that you lift it from the mat and then stick it down again to avoid it curling and twisting when you want to stick it to your substrate.

Step 6: Bellies

Finally I added more embellishments: a little resin bird, which I painted and rusted; a resin flower with a copper wire stem and a Prima wood, rusted butterfly resting on a skeleton leaf, which I rubbed with a little Florentine Treasure Gold. 

I added Pearl pen blobs too around the little door and the edge of the shrine. The picture inside is also from LPC031 so that when we open the door we seem to be stepping into a little world inside the shrine.

Here is a detail of the front of my shrine, which looks to me as if it has many stories to tell. I was really pleased with the effect of the rusting on the little bird, which I stuck on with Heavy Gel Medium. I liked blending the darker rusting with the bright Treasure Gold Gleam.

Thank you for looking at my rusty shrine. Who knows - maybe it houses a miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh's muse, and this little shrine might be a keepsake from Good Queen Bess herself! 

Do join in with PaperArtsy and link up something you have rusted. See what you can come up with to house your favourite PaperArtsy images stamped on fabric, tissue or board. I can't wait to see all your rusty creations. If you would like to see more images of this little shrine, please hop over to my blog http://magpieheaven.blogspot.co.uk/

~ Julie Ann

Wow Julie Ann, this is so gorgeous, I love how it turned out...required some patience but the rust and cracks are exciting to work with as they evolve!! ~Leandra

Have you got a niche or some items with a niche that you could alter with paints, crackle texture and rusting powder?? Maybe this has sparked your imagination in a totally different direction? 

Whatever you decide, if the Deconstruction Topic sparks you to be deliberately destructive, then share what you make in our challenge by linking your creativity here. We would love to see what you make!

Ally Pally and Version Scrap Show Information

Hi everyone, Leandra here

As some of you have figured out, Ally Pally and Version Scrap shows clash this coming April. We are intending to have a presence at BOTH SHOWS with 2 teams, and figured out the best way to achieve this was to partner with one of our retailers from Cambridge, It's Crafting Time, who will run our Ally Pally stand, while mark and I take another team to Version Scrap.

There are some exciting and new things planned for both shows, so we are really pleased that all our detailed planning is coming together nicely! Let me explain...

Ally Pally: Sat April 11th (10:00-17:00), Sunday April 12th (10:00-16:00)

Ally  Pally is more formally known as the The Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show held at Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally), North London. It is the UK's largest stamp-specific show, and as it is held in London, with an amazing view overlooking the city from the hill to the North, it is a lovely day or 2 out.

Nina, from It's Crafting Time will be the stand head Honcho. The strand is in the usual spot, will look pretty much the same as usual (actually it will be bigger!)... and she will be surrounded by a PA possy of demonstrators and super-cool stuff to buy. Nina will have plenty of racks of our stamps, all the Fresco Chalk Paints you could wish for, PaperArtsy Stencils, papers etc and of course plenty of her own lovely goodies from her shop too. All the NEW 2015 PaperArtsy products will be in bountiful supply on the stand.

Helping Nina on the stand will be our own senior PA elf Emma Godfrey. Emma will also be demoing her new stamps, stencils and fresco paints all weekend. 

Also demoing all weekend will be the wonderful Darcy. She has lots of techniques and ideas to share with her newest stamps too.

In addition we have some surprise guest demonstrators dropping in to share ideas with you, some of whom you might know from our blog or twitter fraternity! They (and I) am very excited about this opportunity!

As as if all that isn't enough, we also are planning to offer 'make and takes' on the stand all weekend long too. This is something we have always done at Version Scrap, and so we wanted to trial it at Ally Pally too. To book your time slot, come and see the Make and Take supervisor: Emma in the mornings and Darcy in the afternoons. There are no pre-bookings before the show opens, you have to ome to the stand ASAP each morning when the show opens to see the different options for the day, and times they are available and to reserve your spot for the day. There will be a nominal £2 charge to partially subsidise the associated costs of offering this feature. Make and Takes are a fab chance for you to get hands on with new stamps, paints and ideas. It's a lot of fun, and a great way to try before you buy!

Both Nina and I are really thrilled about how much fun the show will be in April, and don't forget we always meet up for #PAtwit drinkies in the bar at Ally Pally on the Saturday immediately after the show closes. Everyone is welcome to come for a bite to eat and a chat, we love to have a good poke through your bags to see the stash you have bought!...Emma will be there in the bar with bells on!!

