Behold Beauty mirror Altered Art

 This is my entry for the Sunday Stamper Challenge at Hels Sheridans blog page "Ink on my fingers" Pinkleart Blog.  This week it is blue and stamping, I don't do much in blue for some reason but it was nice to do something other than pink or lilac!!

Take a charity shop bargain, mirror for 50p and get messy :-)  I found this on one of my rummaging sessions and it is a nice'ish little mirror but it needed work to turn it from boring cream to something prettier.  Cheap objects like this are great for practicing on, after all if it goes wrong it goes back to the charity shop!!  It gave me a chance to try out some of my new stuff and stash bust my old too.  So here is how I did this with as many details as I can recall.

Lol, the downside of trying to photograph mirrored objects

The wood frame is painted in pearl acrylic paints, I tried to get the brush marks to show for effect so a dry brush method on the final coat helps.  I used two colours of pale blue's .

Randon stamping using faded jeans distress ink and with a brick effect and crackle stamp to suggest texture.

The torn paper is two pages from an old flower book, I washed this with a wet  brush with hardly any paint on to hint at colour. Run through the Cuttlebug in a bark effect folder and a flowery one, then did "ink to paper" with distress ink to show up some of the embossing detail.  Tear into pieces and inked the edges with more faded jeans ink and stuck on with wet glue

 Martha Stewart's NEW silicone moulds for the letters made with UTEE, these are great and give great results, the letters come out so easily and they are quite detailed too

Pour UTEE onto Texture tread rubber and use a butterfly cutter, Shape while still warm,  brushed with Mica powder. The other small butterfly is a Martha Stewart mould.  Various die cut leaves and sprigs were dipped into clear UTEE as well as the flowers

 Paper for the flowers is K & Co

 I used Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, Marianne and Crafts Too die's for flowers and leaves. I love the look they have after being dipped into UTEE, like real crystal flowers

 Close up's of the book pages after inking, embossing and tearing
Thanks for looking xx

Enjoying the sun

Well today we have rain, of course we do it's the weekend!  I have been making the most of the sun this week though.  I have done some crafting for the Mystic Moon Festival that we host in August,  made some jewellery and key rings to sell.

The highlight though this week was welcoming some new girls to our family.  No not children, Chickens.  I missed the sounds and eggs so I went to market this week and bought some.  Nice little Rhode Island x hens and good layers, even after the stress of being moved round on Tuesday I had two eggs before bedtime from them and a lot more since :-)

Photo's, thanks for calling by x

Couldn't leave Betsy out she got a necklace too and very pretty she looks :-)

Gardening break

Wow SUN!!!  I had to get going on the place this weekend.  After the winter it all looked a little derelict :-(  I have mown, cut trimmed and tidied for England this weekend, with a place the size of ours it looks like a drop in the ocean but at least I have made some in-roads.  Sorry, lord that sounds so pretentious  believe me it's nothing special just loads of it :-(

Gerry has re-fronted his workshop and made new doors, don't they look swish.  He even painted them, I would point out he is not allowed to paint indoors as he gets it everywhere..lol   Bless him:-)

Greenhouse ( derelict shed actually) ready for plants and tomatoes etc. Front garden, well a bit of it, looking more presentable.  I have a lot to do but a new stash of goodies arrived so trying to share time between out and indoors.

  

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

I can get into the chicken house again, it was feet high in brambles and weeds before :-(

My war wounds from the brambles...ouch

Paddock not to bad yet, give it time!

Planted 17th April

Today 23rd April, I love my utility for getting seeds going it gets so warm, better than the greenhouse this early in the year

Dabbling in jewelery

I don't mind that there are air bubbles in this as it adds to the moon effect :-)

O'k so I do not profess to be a jewelery maker but I enjoy dabbling in it from time to time.  My eyes are so poor I find seeing the small parts hard and also my fingers don't work as they used to.  Old age creeping up on me :-(  I figure if it's fun, have a go

The first few pieces are made with UTEE, mica, beads and various findings.  This Moon keyring is for our event in August, a little Memorabilia to sell to the ravers

pendants to be made up into necklaces. clear utee with gilding flakes added

Biscuit cutter is used to make these pendant pieces in utee, poured onto Texture Treads for the pattern and then brushed with mica powder.  They are made up onto Memory Wire pieces

This is a Dove, mayne not a good camera angle

Friendly Plastic with beads added, I used the comb dragging technique for these to get the feather effect

My first pair of  Mystic Moon (c) earrings, bit fiddly these as the parts are so small

Under water

This was triggered by a find of a box of seashells I discovered.  I  thought of doing a fishy theme but racked my brains about the fish till I remembered a mould I had bought years ago with an underwater theme.(click photo to view larger pictures)

How I did it

• A 7" x 5" canvas, painted in Gesso first then dabbed with sea colour pearl paints, sea green, turquoise, pale blue and yellow
• Sprinkled while wet with assorted glitters and mica for a sparkly look
• Fantasy Fibre and Fantasy film cut into slithers and heated to make them bubble a bit to make the Seaweed, Fibre was twisted and heated with a heatgun to make them fuse together for the thicker seaweed
• Fish made with UTEE - see below
• Lots of shells stuck on and some brushed with mica to bring out the colour
• Other embellishments and a hanger on the back and it was done

Tiny crab punched from Fantasy Fibre on the shell

The fish and starfish are made with UTEE and my Melting Pot.  I used clear UTEE and added yellow and orange mica powder,  I brushed them with seagreen after turning they out to show up the fishy details and added a gem for the eyes.  It looks better in real life, the gems look a little odd in the photo but they do work when not being lit by the camera flash.

A metal charm that I found during my rummage with some fluffy fibre to tie it on

An embossed washer with a Ideaology cog stuck on to resemble a ships wheel

Cute crab

Starfish details done with mica powder

Fish behind the seaweed

Tiny wall cabinet

A junk shop find was this cute little cupboard.  I just love the chicken wire in the door, a little passion of mine!! yes I am sad.  This is the project I made the embellishment for (see yesterday's post)

I painted it with Gesso, lightly spritzed with mica spray and then stamped with vines and stems all round the door.  I rubbed some versamark on the edges and rubbed that with mica powder too.

I found that hot glue works best to stick the embellie's on with, it melts the wax a little at first so you need to hold it in place a little longer, watch your fingers.  Flower, stems, fence and die cut butterflies are dipped in beeswax.  The metal charms are dabbed with Stazon to give colour to them.

I love it :-)
thanks for looking