Aged, Weathered, Distressed, TimeWorn. CVC May #1

 Weathered Shabby Panel and collage

Happy May Day

I have chosen the theme for the CVC FaceBook challenge and it's to create a project that looks aged, weathered, distressed or timeworn.

AGED - to have become old and showing some age.

WEATHERED - worn by long exposure to the atmosphere; weather beaten.

DISTRESSED - having simulated marks of age and wear.

TIMEWORN- damaged or made less interesting or attractive as a result of age or much use.

My panel is vintage, shabby, distressed, looking aged and timeworn. I think I covered the brief.

Seal surface with a layer of gesso. Dry.

Paint a layer of brown acrylic Fresco Finish paint. Dry.

Stamp and clear emboss. 

Paint over with a lighter colour. Dry but leave it still a little tacky.

Wipe over with a wet wipe to remove the paint from the embossing and rub harder over the painted areas to reveal some of the brown showing through underneath.

Dip into watery puddles of brown distress inks and dry.

Sand around the edges and rub over with vintage photo distress ink ink.

This creates a shabby, weathered, distressed background.

Gather together items to create a collage.

I paint the moths with collage medium to take off the shine, I much prefer matte items.

I painted on a little green distress ink, mixed with collage medium, to the dress on the paper doll and a little tattered rose, also mixed with collage medium, to her skin, to add a little colour.

I also add extras as I'm putting the design together and here there are extra snippets and some TH film strip, plus a small piece of border coloured green.

xx

Supplies

Gesso, Clear embossing powder, Vintage Lace, 

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paint - Truffle, 

TH Stamps - CMS 266 Newsprint and Type, CMs326 Ornate Trims, CMS189 Merchantile

TH Distress Inks - Ground Espresso, Vintage Photo, Forest Moss, Rusted Wilderness, Tattered Rose

TH Idea-ology - Transparencies Moths, Paper Dolls, Snippets, Film Strip, Small Talk

TH Collage Medium

Use a frame - CVC April #2

 Apple Blossom Frame

The cherry blossom in my garden, that I can see from my workroom window, is stunning and when I was out last month, in the sun, it was buzzing with bees, in fact I can see a few now flying around the flowers, in and out.               (Time of writing 23/03/25)

I have used the beautiful Apple Blossom edition of stamps by my lovely friend Alison Bomber to meet the challenge theme for Country View Crafts. I stamped all the images and then cut them out and watercoloured the blossoms with distress inks.

I adhered the large blossoms in the background and added some wood offcuts to support the frame.

I extended the layer frame to fit the size of the opening and sewed around it to match the rest of the piece.

The background was created using distress inks and clear embossing.

I added elements I had prepared to fill the bottom inside of the frame ...

.... and the top of the frame. The bottles have real dried seed heads, seeds and moss inside them. Some of the labels were bought from Etsy and others I have made myself. You can of course substitute them with TH snippets.

I also added the bird and 'Springtime'.

xx

Supplies

TH Distress Inks - Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass, Kitsch Flamingo, Evergreen Bough, Picked Raspberry,

Alison Bomber stamps - Apple Blossom Edition (PaperArtsy EAB46)

TH Idea-ology Layer Frames, Snippets,

TH Sizzix dies - Silhouette Birds

Ranger Archival ink - Peat Moss, 

My own bottles but Tim Holtz has great ones to use.

Herbarium Reference Book

 Using dried flowers and sketches to create a reference book of plants.

I've been thinking and playing with the idea in my head to create a sketchbook/scrapbook/reference book of some flowers I collected and dried last year. 

I am using a Seawhite pocket concertina book in a box.

The sketch of the Black Medic plant which has tiny yellow flowers and black seed pods. It is also known as Hop Clover or Yellow Trefoil. It is a wildflower found on dry grassland, road banks and waste places. I found this quite near to home on a path between a school and a field. It is a valuable source for pollinators.

Here the dried flower itself can be see quite clearly, especially the seed pods.

xx

Vintage Butterfly Collage Panel CVC April #1

 Country View Crafts Challenge #1 April 'You've been framed'

Small panel, roughly apply texture paste and leave to dry.

Dip in watery ground espresso spray stain - dry.

Collect ephemera and elements to create project. I used a 

TH Layer Frame

Cover butterfly with distress medium to take off the shine.

Arrange elements to create collage.

Blend edges of paper elements with brown distress ink and add remnant rub.

Adhere.

xx

Supplies

small panel

TH texture paste, distress medium

TH Distress Stain - Ground Espresso

TH - Idea-ology - Transparent Wings, Film Strip Ribbon, Paper Strips, Layer frames, Snippets Curator, Number Strips, Remnant Rubs - Words

Flowers CVC March #2

 Building fanciful flowers from dies

This project produced these imaginary flowers by using a die-fest of flower shapes and putting them together to create these beautiful layered designs on a shabby, distressed board.

Start with the board and sand the edges and top of the panel, brush off dust and give a coat of decou-page mixed with a little water (not too runny, like thin cream). Leave to dry.

Brush a first coat of white chalk paint keeping it thinner in some places. Dry. I realised when I'd taken the photo I didn't get any white paint into the crevices, so I found an old thin brush and added some.

Give a coat of pink chalky finish paint. I used both colours of pink and had the white tin handy to mix them on the panel itself. Dry.

Add a little vaseline as a resist to the next layer.

Paint a coat of white and dry.

Spritz the board and rub with a paper towel to get the distressed pink to show through. I think I needed to make the vaseline a little thicker in places but I sanded the edges to create more distressed areas.

Take a brown distress ink and blending tool and rub the ink into all the edges and crevices.

Take a baby wipe to wipe away a lot of the ink and show the distressed edges. You can always go back in with the blending tool if it looks too clean.

To finish the distressing I spritzed some walnut stain distress ink with water on my mat and dipped the board in it and dried the areas.

Onto the flowers.

Cut card and create distress ink backgrounds.

Choose the die sets you want to use.

Choose some plain card to go with the distress pieces and cut out a random selection of the large and small flowers.

Enjoy some time layering up different shapes and colours/patterns to create your imaginary flowers. 

Add some shaping to the petals and add some 3d foam shapes to add dimension to the finished blooms. I also had some small punches handy to complete one of the centres.

Create dimension.

Use the same process to get some leaves.

Adhere your pieces to the board, find a sentiment and add some ribbon or string to the top to hang it by.

These photos were taken out in the daylight, here you can see the real colours better. Thank goodness Spring is arriving.

xx

Supplies

TH Sizzix dies - Wildflower Stems 1, Wildflower Stems 2, Blossom, Brushstroke Flowers 4.

TH papers.- a dusky pink and a dark lilac mauve.

TH Distress Inks - Tea Dye, Dried Marigold, Antique Linen, Ground Espresso, Tattered Rose, Walnut Stain, Victorian Velvet, Cracked Pistachio, Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Wilted Violet, Lost Shadow,

TH Word Chips

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish paints - Snowflake, Rose, Blah Mange 

(I used a DIY chalky finish paint from a company on line that I bought in a large tin).