Bird of Paradise Canvas

Afternoon All,

I hope your day is going well for you. It's not going too badly here. It's raining and the garden really needed it so I'm not complaining. Rain also means that it is warmer ... yippee!

I have a canvas wall hanging to share with you today. Another item from my aqua phase :))

Yes, I know, it's not hanging in this photo - but the photo taken of it hanging is not good ... scroll down to see why.

This is one of those canvas boards that you can pick up in a pack for a song at The Works (UK). Starting with a coat of white gesso, I painted and sprayed with a mix of Pebeo paint and shimmer sprays. I used some sequin waste as a mask. The bird of paradise topper is one of the last remaining items from a scrapping kit bought way back in 1997/98. I was able to use all the items except this and one other topper ... they just didn't fit with the theme of any layouts made with the rest of the kit.

Here's the less than lovely photo of it hanging up.

This is the wall that I always use as a background and in real life the canvas looks lovely on it - it just doesn't photograph well ... rather like myself :))

Really, all I did for the embellishments was raid my stash. The feathers, flowers, lace, seam binding and ric rac - all ready and just waiting to be used. And the die-cuts were gifts from my very generous crafting buddies ... the die-cut poppies I painted with H2Os and the white cherry blossoms were sprayed with teal Radiant Rain. To make the crinkly double bow, I dampened and scrunched up the seam binding first and then tied it.

Materials used: a white canvas board measuring 7"x5"; white gesso; blue Pebeo paint; Luminarte Radiant Rain, Teal Zircon; Cosmic Shimmer Mist, Pearl Mist & Blue Lime; H2Os, Just Peachy, Celedon and Sea Spray from the Summer Fun set; sequin waste for masking; the Spellbinders die-cut and die-cut poppies were gifts from friends; topper unused from a very old kit; feathers and pearls from The Works; white cherry blossoms (sprayed with teal Radiant Rain)and pink tinged hellebore from Wild Orchid Crafts; aqua seam binding from The Ribbon Girl; Marianne Vintage white cotton lace; Anna Griffin Hannah collection blue, ric rac; pearls from stash.

Oops! Almost forgot I wanted to submit this to the following:

Belli Challenge #167 - Pastels - the spirit of the Belli challenges is to encourage you to use your OLD and FORGOTTEN embellishments - I've certainly applied that spirit to my wall hanging :)

That's it for now - it's lunch time here so I'm off to grab a bite to eat.

Take care all. Thanks for visiting. Happy crafting,

Shaving Foam Method for Creating Marbled Effect Tutorial

Hello everyone,

The mention I made in a recent post to shaving foam has whetted the appetite of some of you so I feel I have to explain . . . nay, show you what I have been doing.  I thought it best if I took you step-by-step through this method of creating colourful backgrounds.

Materials used:

·         Can of spray shaving foam – any cheap make will do fine (I got the one I used from a Pound Shop)

·         Shimmer or Mica mist – I used Cosmic Shimmer Mist – in a variety of colours

·         White cardstock – mine was cut to approximately A6 size (6”x4”) or to fit your container

·         A container deep enough to prevent the sprays from marking your worktop – I used a small plastic tray measuring 9”x7”, part of a Christmas gift of shortbread!

·         Roll of kitchen paper

Method:

Step 1

Spray the shaving foam evenly over the tray.

Step 2

Spray first colour of shimmer mist (I used Twilight Black) in patches onto the foam, then the second colour (Meadow Lush) filling in the gaps.

Step 3

Take a pencil shaped object, I used the wrong end of a paint brush, and stroke/swirl through the foam. It will look something like this:

Step 4

Place your card on top of the foam and press down gently.

Step 5

Lift the paper off and taking the kitchen paper wipe off the foam. Ta da! The card will look like this:

And that is about it – all that’s left to do is leave the card to dry and use it to make a project.

However, if, like me, you are a tad generous when spraying the foam on the tray you can go on to do what I did. Being frugal and loathe to wash the foam away  I thought I would add a bit more colour – this time Lava Red – doesn’t that look yummy J I then followed through steps 3 & 4 again.

This time I remembered to take a second piece of card and put it on top of the already foam covered card like this:

After doing this you will then have two pieces of card looking like this before cleaning off with kitchen paper.

I was able to try another colour (Purple Violet) before the foam was exhausted and here is the six pieces of card I ended up with.

An added bonus is the card smells gorgeous!!

I hope you found this, my first attempt at a tutorial, clear and easy to follow but if I haven't explained something clearly enough or I've missed out an essential step out please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Now to decide what I'm going to do with all this pretty card.

Bye for now,

Elizabeth