Saturday, October 17, 2015
 
Happy Saturday!! I'm so excited to be sharing my first post on Swirlydoos blog with you all today, as a Guest Designer this month! 
 
Question, what do you do with all your left over embellishments and paper pieces when you've finished doing your layouts from your latest Swirlydoos kit? Put them in your stash for another day?
I want to encourage you to firstly, use those left over embellishments up and secondly, get making some Altered Art!!
The beautiful embellishments and flowers we get in our Swirly kits are perfect for Altered Art/ Off the Page projects and personally I love creating them. Sometimes its nice to not have the restriction of trying to fit your colours and designs around a photo and instead create a beautiful gift or a lovely piece of home décor to be pride of place in your home.
Today I'm showing you how I make my home décor Plaques. I hope after you've looked at this you are inspired to go and create something wonderful for your homes and friends.
So here is what I'm creating....
 

Take a MDF ready made plaque and give it a coat of gesso on both front and back and sides. Allow to dry. The back may need more then one coat as this stays visible.

 
To cover MDF choose a 12 x 12 paper. I chose  Blue fern Studio Deja Vu Fripperies from a previous Swirlydoos kit. Cut to required size. Mine was 26cm x 10cm.  I used the other side of the paper as well, to fussy cut some elements out to use later.
 
 
 
 Using a wet glue, stick your paper to one side of the MDF. I always make sure mine is well stuck down by running a brayer over it. Use a craft knife and trim the rounded corners, and punch through the hanging holes. At this point I also give the back of the MDF a coat of Mod Podge. This gives the back a nice finish and protects it from marks and scratches whilst being worked on and when hung on the wall.
 
Next choose some main pieces to add to your plaque design. This is where I have used some remains of previous Swirlydoos kits -  the picket fence and a chipboard frame. Cover the picket fence with a coat of Distress crackle paint 'picket fence' (very appropriate !)
 
 
 Cover the chipboard  with embossing powder. I used gesso first to make colour coverage better. When the gesso was dry I used 3 different embossing powders, one was a Stampendous frantage Antique white to add texture.

 
Next step is to add some stencilling to the centre area of the plaque. I used a Dreamweaver Crackle texture paste and Prima mask.
 
 
Cut a 5" doily in half and ink the edge with some Frayed Burlap distress ink.
At the same time ink around the edges of the plaque.

 
Next add a lace trim to the bottom edge. I layered two pieces of lace and then added a pearl trim on top.
 

And now the best bit! Choose some embellishments! :)
I raided my Swirly embellies and began to play. Try different arrangements until you find a design that works before sticking down.

 
I wanted to use this vine, but it was too much as a whole vine, so I cut off the flowers and the wire twirls and used them separately.
 
 
 
Now stick away!
I like to use a Pinflair type glue. This makes it very easy to add height and dimension, also because it takes a while to dry it gives you plenty of time to move or adjust the positions of anything. It will dry solid over night. I added baubles of Pinflair under my frame to lift it off of the plaque and small blobs on the ends of any pieces I'm trying to poke into a cluster.
 

 
Use a length of chain to hang the plaque with. Thread the chain through the holes in the plaque. Then use a short length of seam binding ribbon passed through links in both tails of chain to tie into a bow. Repeat on the other side of the plaque leaving enough chain to hang it at a nice height.
 
 
 
A little finishing touch, rub a little Frayed Burlap Distress Ink over the cracks on the picket fence.
 

I will end this post with a couple of close ups.
 
 
 
 
Thanks for looking, enjoy the rest of your day. 
 
Ginny  :)

9 comments:

Unknown said...

This is fabulous work, love the gentle colours and the layout.
A very talented lady, hope to see more of your work soon!

Linda Pekrul said...

Awesome tutorial Ginny! Way to go! That is a stunning piece of work!!

Paula Calvanico said...

Fantastic Ginny congrats in gd, what a great project :)

Paula

Michelle Baggett said...

Beautiful Ginny-:) Definitely going to try and make one of these for my craft space!

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous wall art! Love the tutorial.
~Robin

Peggy Giovanetti said...

Totally incredibly gorgeous!!!!
Thanks, Ginny, for the inspiration!!!

talkis23 said...

Amazing tutorial wow

Bonnie said...

Beautiful project! Thanks for the tutorial, Bonnie S

Merrihew said...

Gorgeous, Ginny! Thanks so much for sharing this awesome tutorial!

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