WOYWW 271

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Not a great deal going on on my desk this week, but you can see the third of the recent cards I’ve been making, embellishing teabag stains with Zentangle drawing. To the left of the card, in the centre of the desk, you can see some of my Zentangle ATC-sized cards with patterns, which normally live in my large Zentangle album. Just above this is my Stamping Up set of sentiment stamps – I have used the “Thank You” one on the card. My usual collection of acrylic paints and gel mediums and gesso at the back of the desk, and on the left, my Inktense pencils and in the red box, my pastel pencils. On top of this is a software CD ready to install on my computer. At the back you can also see a little pile of distress inks and my usual dirty water pot, in front of which is my red Stanley knife – I can’t get on with normal craft/exacto knives and find this is much the best knife! On top of the gesso is some stazon ink and a home-made bubble wrap stamp. I think that about covers it!

I am now feeling a lot better after my recent heart attack, and yesterday I went back to the hospital for my annual gastro-enterology check, and the consultant is pleased with how I am getting on, with my ulcerative colitis responding well to the medication. He wants me to have another colonoscopy in February to check on how things are, and also to screen for bowel cancer as I am more at risk of getting this with the inflamed bowel. Mum’s heart scan results came back yesterday and she’s got atrial fibrillation which is not good news for the potential for causing strokes, so she’s now on warfarin. Last weekend Phoebe, one of our cats, scratched her arm and it was pouring blood everywhere, so off my hubby went with her to A&E again, and it’s now all bound up and needing dressing every couple of days (just like when she bashed her legs) and she’s on antibiotics. Never rains but it pours, eh.

Anyway, things are looking up – I had a perm today so I’ve got nice curls again, and having one’s hair done always gives one a lift!

Have a great week, everyone.

Shadow Box for our Nephew’s Wedding–Part 2

Over the past few days I’ve been working on the mount. I have covered both the underside and upper side with silver mirror card, and lined the aperture with strips of silver sticky strip, which was quite hard to make stick down. The underside has been stuck down onto the glass using narrow double-sided tape around the outer edges – this will be sandwiched between the frame and the top edge of the box, and won’t be seen.

While I was doing this, I inadvertently touched a bit of the sticky side of the strip to the mirror card and it left a mark, which would not rub off. I decided to rub it with a bit of Crafter’s Companion Stick-Away, which is a wonderful spray which removes all sorts of sticky deposits and is a real crafter’s friend – but not in this case, alas!! It not only took away the glue, but also the silver surface of the card – so if you learn something new every day, what I’ve learned today is: “Do not use Stick-Away on mirror card!!!!!” (Might be worth storing that bit of info away because you could lay a stencil down on some mirror card and rub with Stick-Away and create a pattern by removing the mirror surface!! Worth a try?) You can see the white mark on the corner of the mount in this photo.

Fortunately I had already decided to add decoration and embellishments to the mount and frame, so I shall be able to cover this up OK, but it’s still a bore…

I worked on a sample piece, stamping some butterflies onto silver mirror card, using the acrylic ink I used on the iridescent butterfly. I tried several variations to see which would look best, including painting the ink onto the rubber stamp with a small brush, stamping with black Stazon ink alone, with Stazon and then painting over with the acrylic ink. When dry, I applied glass bead gel all over, so that the coloured butterflies showed through. The best one was definitely the Stazon painted with the ink, and this was what I decided to proceed with. As I haven’t got any green iridescent acrylic ink, I made up a green acrylic glaze from Hooker’s green acrylic paint diluted with Golden GAC-100 polymer, adding some iridescent gel medium.  This produced a lovely translucent glaze which allowed the mirrored surface of the card to show through.

After the colour was dry, I applied a couple of layers of glass bead gel, not over the whole mount, but covering all the butterflies, and spreading a little onto the glass itself to soften the square outline of the mount aperture. The glass bead gel on top of the reflective surface gives a marvellous sparkly effect which alters as you turn it in the light, and the butterflies show through beautifully.

Unfortunately this photo fails to show the sparkly iridescent effect that I’ve achieved with these glazes and gel mediums, but you can at least get an impression.

Glass bead gel medium is amazing stuff; it looks opaque white when wet, but dries crystal clear. Embedded in it are glass micro-beads which catch the light when dry. It looks a bit like miniature sago pudding! (Anyone remember that? – or does it date me too much! Nursery food…)

I also applied the glass bead gel onto the inner bevel of the frame, and also a little silver Treasure Gold to the stamped butterflies on the frame, but this hasn’t brought out the texture very well, but just given a bit of silver smudge to the frame! Never mind… it will be OK once the final embellishments are on.

I’ve now attached the butterfly to the acetate with Pinflair glue which dries crystal clear and so is virtually invisible. In this mock-up, you can see the printed acetate with the butterfly attached. There will be some paper flowers and leaves applied underneath this acetate layer, and maybe one or two on the acetate itself, as with the Silver Wedding box I made; these are reflected, giving the impression of more. The white edge is the double-sided tape, and once the acetate is stuck down, this edge will be covered with some silver self-adhesive strip.

This project is taking me a good deal longer than I thought, because it’s a journey of exploration into new materials and techniques for me – a combination of enjoyment and frustration! Let’s hope the enjoyment bit wins out in the end.

The next step is to make up the paper flowers and some leaf trails, and assemble the project.