Ginas Designs: Altered Canvas in a garden theme by Nancy and Sketch Challenge Layout by Marfa

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Altered Canvas in a garden theme by Nancy and Sketch Challenge Layout by Marfa

Hi everyone, we have two posts on the blog today. First up is Nancy with an altered inverted canvas.

Hi everybody, Nancy here! Today I'm sharing one of my favorite themes again. Nature! Somehow for me, it's the theme that comes most easily, and gives me the most pleasure in creating. I began with a simple application of gesso to the frame, then streaked it with some various colors of Folk Art acrylic paints. When the paint was dry I added some Kroma Crackle. This crackle product can take a couple of days to "cure" and finish crackling, so I just leave it and move on to other projects. When it fully "cured", I rubbed on some Prima chalk inks in various colors to bring out the crackled finish. I found a nature collage style of design paper in my stash that I'd picked up at Michael's, and I secured it to the back of the canvas with mod podge. Now comes the fun part. I began to gather my chippies and to ink, emboss and crackle them. I looked through my "nature" stash and found nests, birds, eggs and mosses. After that it only took an hour or so to decide on my final arrangement and to adhere the pieces to the canvas.

Gina's Designs Products Used:

Chipboard pieces have been colored with Prima Chalk Inks. These are a great tool for coloring. If you buy the big set you will have plenty of colors in the same family to use for shading.

Feather Shape Set

Tree 3 ( a portion of the tree can be seen on the inside)

Topiary Trees (basic instructions are below the post on how I colored it)

Grass and Foliage

Postage Frames

Build-a-Layout Country Living (the wagon wheel) crackled with TH distress rock candy crackle paint

Ornate Corners (inner corner top right)

Fall Shape Set (the rake) colored with chalk ink then TH distrees embossing powder to look like rust

Coloring the Topiary:

I began with a light dry brushing of gesso followed by Prima Chalk Ink. I "shaded" the pot by leaving the thinly coated white gesso uncolored in the center to give it a rounded look. For the topiary, after I colored with shades of green chalk ink, I added some clear glass bead gel and left it to dry. It will dry clear. At that point you will have lots of texture from the beads that will be stuck to the chipboard. I then rubbed on some Gilders Paste in Vertigris over the beads and along the edges. Done!

Next up is Marfa, who has followed our March sketch challenge with a 12 x 12 layout titled "You'll Always Have My Heart". Enter in our gallery for a chance at winning a $10 gift certificate for Gina's Designs online store.

Happy Saturday!!! This is Crafting Marfa today. I want to share a layout that I made recently. I'm using a sketch by Gina's Designs. The sketch is for this month's challenge, So I invite you to check it out and participate! These are vintage photos of my mom, my aunt and my uncle. I matched the paper to my mom's shirt and my aunt's trousers. I colored the chipboard with Gelly Roll pens and then with a glitter pen. I followed the sketch and simply added a couple of tags, some die cuts and a few flowers. This layout was very easy to put together. The sketch is easy to follow. I love the simplicity of this layout. It is eye catching, but I didn't have to spend a whole day putting it together. Scroll down for a list of supplies.