Thursday, 9 May 2013

Artful Blooms

So, yesterday, Sue shared another beauty with us - a papier mache style hanging piece. (see here) using grunge paste, frescos and Lin Brown's gorgeous stamps.

Here is my version

 I had trouble with the photos - used a combination of normal electric light, daylight bulb and with and without flash...

This is the finished piece.

Instructions are more or less as Sue did.
 base - cut the diamonds from a cardboard box, tore some of the top layer back, added grunge paste.  Painted it all white, then ice blue then a watered down bora bora, wiping it back a bit with a babywipe to remove some colour and give a patchy look.
 Stencilled (bingo) in mud splat and slight bumping with nougat
 had a spray of claret mixed up.... it went everywhere except where I wanted... think it's a slightly dodgy nozzle on this bottle!!
the flowers are Lin Brown's - I meant to write down what I used...I think it was stone (if not, nougat) smoked paprika and squid ink applied to  the stamp with cut and dry foam.


For the leaves (these are my second attempt, I originally did them on white card with distress ink but it was SOOO the wrong green!!!) I used a mixture of sage and holly for the small leaves, and sage and south pacific for the big ones. These contrasted with the background much better, rather than clashing!!

I didn't want to copy the shape Sue used for her petals (though I loved her idea!) so I cut into each petal about 3 times to give frilly petals.  Bent them to provide some texture.

The Artful Blooms was stamped on a scrap of metal on card (really MUST remember to buy some more of this) and I swiped some paint (claret and south pacific) with my finger, wiping most of it off.

16 comments:

sam21ski said...

Great background and I love you take on the flowers.

Sam xx

Julie Lee said...

Love the way you did the petals!

Words and Pictures said...

Lovely layers built into that background and gorgeous flowers!
Alison x

Lin said...

Beautiful Helen...the flowers look great and I love the background..

Anonymous said...

That is LOVELY. Gorgeous background & the flowers look very pretty.

Artyjen said...

Hey! that's super Helen ;)
xoxo Sioux

Sue said...

Fabulous Helen, love these flowers xx

Inkypinkycraft said...

Looks great! Love those diamonds. Trace x hugs x

Trish said...

I love this piece, it all works so perfectly (even the dodgy nozzle on your spray). Beautiful!

Craftyfield said...

Lovely project and great take on Sue's example.

craftytrog said...

Gorgeous...I love the claret splatters on the bora bora! x

Carol Q said...

love those flowers and the textured diamonds Helen.

Gillian .... said...

Love the colours on the flowers, fab textured inspired by piece. x

Minxy said...

Know what you mean about the photography, is a nightmare to get a good shot sometimes!
Love your version, and the abundance of flowers xo

Steven said...

Like those flowers and hey, the diamonds or alright!

Lori said...

I loved this when I saw it on the blog, and yours turned out fantastic! Those cardboard diamonds are such a cool idea!