Sunday 8 March 2015

Paperartsy - Theme 4 - Miniature Art

The theme this last fortnight at Paperartsy, has been all things miniature... with some fabulously small works of art along the way.

I bet you'll be surprised by what I decided to do... given my love/hate relationship with the stuff - but yes, I decided to give shrink plastic another go!  I loved Julie Ann's miniature peg doll and then Emma made a gorgeous card with JoFY's new stamps...

I had an empty matchbox hanging around and decided to make a little flower garden...

 started with a layer of gesso, then Limelight.  Stamped the grasses from a JoFY set on tissue in Library Green archival, then glued them to the inside of the matchbox, taking the tissue up the sides of the box.
Painted over the whole inside again with Limelight.
 stamped the two sizes of flower from JoFY33 on shrink, (2 large and 3 of the smaller ones) and painted with Tangerine Twist and a little Bougainvillea. Let dry, then heated with the gun to let the magic happen... lots of cursing and thumping with a large acrylic block, and eventually got some shrunk flowers..
 arranged them in the matchbox, trimmed some of the stems so they'd fit, and then stamped the ladybird from the JoFY mini45 and painted it with Cherry Red and Blood Orange for a bit more depth of colour and shrunk that too.


Stuck two of the flowers onto the edge of the matchbox (which of course means I can't decorate and use the lid)
I may be changing my opinion of shrink .... these worked out ok!

Entering the Paperartsy challenge 4, here 


19 comments:

Miriam said...

That's lovely Helen. Great idea. I'm with you on shrink plastic. Most of the time i can't get it to work...so I haven't used it for ages. May get it out to play!

massofhair said...

Cute miniature project Helen, the bug looks amazing hidden in the flowers. Glad you enjoyed working with shrink plastic :-)

craftimamma said...

Fab idea Helen and welldone for having another go with the shrink! It worked out brilliantly for your tiny garden and I really love the ladybird!

Hugs
Lesley Xx

Hazel Agnew said...

Great idea Helen, it is a bit of a minefield shrink plastic but you got through! Don't we do weird things.....imagine back at work on Monday....what you been up to Helen....errrrr.....decorating a matchbox! It looks lovely and ladybird finishes it off really well. Xx

Claire said...

It looks like a lovely flower garden - maybe you were inspired by your trip to Kew yesterday? Loving the limelight/tangerine colour combo X

Jo said...

Fab!

Gabrielle said...

Oh! This is soooo cute and looks FABULOUS! Good for you for keeping going with shrink plastic!

Julie Lee said...

Helen, this is so pretty! I've had a migraine for the last 48hrs and then I got up this morning and saw a mysterious tweet suggesting I'd be surprised. Could she really? I asked myself!I raced over to see and you had - brilliantly! I do hope you're changing your mind about SP because there is such a lot you can do with it. This is a lovely piece of miniature art - a garden in a matchbox:fabulous! Sorry it involved a bit of cursing but the end result is wonderful! xxx

snazzyoriginal said...

Love shrink and this is fab, great colours x

PaperArtsy said...

Haha. You mastered it!!! And you EVEN SHRUNK A BUG!!! Mazeballs!!

Etsuko said...

Oh! lovely miniature art Helen! Beautiful colours and fab idea. Amazing and surprise, you made so difficult the forms of shrink plastic. I have a trouble even in a simple form lol. xxx

Craftyfield said...

What a lovely make! Never mind you can't use the lid, the extra depth you've created is definitely worth it.
I have stopped panicking with shrink plastic since I put it in the oven (I do wait until I have some cooking going...)on a cake mould or similar.

Carmen said...

I've only played with shrink plastic once when I made some charms for a couple of duckies but had no problems with it... Don't remember needing to beat it... But then I shrank it in the oven so maybe that's a kinder way ;-)

I love your miniature garden, I've been looking forward to seeing what tiny creation you would come up with. Fabulous!

craftytrog said...

Those flowers look fab! Bet it was a nightmare cutting the stalks! :-) xx

Virginia said...

That is seriously cute !

Kirsten said...

I think that is gorgeous! The flowers are so pretty - I'm going to have to get that stamp set. Well done on using the SP, very brave of you. ;)

Craft Addicts - Tracy Evans said...

Lovely miniature piece of art. The flowers look perfect housed in the matchbox. Tracy x

Sarah Anderson said...

Fabulous, loving this miniature garden :)

Words and Pictures said...

Just delightful - your matchbox garden is a treat! I haven't played with shrink plastic since a Scooby Doo set of Shrinky Dinks I had as a kid... maybe it's time to explore again.
Alison xx