An Autumn Day at Anything But Cute

Hello Friends

It is time for a new challenge at Anything But Cute and the talented Autumn of Sew Paper Paint has chosen - An Autumn Day as her theme!  Here is what Autumn had to say:

'I could not help but choose October as my month to hostess here at Anything But Cute.  This month, we want to see your creations, inspired by an Autumn Day.  Anything goes mixed media with a Fall palette or Autumnal elements.  Be inspired by nature - with the sights, smells and sounds of this beautiful season.  We cannot wait to see the amazing artwork you turn out.'

I made a small wall hanging for Autumn's wonderful theme.

I love this time of year, the changing leaf colours, finding acorns and chestnuts, the crisp Autumn air.... all of it!  I have tried to capture the colours of Autumn in my wall hanging, made with Tim Holtz products, including dies, burlap and Distress Spray Stains.

I took a sheet of burlap from Tim's Textured Surfaces range (they are self adhesive) and attached it to a piece of cardboard 4" x 5.3/4", folding over the edges to give a nice neat finish.  I went around the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I coloured some card with various Distress Spray Stains and cut out a selection of leaves, branches and acorns using Tim's Fall Foliage Thinlit die and also Autumn Gatherings strip die.

At the same time as I coloured the card I also coloured the ribbon with Distress Spray Stains.  I cut a small piece of corrugated card from Tim's Textured Surfaces and coloured this with Walnut Stain Distress Paint.  The word is an Idea-ology Flash Card.

Next, I mixed some DecoArt Crackle Paste with a little Ground Espresso Distress Paint and applied this through the Flourish stencil to the right hand side of the panel.

Once dry, I darkened the stencilled flourish with some more Ground Espresso Paint.  The leaves were layered up onto the strip of corrugated card.  I added some Baby Breath for some contrast.

Here is a closer look at the Autumn foliage.  The acorns were coated with a layer of Glossy Accents and I added some Walnut Stain Distress Glitter to the acorn tops.

I mounted the panel onto a a thick piece of card, punched two holes in the top and added some twisted rusty wire as a hanger.

I do hope you will join us for Autumn's wonderful challenge at Anything But Cute this month, it would be lovely to see you there!  My talented teamies have made the most wonderful creations to inspire you!

Thanks so much for your visit, I hope to see you again soon!

Anne xx

Firendship at Anything But Cute

Hello Friends!

At Anything But Cute this month our Challenge #17 is hosted by the fabulous Branka who has chosen Friendship as her theme. Here is what Branka had to say...

'Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between two or more people.  We want you to show us a mixed media creation that's inspired by friendship.  You can create anything, from tags to art journal pages but make sure it's a mixed media piece.  Let's celebrate friendship together!'

Hmm, what has this project got to do with friendship?  

My lovely friend Sandy (of Simply Sandy) in the USA and I have been blog friends for a few years now and we love to send cards/projects/gifts to each other.  Sandy very kindly sent me the new Tim Holtz Village Manor die (how lucky am I!) and since we share a love of all things Halloween, I have made this little scene to send back to her, as a special thank you for sending me this wonderful die... I do hope she likes it!

I got a bit carried away making the haunted Village Manor but I do have a few step by steps to share with you.

I used three dies to complete the Manor, the Village Dwelling (660992), Village Rooftops (661197) and the Village Manor (661591).

I die cut all the pieces I needed, from heavy black cardstock (480 gsm) and applied Tim Holtz Grit Paste, (through a brick stencil) to the bottom part of the house only and left this to dry.

After applying the Grit Paste to the lower part of the Manor I decided I would like to 'render' the top half and I wanted it to have a grey, aged appearance so I added some Distress Paint and Distress Re-Inker in grey tones.

The coloured Grit Paste was dabbed on with a sponge to give an uneven appearance.  This is where I got a bit carried away and forgot to take photos but here you can see that I built the little 'attic' part, added the windows, front door and roof to the bottom part and also constructed the two chimneys (adding some Industrious Stickers to finish them off).  The attic part was painted with IndigoBlu Raven Black Metallic Paint, which gives a lovely sheen.

The roof was cut from Tim Holtz patterned paper, using the Rooftop die.  Once constructed I roughed up the edges and wiped over them with Hickory Smoke Distress Ink.

To create the base for the house to stand on I used a piece of thick foam board that I embossed with a stone wall type embossing folder.  This was painted in various tones of Distress Paint  to give the appearance of 'aged stone'.

To create the front 'path' I used pieces that were left over from the fence and glued these to a piece of white card.  Once dry I applied a watered down coat of Hickory Smoke Distress Paint.

To finish off I used Tim's Ghosts die, cut with Shrink Plastic and shrunk down to go in the chimney and in the graveyard.  The graveyard was filled with tombstones cut from Tim's On the Edge Graveyard die.  The tree is Tim's Scary Tree die and the pumpkin, bats, cat and children are from Tim's Halloween Shadows strip die.  The greenery is florist moss.

 I added some Fantasy Film to the windows and used some offcuts from the fence to decorate the front door.  The door knobs are seed beads. The piece at the front of the roof over the porch is an offcut from the Manor die, I thought it looked good over the porch and it fitted perfectly - a happy accident!

A close-up of the finished house.  To give you a sense of the scale, it measures 6" tall and 3" across at the widest point, so it is quite dinky!  

One final overhead shot.

It is very easy to construct and I can already imagine many different ways to use the dies - I am already constructing more, which you will no doubt see in due course!  This one is winging its way to Florida to my lovely friend Sandy!

It would be lovely to see you join in with us at Anything But Cute, we would love to see how you interpret and celebrate Friendship!  You can see what my talented teamies have made HERE.

I am adding this to my dear friend Darnell's NBUS challenge HERE.  My NBUS is my Manor House die and also the stone embossing folder.

As always, thanks so much for your visit!  Anne xx