A Little Wheel Barrow

This week I have a little floral deocation to share with you - for me this is a little project but it still has lots of details so I hope you like it.

The base for the project is a plywood wheelbarrow as the base to hold a pretty floral arrangement. As usual I started by laying out the pieces so I knew how it would be constructed.

I glued the pieces for the bucket of the wheel barrow together and then let them dry.

For the wheel and handle pieces I started by gluing the two wheel pieces together and then when they had dried painted all of the plywood with a copper metallic paint - the antique gold creamy acrylic by Pentart  would also work really well with the autumnal shades of the rice paper that I used for decoration. The wheel base was then adhered in place.

Next I added a crackle medium to the "bucket" - shhhhhhhh don't tell anyone but it will appear at the retreat in September so hopefully will be added to stock however you can use any crackle that works in a sandwich between two layers of paint. Once it had dried I then painted on some white acrylic paint. Alternatively you could use a thin layer of the Stamperia white crackle paste in which case there is no need to add a layer of white paint over the top.

Next I selected images from the flowers rice paper (there are lots of options if you want different flowers but you will need a paper that has small images on it). I tore out the images I wanted and then glued them in place over the body of the wheel barrow using decoupage glue making sure I covered the images on the outside with the glue too so they were sealed in place. Watered down pva glue will work if you don't have a specialist rice paper glue. Once the glue was dry I added some more of my metallic paint around the edges of the bucket.

To fill the wheel barrow I then added some floral foam deliberately cutting it so it was proud of the top of the wheelbarrow. Then I added some moss using hot glue.

To fill the wheelbarrow I then added a selection of flowers in colours that I felt complimented the rice paper I had used - rose and yellow crimped hydrangeas - pushing the clusters they come as into the floral foam (you may need to trim the stalk a little and also use a pokey tool to make a hole in the foam for the stalk to go into.

 Next I added a few yellow cherry blossoms. 

Finally I tucked in some greenery - leaf 127, leaf 091 and leaf 105/ Adding until I was hapy with my overall composition. 

Love as Noble as Gold

I do like a challenge - can you make something with MDF and with rice papers was the request and so I searched my stash and this piece was formed. It is very definitely a full on mixed media piece but I am hoping over a series of blog posts with rice papers I will be able to share with you some of the ways of using this fabulous craft essential (well it is for me).

The base of my piece is a teapot artboard which comes complete with attatchments to make hanging easy. they can be simply glued to the back of the piece if you want to use them or left off the choice is yours.

 Normally I would prime any mdf/artboard/birchply piece before painting but for this piece as I knew I would be adding lots of layers I simply painted the entire surface with salmon acrylic paint. Once the paint had dried I applied white one component crackle paste - so easy just use a palette knife to apply varrying thickness and you con't even need to cover all of the surface if you don't want too. Let the crackle paste dry - it is safe to use a heat gun to speed up the process. The crackle paste gives a white layer which is really essential if the colours of the rice paper you are using are going to be shown to their best advantage.

 

Next I took a blooming retreat A4 rice paper and drew around the imagery with a wet paint brush - this then allows you to tear around the images giving a soft feathered edge which is then easier to disguise on your project (hiding edges is one of the tricks for successful use of rice papers). Having decided where abouts the floral elements were going to be I then used decoupage glue to adhere them in place and over the top to protect them - you need a thin glue and there are lots on the market. 

The salmon paint showing through the cracks also shows through the rice paper helping to disguise that the rice paper is just glued ontop - it links the layers together. To further help with unifying everything I then added areas of gold stencil paste through damask stencil 16 and again left it to dry.

Having created my base I knew that I needed to create a focal point on top of it and yes I know that means covering up some of the layers but that really is the key to mixed media creating. For my embellishments I layered elements from the  rose buds and leaves chipboard sets placing some directly onto the base then a layer of distressed cheesecloth followed by faux fern leaves, although one of the faux greenery pieces I have used is no longer in stock the berries will work and I also added in leaf 11. On top of the faux greener  I then added flowers similar to lime daisies and lime poppies. The embellishment clusters were then filled out by tucking in more of the chipboard leaves and then everything was dry brushed with white gesso.

 

I chose a sentiment from the wedding inscription set and edged it with gold wax before adhering it in place. To finish the piece I then added more wax around the edges.

 

The Artist Sees - wooden book

For this make I chose to decorate an MDF lockable box kit - wooden pattern book. Like most kits this takes a little bit of working out when it comes to construction however it is not complex. I started by constucting the box and my recommendation is that you add the hinge elements to the box lit first and let them dry BEFORE you then add them to the base of the box. The hinge pieces that go thorugh the box lid itself have to go though the box lid outer and then the panel for the inside of the box so they look strange as they are shaped to do this in layers. The rest of the box goes together in a very obvious way apart from teh locking mechanism  - there is a larger piece on the front as seen above and inside the box there is a samller piece and a little triangle - it is the little trianngle that locks the 3 pieces together and allows the lock to be slid in and out.

Having consturcted the box I then painted it all with white gesso and left it to dry. Once dried I covered the front and side of the box with plantarium rice paper and thhe inside box part with a second complimentary rice paper - the manuscript, botanical or bicycle rice papers would all work or a second piece of the planatrium paper - you will need two A4 sheets so bare this in mind when ordering as there is nothing more frustrating than finding part way through you don't have enough product. I used decoupage glue and varnish to attatch my rice paper but watered down PVA will also work - it needs to be the consistency of single cream or thinner if you are using the pva method.

For added details I then used Vintage Photo Archival distress ink and applied it thorugh Christmas Stencil 153 - it is so worth buying more generic stencils as a swirly one labelled Chiristmas can be used all year round making stencils a hard working tool in your crafty stash.

To decorate the front of the box I added a little piece of lace (there are lots in the haberdashary section of the website) with chipboard botanical floral chipboards, mint gilly flowers and a sentiment from the Da Vinci papers as these toned really well with the vintage photo ink. I added a scattering of chuncky glitter and then distressed the hinges, lock mechanisum and the flowers with umbra antique paste.

The world of rice papers is so worth exploring, the texture means they blend with the surface beautifully making them ideal for covering MDF but also for backgrounds on mixd media canvas project.