Teabag-Beebag Art

Today I made a birthday card for a beekeeping friend, with a grungy brown colour scheme.

I began by stamping a bee image onto a teabag which I had dried, emptied and ironed.

Later, I redid this, using black archival ink, because the sepia didn’t stand out enough.

I inked a piece of scrim mesh with Pumice Stone Distress Stain.

I took a piece of A4 cardstock for the card base and folded it in half, and inked it lightly with Pumice Stone and Frayed Burlap Distress inks, after which I spattered it with water and blotted it off.

The edges were distressed with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

I tore a piece of hand-made paper along a ruler to make it the size I wanted, and distressed the edges with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.

Again using Pumice Stone and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks, I distressed a piece of printed card, which I have place on top of the original to show the difference.

Assembling the card topper. I stuck the printed paper down onto the hand-made paper with double-sided tape, and the mesh was adhered with spray adhesive.

I used the same spray adhesive to attach a small piece of gold punchinella.

Completing the card topper. I spattered the back papers with white acrylic paint, and attached the replacement teabag, which I had also spattered with white acrylic. The text was written with permanent black pens.

The completed card, with a couple of gold peel-offs.

Mystery Project–Part 3–Turquoise Heart

For the second of the three hanging heart ornaments, I chose a turquoise and terracotta colour scheme. As I started making this, I decided to give it a suggestion of a Spanish theme, because the friend for whom I was making this one loves visiting Spain. I also wanted to make a more colourful, and perhaps more illustrative and pictorial, frame than for my other friend, the artist, for whom I made the brown frame.

This colour combination as a new one for me, and I was inspired by Zsuzsa of InkyDinkyDoodle blog – she uses a lot of these colours and I’ve always thought how lovely they were! Thanks, Zsuzsa. I’ve been meaning to try these colours for a while now.

I began by getting out various bits and pieces in order to choose what to use for the various embellishments on this frame. I didn’t use the poultry grit (broken up bits of shell) in the end.

I decided I wanted to add a couple of small terracotta pots as embellishments, and knew I didn’t have any such ready-made embellishments in my stash, and slept on it for several nights, wondering how to achieve the look I wanted. When I started rummaging in my mixed media oddments box, I came across a bag of empty silk cocoons that I’d bought several years ago at a craft show, and thought, “Perfect!” Not only were they exactly the right size, but they also had just the right texture, too! I trimmed them down to shape so that I could stick them to the frame.

To create the top edge of the “pots,” I stuck down two different thicknesses of string. This proved to be a very fiddly job and I couldn’t get the string to stick at first, and then I tried doing it with Glossy Accents, which eventually worked. You can see that I have cut one of the little pots to look as if it was broken. They look a bit dirty around the top because the cocktail stick I used to help me stick on the string was a bit grubby! No matter – they were going to be painted anyway.

The first step was to paint them with gesso.

Now they were ready for painting with acrylics. I used Burnt Sienna and created shadows with Burnt Umber.

On a scrap piece of watercolour paper which I’d cut to fit the recess in the frame, I painted a simple seascape and fixed it in place.

I cut a short length of black lace and stiffened it with some watered-down PVA glue and stuck this in place – reminiscent either of a Spanish mantilla or of the black wrought iron balconies so commonly seen in Southern Spain.

To create an impression of sand, I added some pumice gel medium and painted it with acrylics.

The frame was then ready for the rest of the embellishments.

Here are the flowers and leaves I used.

To stick the little pots in place, I filled the backs with hot glue and then stuck them in place with more hot glue.

Here is the finished piece, with all the embellishments stuck down with hot glue.

I shall be giving my friend this little heart in the New Year when we are planning our lunch get-together which had to be postponed from before Christmas. She doesn’t visit my blog so I thought it would be safe to post about it before she receives it!

Here are the first two hanging hearts together. At this stage I hadn’t done more than the basic preparation on the third one.

Mystery Project–Part 2–Brown Heart

The first of the three hearts that I worked on was the brown one. This was for my friend who is an artist, and I thought she would appreciate a more grungey, earthy tone. This turned out to be an excellent choice for her as she told me she is working a lot with these colours at present!

I began by using the original back piece of the frame to trace the shape onto some corrugated cardboard to make the background of the altered heart.

I tore off some of the top layer of paper to expose the corrugations.

I rummaged through a lot of my mixed media supplies to find the right sort of mesh to overlay the bottom part, and eventually decided upon an old roll of scrim which I think was originally supposed to be used for plastering walls – I’ve had it for many years and can’t remember where it came from.

I cut off a length and stuck it down across the bottom of the frame, pulling it as tight as I could.

I then did a bit of experimenting with inks and paints to get the effect I wanted on the corrugated cardboard.

I used three shades of Distress Stains – Pumice Stone, Gathered Twigs and Walnut Stain, creating a mottled effect. When this was dry, I added a little Treasure Gold gilding wax and a touch of Antique White Rub’n Buff to highlight the corrugations. The gold doesn’t really show up very well on the photo.

Here is the corrugated cardboard in place in the frame.

Turning it over to work on the back, I packed out the recess with more corrugated cardboard and secured it in place with masking tape.

I used the outside of the heart frame to trace the piece of cardboard for the back, and distressed the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I stuck this onto the back of the piece and signed and dated it.

Here are all the brown roses and single-piece flowers that I made for the brown heart. They have also been highlighted with some Treasure Gold gilding wax.

The brown leaves, together with a few of the flowers, ready to be stuck to the front of the frame.

After sticking down the mesh, I added a couple of lengths of different thickness of jute string and tied them in a bow. The overhang of the mesh and the excess string was trimmed off flush with the edge of the frame.

