Stampendous and DecoArt Blog Hop

Welcome to the big finale with DecoArt, Andy Skinner and a few european designers hopping along with the Stampendous design team.

If you haven't been hopping with us this week so far I'm so glad you are joining us! There have been a slew of great projects, awesome tips and techniques every day and you can find the links for every day of our hop on the Stampendous blog post today. There are prizes and to be enter to win all you need to do is comment as you hop along each company and designer posts this week. Details are also on the Stampendous blog.

Here is my project for today.

I started out with an old Day-Timer box and gave the outside a layer of black gesso and from there paint and brushes were flying!

I wanted to add a large flower to the box that had dimension so I stenciled one on without really thinking through the whole project. lol 

At this point I realized it would have been way easier if I would have completed all the painting and stamping on the box before stenciling. It was too late for me to do that, but you can gain from my mistakes today. :) Paint a 3:1 mix of Phthalo Green-Blue and Titanium White on the box bottom. It's okay if the black gesso layer is still showing. 

I should have continued painting at this point with a water thinned Quinacridone Gold wash and dry before a water thinned layer of Titan Buff is painted over it. Brayer on Payne's Gray to the peeled paint stamp in Cling Toxic and stamp without an acrylic block so you can press the stamp into areas of the box that are uneven. Now the stenciling should have happened next, lol

So I stenciled with Matte Black Embossing Powder directly onto the box using the Dreamweaver Stencils Zen Flower Stencil. I painted the flower with a 3:1 mix of Primary Magenta and Titanium White and after every layer was dry I add individual colors thinned with water in Primary Magenta (neat), 3:1 mix of Primary Magenta and Dioxazine Purple, and then Cobalt Blue. The last touches were highlights in Titanium White and a 3:1 mix of Dioxazine Purple and Titanium White.

The lid was quite a fun experiment after the black gesso dried. I used Primary Yellow first and it wasn't showing well so I made a 3:1 mix of Primary Yellow and Titanium White which worked well. I added a water thinned wash of Quinacridone Gold and then a wash of water thinned Titanium White. The yellow never really looked yellow, more of a green so I went with it and incorporated it on the butterfly (see the tip of it's wing?)

There are two butterflies, the larger from Cling PenPattern Butterflies and matching dies and the smaller from Cling Lovely Garden and their matching dies. The steps to complete this are backwards than a normal stamp and cut. I cut the butterfly out from black cardstock, painted the outer wing with Titanium White then Primary Yellow, the inner wings with Primary Red and layered with Primary Magenta (neat) and then the body painted with Burnt Sienna. It wasn't precise, but I stamped the butterfly by inking it with Versafine Onyx Black and going back over with paint highlights by adding Titanium White to the color in my normal 3:1 (color + white) ratio. The spots are 2:1 Dioxanide Purple and White.

The smaller butterfly is the same process, but only with Primary Magenta, Titanium White and the color for the body. Antennae are made with thin strips of cardstock glued to the back.

The label is an old piece of graph paper that is very rough, stamped in Versafine Onyx Black and distressed with English Red Oxide Antique Cream.

That is it, folks. Another lengthy post with lots of details.

The ribbon! It's a silky number by May Arts! Now it's time to make the next hop to Scrapbook Flair blogger, Pam Bray!

Stampendous Blog
Wendy Price
Asia King
Pam Hornschu
Janelle Stollfus - you are here!
Pam Bray
Jamie Martin
Louise Healy
Alison Heikkila
Lea Fritts
Amy Hurley-Purdie
Tenia Nelson
Debbie Cole
Laura Drahozal
DecoArt Blog

Details:
Stamps: Cling Toxic, Cling Shabby Chic, Cling PenPattern Butterflies, Cling Lovely Garden
DecoArt:  Media Fluid Acrylics from the Starter Kit - Primary Yellow, Primary Magenta, Primary Red, Titanium White, Carbon Black, Antiquing Cream - English Red Oxide, Matte Medium, Plus Media Fluid Acrylics in my stash - Burnt Sienna, Phthalo Green-Blue, Payne's Grey)
Paper: old graph paper, black cardstock
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: Butterfly Trio Die Cuts, Lovely Garden Die Cut Set, Zen Flower Stencil, Matte Black Embossing Paste, Palette knife (Dreamweaver Stencils by Stampendous), ribbon (May Arts), 1/8" corner rounder (WRMK), paintbrushes of all sorts and sizes, reading glasses