I’m meant to be recording tutorial videos this week, but have been kindly handed a cold and laryngitis… so I’m catching up with some of the things that don’t need a voice to action! This is another project that has sat in the corner of the studio for most of the year that I decided to finish for my altered art demo day last week. I’ve upcycled various greeting cards that were saved from birthdays and Christmases into a functional and hard wearing art journal.
This started off as one of those ubiquitous paper mache boxes, approximately 3 inches square and found in most arts and crafts stockists. I’ve used real copper sheet (via Woodware stockists) and embossed it with celtic knot designs printed from internet sources, traced onto the copper and then worked with various embossing tools. The black background is just permanent black marker direct to the box. The raised areas are filled with Dimensional Magic from Mod Podge, though Glossy Accents does the job too. Once that’s dry, the copper ‘aged’ with a smear of black acrylic paint which is polished off when still wet. Once that’s all done it’s stuck down to the box with ultra tack sheet/tape. Another sample for my demonstration day at Coleman’s Craft Warehouse on Saturday 6th December.
It’s officially autumn here in the UK, and on cue, the sun has disappeared, the temperature has plummeted and the rain is thrashing down! I’m having a go at getting on the Creative Expressions Design Team, and submitting a last minute entry to their design team call which closes today. As part of the application, I had to create a piece on the theme of ‘autumn’ and spent Wednesday making this piece. It’s in a 50cm square frame and features a 12×12″ alcohol inked glossy background, stamped and heat coloured embossed copper leaves and stamped and outlined lettering. For more making details, read on!
I’ve been playing with various options of putting colour onto metal – here are the results! I’ll be showing how to do them at the Manic Stamper Craft Club on Saturday.
The tags are first covered with metal foil tape (really thin foil – serves me right for going to the local poundstore!) and then I used a small embossing ball tool to emboss the outlines. Rub over the whole tag with black acrylic paint, and then wait for it to almost dry before rubbing off the paint from the tag – it should catch in the outlines. Add colour with acrylic inks (I used a paintbrush), Promarkers or alcohol inks (I used the Adirondack alcohol ink pen filled with blending solution to pick up dried alcohol inks from a palette). I love the aged look to the metal caused by the black acrylic, and the translucent colour from the Promarkers/alcohol inks. The acrylic inks are more luminous due to their opacity. By the way, alcohol seems to denature acrylic, so if your black coating doesn’t work out, wipe over with alcohol hand gel and try again!
And as a bonus, I’m publishing the forget-me-not doodle as a tangle pattern 🙂