Tuesday, February 28, 2012

a spiral and a gift

Today's ATC is one of the ones I made yesterday with the tile adhesive.  You know me, I always use what ever is about.
On this one I added some texture with the spatula while the tile adhesive was still wet, then after it had hardened alittle, added some drops of watercolour and gold acrylic, glitter and a home made stamp.  I like the colour and texture in this one.

I have been working on a birthday present for a friend who lives nearby and is a devoted mother and artist.
I saw a challenge on club creating keepsakes (Club CK, a scrapbooking site) and the inspiration photo hit me like a truck  here.
I don't know if what I created is quite what they were looking for, because there is no scrapbooking in it.

I got a piece of mattboard that had marks on it and wasn't going to be used and covered it with tile adhesive with a scraper.
Then I used various things, like a skewer to draw lines in it to look like old distressed boards.
Below, you can see the lines more easily
Then I got two small precut matt boards, from a box full that I bought at a market really cheap.
I painted them with a thick layer of acrylic paint.
It is a bit fiddly, as the frames can slide around, but sas you can see, at the top right, I am using a skewer to hold the frame as I paint.  It hardly leaves a mark.
Here's one painted.  I let them dry totally, which took ages, because after the extremely hot weekend, we have had two days of rain - go figure.

Here I have added a very thick layer of PVA/white glue.  Up at the top, you can see some shapes I cut from plastic lids.  A train, a car and a dinosaur.  You'll see what I did with them later.
This time I added the top coat a little earlier, and it didn't crack as well, but streaked nicely.  I am learning.  I needs to be not quite tacky, but not really liquid.
Here's a close up.  As you can see, it didn't crack as well as yesterday's post.
Meanwhile, I painted the ackground with a creamy yellow acrylic, very watered down.
Then, when everything was ready (but not quite dry, because I couldn't wait and the weather was so wet), I put the layout together.
I added the frames, then used pinboard pins in red green and blue to pin them down as well as a piece of twine.  I used tiny little mini pegs I found at a 2 dollar store to clip photos, each in a little acetate leaflet for protection, in place (Obviously, these are not the photos I used, I have digitally altered them since they were not my children in the photos).  The children concerned are mad about trains, cars and dinosaurs, so I added the platic cut outs, then I added some coloured dots with bingo markers.  Last, I actually scratched into the background, some stick figures and words, as if the kids had done it.

It still needs to be framed, but my friend likes it, and that is all that matters, isn't it.

Just a last little peek at something.
Here's another Digital ATC I made.  I thought tomorrow, I might have a go at putting this one together in two different ways.  That is- make a real one!  I think I can just about manage this one.

Have fun creating!