Joy here, in my first appearance as Guest Designer of the Month at Quietfire Design. I live in
Calgary, Alberta (originally from the UK), take classes, make cards and dream more than I actually get to make.
Preparing the Frame
For today's project, I started with a inexpensive frame and
primed it with a layer of gesso. {ed.note: the frame here is the part of the project which appears as the mat for the photo.}
I separated out a white napkin into layers. I
spread more gesso over the frame, carefully laid a napkin layer on top of the wet gesso and
spread another layer of gesso over that. There are some wrinkles in the napkin layer, which
add texture. You can gently pull off any excess paper around the edges of the
frame where it is not wet from the gesso. Let it dry well.
I painted the frame with red acrylic
paint,. Then I mixed Forever Red perfect pearls with water and brushed this on top of the paint so it would shine. I also rubbed some silver Faber Castell
gelato into some of the wrinkles. A few Quietfire Flourishes were stamped in various
places.
When I painted the Dreamweaver flourish with a
Perfect Pearls Pewter and water mix, I didn’t
like the look so used a Versamark pen over the paste in sections in order
to add the Marcasite Embossing Powder. I liked that a lot better!!!
I stamped
Once in a While with
Stazon Black onto
Spellbinders Decorative Labels 8 cut from black aluminum and sanded well so the stamping would adhere.
Roses and Heart
The paper roses were painted with
Forever Red Perfect Pearls mixed with water (the roses were originally white and pink).
The black rhinestone flourishes at the top are by Zva Creative.
To create the heart, diecut
a heart from the T!m Holtz Movers and Shapers mini hearts set, thermal emboss with
Versamark ink , sprinkle with Marquisite EP and a touch of Ruby Red embossing powder.
I painted a small red paper flower with some black distress ink (mixed with
water on
non stick craft sheet). Smeared black gelato onto craft sheet and
added a touch of water to rub onto edges of frame with my finger to tone down
the red, and also around the edges of the heart.
The pine sprigs were die cut using Tim Holtz Sizzix dies then sponged with Distress Inks.
Adding the frame
My “knight” on shining armour decided I
needed a traditional frame around my frame and made one out of MDF! I primed it with
gesso, then painted with two layers of black acrylic paint. Wiped very small
amounts of red paint to add highlights onto the frame in keeping with the
distressed look.
Love how it turned out – this is very much
“outside” my box, and I struggled at the beginning to get going and matching my
vision for the frame with the reality of how it was looking. I kept adding bits here and there, and it
definitely took a while before things came together in the way that I wanted
them to. All part of that creative process sometimes!
The Fairytale!
The background behind this piece: My “knight” in/on shining Kevlar is my beloved husband of 20 years, Greg. He has a passion for motorbike riding, and a few years ago, I finally got up the courage to ride with him. I got a lovely helmet last year that is black, silver with red roses. Hence, my inspiration for decorating this frame as a Valentine’s gift for Greg.
He is my fairy tale: a tale that crossed thousands of miles in a trans-Atlantic romance that came out of nowhere during a working holiday in Canada, 22 years ago. We look forward to many more rides together, saving up for “the” trip to Italy for our 25th wedding anniversary we hope!
Huge thanks to Suzanne for this amazing
opportunity to be a Guest Designer. I have taken this opportunity from
Suzanne as a sign to spread my wings a little. I soak in all the inspiration of
those talented people that I follow (especially on the QF design team) and
observe with wonder, to now actually hope to “do”, as Yoda says, there is no try.
Today is the first day of our Queen of Hearts Blog Hop! We have two of our fabulous designers ready to share their lovey dovey creations with you today.
As in previous years, we want you to make some artwork. Your
artwork should have a love and/or Valentine theme. It doesn’t have to include Quietfire stamps,
but we’ll love you if you use them!). On February 14th, you will put
a photo of your project on your site or photo hosting page (I’m not sure
Facebook will work, so don’t put it there, please!), then you will come back to
us and on our special Queen of Hearts blog page you will add the link back to
your submission. Easy peasy! Don’t worry, we’ll remind you more of this
soon.
