Hello August :)

Morning all :)

Well here is August already - I am another year older (my birthday was yesterday the 31st) again lol!

 

It is a bit cooler now than it has been which is quite nice really, especially for our older dog Oscar, who has been really suffering in the heat.  I have had shingles, but I am on the mend now, but the hot and sticky weather has made that more uncomfortable too.  However, it has been nice to have a proper Summer as opposed to the wet weather we have had for the last few years :)

 

Anyway, as it is August it is time for a new challenge on the Ladybug Crafts challenge  blog.  This month the theme is ;

Favourite Colours

 

so a nice easy one really - although I have lots of favourite colours, which change on a regular basis!!

 

So, I have gone with a mixed media piece this time, in the shape of 3 tulips, which started out as plain MDF.

 

 

I gessoed the tulips and then covered them in decorative paper using gel medium to stick it down.  I inked all of the edges in walnut stain distress ink.  I did some stamping, using an alpha stamp and a numerals stamp - just over the flowers, not the stems (I really wanted to keep the green colour here), I used an archival ink here as I knew that I was going to coat with gel medium and I didn't want the ink to run.

I then took some stencils and first of all I stencilled flitter glue through and then added gilding flake. On top of that I stencilled some texture paste on too - I love that layering look.  When I finished I coated it all with some more matt gel medium to seal it all.

 

I made some paper roses with the same papers I covered the tulips with and then I dunked them into UTEE in my melt pot for the faux porcelain look.  I put them on one side to dry off and did the same with some punched leaves.

I stuck some patterned paper onto some Studio 490 moldable plastic (the proper name escapes me right now!) and then die cut some butterflies - as this is so thick the dies didn't cut right through so I had to fiddle a bit with a craft knife to finish cutting them - which I then heated and shaped.  I love the way that you can mold the plastic and it holds its shape perfectly.  I added a metal key to the body of one butterfly and to the other I added a little corked vial which I had filled with metal flake.  I made some antennae out of some wire and added these too.

 

I stuck on the flowers and the butterflies to finish this little home décor piece - I love it.  I am just loving green right now and I think these tulips are really cute :)

 

Don't forget to join in with the favourite colour challenge this month.

Back soon

 

xxx