The Artists on the Block - Seahorse ATB

The Artists on the Block have teamed up with the wonderfully talented designers at Frilly and Funkie for a blog hop called Hip to be Square.  If you have not been over yet to see the amazing and fabulous blocks created by the Design Team, then please do have a look, they are a set of incredibly talented ladies!

If you would like to create an Artist Trading Block (ATB) or cube (not necessarily with the ATB die) and you follow the challenge rules you will be able to enter the Hip to be Square Challenge (there are still a few days left) at Frilly and Funkie and also the Artists on the Block companion challenge, Eileen Hull's Art with Heart Challenge where the theme is Anything Goes (you have until the end of the month).  Eileen is the talented designer of the ATB die.

There are great prizes on offer - at Frilly and Funkie, the lovely Linda Coughlin is offering a £25 voucher to spend in her amazing and very reasonably priced Boutique and over at Art with Heart, Eileen Hull is offering one of her brand new Vintage Kitchen dies (which are to be released later this year).  I am linking my block to the F&F challenge, which is to create something Vintage or Shabby Chic.

For my Design Team piece for the Artists on the Block, I have made what I call a shabby chic seaside Artist Trading Block.  This is a different style for me but I loved every moment of creating this one!

And a view from the top:

I started by gathering all the items I wanted to use including my die cut Artist Trading Block. I lined the inside of the block some wonderful papers by Craftwork Cards.  The edges of the block have been coloured with Broken China Distress Paint.

I cut some mats from the Craftwork paper, some Core-dinations card and the top layer is Ranger Watercolour card.  I distressed each layer to within an inch of it's life (!) to try to give it a shabby chic look and feel.  You should have seen my desk when I had finished.....!

Each of these images was stamped with embossing ink and then white embossing powder added and heated. I took inspiration for this technique from a fabulous creation made by the amazing Anna-Karin, which you can see HERE.  I watercoloured the backgrounds in the same way Anna-Karin did, just lightly washing the colour on (using Distress Ink and a water brush) and not being too worried about uniformity.

I very lightly edged each layer with Broken China Distress Ink before layering them onto the block.

Here is a view of the top again.  I added some sea shells, a stamped and coloured star fish, a stamped and coloured seahorse some die cut and hand cut grasses and lots of sand 'a la Tim Holtz', I love the way it looks.

Thanks so much for looking, hope to see you all again bright and early tomorrow when there is a new challenge starting over at A Vintage Journey.  Hugs, Anne xx