Saturday Step x Step - Flower Fairy Hanging

Hello, it is Cec here and it is my turn to bring you the Saturday Step x Step feature this time.  I am going to give you the details on the Flower Fairy hanging that I created as my project for the current challenge.  This is a pretty simple one so not many photos to wade through.

The challenge is called It's Not Easy Being Green and in honour of Earth Day we were asked to recycle or upcycle something.

As I mentioned in my post my husband worked in the traffic department of our local municipality before his retirement at the end of 2015.  He saw this in the scrap bin one day and brought it home to me thinking I might be able to do something with it.  This is the lens from a set of LED traffic signals.  It would have covered one of the lights - red, amber, green or an advance arrow.  I stashed it in a cupboard and forgot about it until Suzz set this challenge and then I had a light bulb moment and knew I could alter it.

I had my husband drill a couple holes on the edge so I could add something to hang it with later.  The next step was to coat it with Gesso but after three coats I gave up because I realized that it wasn't making it opaque as I wanted.

So enter plan B, which was to cut a circle of white card stock, emboss it with flourishes from a Wendy Vecchi stencil and glue it into the bottom of the lens.  If you notice on the bare lens there are all sorts of little marks on the rim and I knew I didn't want them to show so I dug out some of the pretty lace that Linda sells in her shop and carefully glued it around the edge and then glued all the points down.  This made the edge of the card stock circle less visible - love when you can kill two birds with one stone.

I also decided it needed a bit of sparkle so I painted some Craftsmart clear glitter paint on the flourishes.

The next step was to choose a number of papers from various Graphic 45 pads that I thought would make a nice floral "bouquet".  I used the bloom from Wendy Vecchi's Build A Blossom Stamp-It, Stencil-It set and some of her Tree Branch Archival Ink to stamp 2 each of five different papers.

I shaped each bloom using a large embossing stylus and a felt pad - I do not wet the flowers when I shape this way.  To get flowers that look like this, I clip between the petals, turn the bloom over and emboss each petal with the stylus going in a circular motion down the length of the petal.  Then I turn the bloom back over and emboss in the very centre.  Once embossed I joined each layer making sure to turn the top layer slightly so the petals were alternating.  I added a large pearl to the centre of each flower.

I die cut one of the branches from the Tim Holtz Garden Greens die and painted it with Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint Distress Ink using a water brush.  I cut the branch up into small segments for use in this project.

Next I fussy cut a bunch of fairies - and one frog - from the Graphic 45 paper.  Then I started to assemble my hanging using Scor Tape and felt pads to adhere everything and provide dimension.  The final step was to thread a narrow satin ribbon through the drilled holes to make a hanger.

I think this turned out to be a sweet marriage of pretty papers and industrial waste.  I hope you will recycle or upcycle something and join in on Suzz's challenge.  You can find it here.

Friday Focus: Gel Mediums and Pastes

Hi! Suzz here. I am  hosting the Friday Focus which is..... gel mediums and pastes! Embossing pastes are one of my favorite texture building products, and I was thrilled to play around with them.  All gel mediums and pastes will be on sale in the Funkie Junkie Boutique with an additional 15% discount available right now.

In my post I've focused on the Wendy Vecchi Embossing Pastes and want to show you the versatility of embossing pastes in adding texture and different effects.

I started playing with Silver first. I wondered what would happen if I used the embossing paste with a die. It was a little messy but I loved the effect I ended up with. 

I started with laying the stencils on my cardstock. I then used the spatula to smear the silver embossing paste over the dies and coating the background.

I pulled off one to show you what it looked like in process. It doesn't leave a clean impression. I also had put my stencils face down. I tried it both ways and you get a cleaner effect if you put it on the paper with the ridges to cut the die face up.

I was able to take the remaining paste on the backside of the butterfly and imprint a second scrap cardstock which I set aside for future use.  These are the butterfly dies I used in my card.

After the paste dried, I distressed the edges with the distressing tool. I sprayed the surface with a combination of pink distress stain spray and picket fences. I wiped off the excess spray and let it dry again. After it was completely dry I inked up the flourish stamp with Versamark and stamped over the background. I repeated until I had stamped everywhere in the background. I then sprinkled with silver tinsel embossing powder and heated it up.

To finish my butterflies I sprayed some baby white flowers with the pink spray. While they were wet I dipped them in the embossing powder and heated them up to give them a touch of silver on the tops.

Next up I wanted to try creating a faux embossed metal effect.

I started with a foil background and used a stencil to apply a layer of silver embossing paste.

While it was drying I used the heat gun to cause the paste to bubble and dry unevenly. It gives a lovely texture that looks distressed and rough. After it was dry I used black and gold paint to high light the texture and the letters.

That leaves me with another lovely scrap to use in the future. Onto the gold!  

For this I just have a few different scraps I created previously during projects. Here is the lovely gold paste on kraft using a stencil. I only partially covered the stencil which causes a lovely fade away of the texture.

The gold paste really pops on dark cardstock and to add a little wow I sprinkled it with gold glitter before it dried and it shimmers beautifully.

And finally I used a stencil and gold paste on canvas and after it dried I sprayed the canvas with pink mist. 

Black paste can create a great graphic effect over any surface. This was a card I made where I wanted to make a statement over a colorful background and the black paste with a few stencils helped make a lovely bold effect.

Crackle. Snap. Pop. The crackle paste adds a whole new layer of texture and interest to any project. I created Fairy Tree Houses quite awhile ago and loved how the crackle paste looks like tree bark on a few paper towel rolls.

If you use it in a stencil you can get a beautiful effect which can be further highlighted with mists to show off the depths of the cracks.

For the white paste I wanted to share a way to use embossing folders/stamps with the embossing paste with a minimum of mess.

I start with a sheet of tissue paper. You could use Tim's printed tissue paper or just a plain piece of tissue paper which you spray with colors. That is the approach I took. I sprayed a mix of colors on my tissue paper and let it dry.

Next take a piece of heavy duty cardstock, canvas, chipboard and smear a nice thick layer of white or translucent embossing paste. I like leaving it uneven in the amount I coat as it adds to the texture.

While the paste is wet place the tissue paper directly over the top of the embossing paste.

You will get a wrinkled texture which adds more texture so don't worry about it not laying flat on the embossing paste. Next up you can ink up your stamp or leave it bare same with an embossing folder you decide how your texture will appear. I inked up the stamp with a coordinating blue ink.

Stamp into the wet paste under the tissue paper. Press down firmly to make sure the stamp leaves an imprint in the embossing paste. Sometimes it tears the tissue paper but don't worry it will just dry with more texture showing through.

When you lift the stamp you will see the ink imprinted and the stamp imprinted in the embossing paste. Repeat as desired.

After this dried I cut it down and painted over with white paint to highlight the stamped and impressed image.

Finally Translucent paste....   This beautiful card was created by Jenny and she has an awesome tutorial on her blog.  She created this beautiful card using translucent paste and shows you how here.

Thanks for sticking with me on this long post of embossing pastes. Hopefully you are inspired to get out your mediums and pastes and try something new!

Suzz


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