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.

Completion of the Mystery Project–Part 4–Purple Heart and Card

The final one of the three hanging hearts was the purple one, for my friend’s birthday, and I gave it to her a couple of days ago, together with a matching birthday card.

Some time ago she had asked me to make her something like this, and at the same time she gave me some pieces of wallpaper she’d got when she was deciding how to decorate her room. I decided to use bits from these for this project.

For the background for this heart, I cut a piece of music to fit in the recess of the frame – my friend is a musician, and she had got me a whole lot of old music from someone she knows, and I’ve had this a while now, ready for incorporating into art projects.

The particular piece I used was from the back of one of the books of music, showing samples of other books – the music was reduced in size and just perfect for this little frame.

I selected a few of the stems from one of the wallpaper pieces and fussy-cut them out to overlay on top of the music piece.

The stems stuck down and the ends trimmed.

The music paper had a slightly greenish tinge to it, so I enhanced this by distressing the edges with some Pine Needles Distress Ink to start with.

To this I added some Pumice Stone and Hickory Smoke Distress Inks to dull it down a little.

The music piece with its stems in place in the heart frame.

I worked on the back as before, packing out the recess in the frame with corrugated cardboard stuck down with masking tape, and making a back piece traced around the outside of the heart onto a piece of cardboard. I distressed the edges with Pine Needles and Pumice Stone Distress Inks.

Pumice Stone is a very useful colour. It’s not particularly inspiring on its own on a white background, but for dulling down other colours, it’s perfect.

These are the purple roses that I made for this frame, laid on a couple of the wallpaper pieces as a background.

Finally, here they are on the dark rose wallpaper. I really liked the spray of flowers on this paper and decided to use it for her birthday card (see below).

Here are the roses stuck onto the heart frame with hot glue. I have laid a few small flower pieces in place as I felt it needed something extra.

Inking the small flower pieces, using Seedless Preserves Distress Stain. On some of them, I also added a little Brushed Pewter Distress Stain for a bit of variety.

I made some die-cut leaves and coloured them with Pine Needles and Forest Moss Distress Stains. I hand-embossed these when they were dry.

Here are the finished leaves with the tiny purple flowers. The colour has come out a bit too bright on this black leather background! The true colour can be seen in the next photo.

Here is the finished heart frame with some of the leaves added, also stuck down with hot glue, first of all against the stems wallpaper as a background:

and on another of the wallpaper pieces for a slightly different effect.

The Birthday Card

I wanted this to co-ordinate with the heart frame, and I particularly loved the dark rose wallpaper and decided to use this for the card.

I selected the area with a complete flower spray, and also cut out some of the rose leaves from elsewhere on the piece. These didn’t need embossing because they were slightly curled, and there was shading in the printing of the leaves. I cut the piece with the floral spray to the correct size to mat and layer onto a black cardstock base.

The bottom left hand corner of the piece had part of a very large rose on it, which I didn’t want, so I cut a piece of background from the wallpaper to cover it, and then found a small paper doiley in my stash, which I inked with Worn Lipstick, Pumice Stone and Hickory Smoke Distress Inks, gradually building up the colour with Inkylicious Ink Dusters until I’d got the colour right to co-ordinate with the background piece. I trimmed off the excess so that it would fit over the corner of the piece.

The doiley glued in place over the piece of wallpaper background. Much better without that large rose.

Matting the piece onto the black card base. You can see that there are some leaves printed on the top edge – I was originally going to cut these off but decided against it. I love the “crazy paving” texture of the background of the wallpaper, which is slightly shiny.

The next step was to glue on the leaves. I did a mock-up to decide where to place the die-cut and embossed leaves and stuck those down first. I took the rose leaves cut from the wallpaper and filled the backs with quite a bit of hot glue so that they would retain their slight curve, and let them cool till set. I wanted the leaves to have some dimension on the card and not just be glued down flat, but the paper was fairly flimsy, so the hot glue had the effect of strengthening them considerably.

I placed them onto the card and heated them with my heat gun in order to soften the hot glue again and hold them in place.

Unfortunately this had the effect of warping the whole card, so it had to endure Shoshi’s Heavy Books Treatment overnight! It was much better in the morning.

I made a liner for the inside from some pink cardstock which I distressed with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, and stamped the sentiment with the same Distress Ink. I highlighted this with a pearlescent gel pen but this doesn’t show on the photo.

The completed card, on one of the wallpaper pieces as a background. I added a gold peel-off sentiment.

Here it is, with the purple hanging heart ornament which was her birthday present.

This completes the mystery project of three hanging heart ornaments and a birthday card. I really like the colour schemes and the wallpaper pieces, and have enough left of these, and some of the flowers (I used all the purple flowers) to alter the little frames my hubby gave me recently.

They are a bit bigger than the small heart frames, so I’ll have a bit more space to play with. Watch this space.

I have enjoyed working with the wallpaper pieces. I have a couple of old wallpaper sample books and really should start using these. They can make a good starting point for many projects, and they have lovely designs, colours and textures which can be enhanced by the addition of embellishments. Must do more of this!

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.