Time to add the flowers and leaves. Here is the finished result.

When she came over and I gave her the heart, she was intrigued by the various processes I’d used, and we had a short session up in my studio where I demonstrated first how the roses were constructed, and then showed her the gilding wax – she has achieved similar effects with dry brushing. It was very interesting comparing notes about how we have achieved similar results in other areas, by using different methods. She has only recently branched into mixed media art from more of a fine-art background and is exploring different materials. Quite an adventure and I am very excited about it, and can’t wait to see what else she is going to come up with! I was so pleased that I’d hit the right spot with her little heart, with the colour she would have chosen, and the different materials and textures.

Mystery Project Revealed–Part 1–Preparation

I can now take the wraps off my mystery project. I made three little hanging heart ornaments for friends, one of whom has not yet received hers, but since she doesn’t visit my blog, I thought it was safe to reveal all!

One friend asked me some time ago if I would make her a hanging heart ornament for her bedroom wall, and I couldn’t find the sort of papier mache or MDF heart that I wanted, with a hollow centre. Eventually I managed to find a set of three little heart-shaped photo frames on Ebay and decided to get these, and alter them, and it worked really well, particularly as I had two spare ones to make up for two other friends. I began with these two, as they were more urgent – we were planning to meet up for lunch but it has had to be postponed until after Christmas.

The three little heart frames as they arrived.

I took them apart and saved the glass and the back pieces for potential use in projects in the future, as I only wanted the hearts themselves.

The next step was to paint the frames with gesso.

After this I painted them with a base coat in acrylic, and added some crackle glaze.

The frames with the top coat applied.

The brown and turquoise ones crackled fairly well, but the silver one did not – I didn’t really mind, though, because on that one the majority of the surface would be covered with roses anyway, and I quite liked the streaked effect of the purple paint showing through the silver.

As seen on previous posts (please scroll further down for details) I made a selection of paper flowers to embellish the three frames.

I also made a selection of leaves.

I didn’t use all of the flowers and leaves, and reserved the rest for other projects.

I was now ready to begin with the first of the three hearts.

Box for Floral Mini-Album–Lid Construction

Today I finished constructing the lids for the two boxes.

After mulling over whether to leave the insides of the lid flaps plain black or whether to try to match the inside of the box, I decided in the end not to be lazy but to refer back to my previous post on the subject and try to replicate the same appearance. Of course, I’d used up all the table napkin fragments, but these flaps are so narrow that they didn’t really need them. I am glad I took the trouble to do this because it will give a better finish in the long run.

On the right in the above photo, you can see one of the clasps lined up against the pattern I made for the front flap mat. This was trimmed down from the original pattern for the front flap. From the outset, I wanted the mats to be trimmed away from the clasp pieces so they would have a nice black border, as there would be around the edges.

Here are the front flaps with the clasps attached. I used small antique brass coloured brads, and also a fairly thick layer of Pinflair gel glue to fill the concave back of the clasp, to ensure that it remains firmly in place.

I cut all the mat pieces for the lids – the tops, the side flaps and the front flaps, and double-distressed them with Vintage Photo, and then Black Soot Distress Inks.

After assembling the boxes, I added the mats to each piece. These covered the construction strips, leaving just a 1/8 inch border all round.

I cut a similar mat for the bottom of each box, this time from plain black cardstock, and stuck them down. All the mats were stuck with a combination of double sided tape and glue stick.

I put the lid in place on the box and lined up the second part of the clasp so that it was engaged with the first part (already attached to the lid front flap). Holding it in place, I marked the position of the three holes on the front of the box, for securing the clasp piece. After this, I painted the area with black acrylic paint, because again, a small border of black will be showing around the clasp when I cut the shape from the box front mat.

The boxes so far.

I have not yet attached the lids. I made the hinges from 1-inch wide strips of Tyvek painted with black acrylic paint and they will be attached with double-sided tape as before.

All that remains to finish the basic boxes is to cut and stick the mats for the front, back and sides of the box. I also want to cut small pieces of card (offcuts from the lid mats as they are a reasonable match) to glue over the backs of the brads on the inside of the box and lid, to give a better finish and to prevent them catching.

Once the construction is completed, I shall add some embellishments to the tops of the boxes, and also the metal feet that I bought on Ebay.

Box for Floral Mini-Album–Box Construction 2: Constructing the Lid

WOYWW readers: Please scroll down to previous post.

I made a small amount of progress on my boxes today, working on the pieces for the lids. I had to cut side panels and a front panel so that the lid would be secure when closed. I wasn’t able to get on with this until the metal embellishments arrived from Ebay.

Cutting the pieces from mounting board for the sides and front of the lids:

I ended up having to redo these (at least it was before I had cut the fancy edges for the fronts) because I hadn’t allowed a little extra for the overlap, and when I made a mock-up using masking tape, the pieces weren’t long enough to cover the sides of the box. Adding 1/8 in on each length was enough.

Once they were cut to length, I made a cardstock pattern (seen on the right in the above photo) to create a fancy shaped edge to the flap on the front of the lid, to which the clasp will be attached.

Painting the pieces:

I painted all the pieces, front and back, and along all the edges, with black acrylic paint.

I have not decided whether to try and match the insides with the inside of the box – the contrasting black may look quite nice, but on the other hand it might give a more professional finish if it matches.

I have also made some more of the connecting pieces to attach the side flaps to the lid, but also need to make some small ones to join the two front corners of the lid flaps. Before I assemble the lid, I shall attach the clasp and cut and apply some of my background papers to all the lid pieces, and also to the box itself. I still haven’t decided whether or not to use any of the metal corners. Decisions, decisions…!