Celebrate Your Style at Anything But Cute

Hello Friends!

At Anything But Cute it is time to celebrate!!  The whole of the DT are hosting the challenge this month, which is Celebrate Your Style.

As we celebrate our 1st Anniversary, we want you to celebrate what you do best..... mixed media!  This is your chance to do it your way, in your favourite style... so pull out those inks and paints and show us what you're made of.  You can make anything you want, just as long as it has some mixed media products on it.  HAVE FUN!!

We have some special treats too this month.  Along with our DT projects, we have invited some Favourite Artsts from last year, to come and celebrate with us - they have created some wonderful projects to inspire you!  We also have a wonderful line up of PRIZES from some amazing Sponsors (details HERE).  Please do join us for a chance to win some wonderful goodies!

I wanted to celebrate my style by creating a sea themed project.  Seahorses are my favourite sea creatures so I used three beautiful Seahorse knobs to adorn a mini cabinet, which I altered, Andy Skinner style and I used some clay from my stash to make an Octopus ....

This is how the cabinet started, I can't remember where it came from but it is made from several different kinds of wood and was a bit tatty looking.  It measure approx 12" x 5".   I was given one of these beautiful Seahorse knobs by my friend Carole and I scoured the world trying to find some more - thank goodness for Etsy!

I started by giving the cabinet a good coat of DecoArt Gesso.

Once dry, I painted the cabinet with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic in Cobalt Teal Hue.  When this was dry I applied a layer of Weathered Wood Crackle Medium.

Next, I painted the pieces with DecoArt Crackle Paint and left it to dry.  This is Andy Skinner's Mega Crackle Technique.  It really does create wonderfully large crackles.

 The whole cabinet was then painted with a layer of DecoArt  Ultra-Matte Varnish.  This will seal the work and help prevent the crackles from coming loose. It is best to leave this to dry naturally.

I made two 'washes', one in Quinacridone Gold and one in Cobalt Teal Hue and washed over the whole of the cabinet and left it to dry.  Here is a close up of the Teal wash.

It was a bit too pale for my liking so I painted the pieces with a good coat of DecoArt Media Antiquing Cream in Patina Green.  I left this to dry (it dries but does not cure) and then I wiped over with a damp baby wipe to reveal some of the underneath.

I moved on to the Octopus next.  I had some Sculpey Clay in my stash and after watching a couple of YouTube videos, I formed the clay into the shape of an Octopus.  Once I was happy with the shape, I used seed beads to form the suckers on his tentacles (Tip:  if you make an octopus, put the suckers on before you attach the tentacles, it is very fiddly otherwise!).

After shaping him I baked him in a cool oven (130F) and let him cool down.  I painted him with DecoArt Media Fluid in a mix of Quinacridone Gold and Pyrole Red (just a dot of the red).

To give the seahorses a bit of a lift, I mixed some Mica powder in a sea blue tone in a little water and randomly applied it, giving them a lovely blue hue.

I cannot decide whether I like the Octopus on top of the cabinet but it took me so long to make, I think I will leave him there and decide later!  Sadly I had to remove a couple of his legs so he would fit in the top....apparently there is a species of six-legged octopus, so I don't feel too bad!

So, I hope you like how I celebrated my style!  

We would love to have you join in with us at Anything But Cute, to help us celebrate our 1st Anniversary.

Thanks so much for looking!  Hope to see you again soon, well tomorrow in fact!

Hugs, Anne xx