Ring Out the Old, Bring in the New at Anything But Cute

Hello Everyone

I hope you have had a great start to the New Year!  I am thrilled to be the Host this month at Anything But Cute, and since it is the beginning of a new year I have chosen 'Ring Out the Old, Bring in the New' as my challenge theme.  To celebrate the New Year, we would like you to create a mixed media card or project using something 'new', perhaps you got some fabulous new craft item for Christmas or you have something new that you have not used yet - please do remember to tell us what the new item is!

For my birthday and Christmas this year I received some beautiful Sandra Evertson Archival Casts, by Prima and I really wanted to use the beautiful Archangel from the Archangels set. 

 It just seemed right to create a shrine for the Archangel.  I did some research on Pinterest to get some ideas and found a great board here.  Near where I live there is a real life shrine (photo at the end of this post) which has fascinated me for years. 

I started by cutting two Tim Holtz Cameo frames from black mount board (mat board) and I used Tim's Sized rectangle die to cut an aperture in one of the frames.  I measured the opening and created a 'box' to go between the two frames.  The spool was later trimmed to fit in the gap to create a sturdy stand.

The next view shows the assembled box, this was painted with black gesso all over and once dry I applied a coat of Americana Weathered Wood Crackle Medium.  This is part of Andy Skinner's Mega Crackle technique.  You can see a video of Andy using the technique here.

To create the base crackle I added a little DecoArt Media Fluid in Raw Umber to some DecoArt Media Crackle Paint.  You can use up to 20% of coloured paint in the crackle paint to colour the Crackle Medium but I just wanted a hint of colour so I just used two little drops of the paint.

Once the paint is applied, this is how the result looks.  It starts to crackle immediately and dries fairly quickly, but you really do need to let it completely dry before moving on. 

To tint the shrine I used a thin wash, a mix of DecoArt Quinacridone Gold and water.  Before the first layer dried I mixed some Prussian Blue Media Fluid with water and lightly brushed this over the entire piece.  In real life it looks a little mottled, which I like.  This is a view of the back.  I always seal all of the crackled area with a sealant, in this case I used Ranger Glue and Seal.

To give the Archangel an aged look I first painted it with a thin coat of white gesso, followed by a very thin layer of Weathered Wood Crackle Medium and then finally a coat of DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic in Titanium White.  The cracks are quite subtle.

Here is a close up showing the mega crackle on the shrine and the lighter crackle on the face of the Archangel.  The hair was lightly tinted with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic in Quinacridone Gold.  The crown was painted with DecoArt Media Fluid in Metallic Gold

I also used my new Tim Holtz flower punch to create some flowers to decorate the shrine.  The flowers were punched and then coloured lightly with Candied Apple Distress Spray Stain.  I scrunched the wet flowers and used three sets of petals for each flower, adding white stamens from my stash.

I attached the finished flowers along with some Tim Holtz Holiday Greenery.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a real life shrine near where we live, it fascinates me because no matter what day of the week, or hour of the day you visit, it is always filled with flowers.  It is on a steep hill on a very narrow road and stopping to have a look is not easy.  It think it is beautiful and there is a great view of the Derbyshire hills behind.

Thanks so much for joining me here today, I hope you feel inspired to join in our challenge at Anything But Cute and I hope to see you again soon.

Hugs, Anne xx