Version Scrap: 
VIP night by invitation only Thurs (18:00-20:30)
Fri April 10th (9:30-19:30), Sat April 11th (9:30-19:30), Sunday April 12th(10:00-18:00)

Version Scrap is a scrapbooking show with numerous workshops on offer everyday of the show by both international and French scrapbookers/ mixed media crafters. 

The event is held in Paris at the exhibition Centre in Parc Florals de Vincennes, near Chateau de Vincennes. It is at the end of the metro line, and there is a Navette (open Noddy type road train) to take you from the metro to the venue all day.

We have exhibited or taught at this show since it started 6 years ago.

On our stand we have 3 translators to assist with language throughout the show. Lin and Leandra demo, Dounia runs the Make and Takes, Mark and Audrey are on the tills and for the first time, this year Jo Firth-Young will be teaching classes all day Friday in the workshop area with Sally as her translator. Florence is new to the stand this year, and she will be translating for Lin and Leandra, helping with re-stocking and product queries. We don't know who our security guy is this year, but we always dream of a tall dark handsome French man! LOL

You can book Jo's classes now here . Jo will also be demoing on the stand on the Thursday night VIP session.

Each stand is given a certain number of Thursday night VIP tickets and a bunch of free show entry tickets to give away based on the size of their stand. We are expecting ours to arrive any day, if you need a ticket, email Leandra sales@paperartsy.co.uk and she will add you to the list.

So, no matter which show you come to, London or Paris, there will be lots of fun on our stands, and hopefully beautiful spring weather too!

We all very much look forward to seeing you there!

Leandra

2015 #5 Peeled Paint Mini Album {by Pam Thorburn}

2015 Theme 5: Deconstruction

Hi everyone It's Pam Thorburn here, joining you this evening with a post about creating a Peeled Paint effect. 

There's something about layers of peeling paint that really appeals to me. I'm a keen photographer, and when I look at my photos I find I have a lot of photos of peeling paint on doors, and boats and houses.So I thought I would try to recreate this effect and make a little mini album to keep some of my favourite photos from this year. 

Here's my completed cover with that yummy peeled paint effect that I love:

Step 1: The first thing I had to do was to 'deconstruct' and recycle an old mini album that was looking very old fashioned and apply my first coat of Fresco Paint. This was done roughly as at all stages I wanted parts of the bottom layers to show through. Initially I thought I would rub a candle randomly over the paint to act as a resist and allow subsequent layers to show through. For this project I used a selection of Fresco paints: Haystack, London Bus, Mermaid, Orchid, Candy Floss and Guacamole.

Step 2: I realised that while the resist method would allow paint colours to show through, it wouldn't really give the dimension and texture of peeled paint, so at this stage I decided to change tack. So I painted strips of copy paper, allowed it to dry, tore it into strips and roughly adhered it.

Step 3: I continued to add layers of torn painted paper and also to paint over top of the layers of paper in a random fashion:

Step 4: I applied some Crackle Glaze and more random colours of Fresco Paint for the top coat. When the crackle had worked I gave the surface a blast of hot air from a heat tool to make the paint bubble and blister. Isn't that a fabulous effect? I LOVE it!

Step 5: Then I set about making embellishments for the cover using Emma Godfrey's cute stamp set- EEG03 and EEG01. 

EEG01 

EEG03

These sets are perfect if you do Project Life style scrapbooking, or if you do Art Journaling. I stamped some of the elements onto coloured card, cut them out and adhered them to the cover. I also stamped directly onto the peeled paint cover.

Step 6: I decorated the inner covers by simple random stamping using the same stamp sets: 

And while I had the stamps out I made some pages to put into my album:

I must say I love this paint effect. It's fun to do and I particularly like that you can be a bit slap dash and you will still get a great result. There's nothing precious or exact at all about this technique. 

Can you imagine how great this would look on a set of little beach houses, or a bird house? Why not give it a go and when you do, don't forget to leave a link to your work. 

Bye for now,

Pam

Visit my blog at www.waltzingthroughlife.blogspot.uk

Thanks Pam for sharing a much loved technique. Your added use of the torn papers to create more texture has given this album such depth. Crackle Glaze is a super quick and effective product. The stamps you have chosen to work with are just perfect for your passion in photography, your pages are pretty.

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.