Exciting Stuff !!!!!

Hello all.

I am most excited to be able to share with you my first post EVER on the Crafty Crusaders blog. 

I am looking forward to being able to share with you all what I have able to create using some of the goodies sent to my to play with. 

Now just to explain a little... one of my daughters is turning eight this month. 

For her birthday party she has decided that we are having an Alice In Wonderland Tea Party type of party with a bit of our own twist. 

Now... the twist is that for us there is A LOT of Alice in Wonderland things on the Internet to be able to create for a party. 

However we wanted it a bit more girlie in the twist so we have decided to create our own little bits and pieces for the table centre piece. 

With that in mind we started to chase up teapots to use for the centre piece of the table. As much as we wanted to use mismatch teapots, I wanted them to be personalised a little. 

I have already started the table centre pieces off with creating these goodies..

I managed to find one more teapot that I loved the style of that I just had to alter to finish off the table centre piece.

So with that is mind I would like to show you how I took this  patterned china teapot and made it our own. 

I started off the process by adhering two different napkins (just the single ply of the napkin that is patterned) directly onto the teapot using a glue wash and a #4 Shader Princeton Camel Hair Brush. I then adhered a paper doily that I had cut into quarters where I desired. Then I added a few more pieces of napkin to blend in the doily to the base. For the inner rim of the tea pot, top of the lid and the inner spout I used some Pebeo Studio Acrylic Paint #26 Mars Black to highlight them. I did use two coats to give a nice matt finish. This went onto the shiny surface of the teapot really well too.  

Now.. I found the napkins a little bit bright so using a #4 Shader Princeton Camel Hair Brush I painted the whole teapot with a white wash of  Pebeo Studio Acrylic #41 Vivid White. 

I then let the whole teapot dry before sealing it twice.

Then came the fun bit.  I gathered up paper flowers that I wanted to play around with on this teapot. I had some plain pink paper flowers that just didn't quite match the teapot colours. With that in mind I altered the flowers using a foam brush and some Pebeo Studio Acrylic #41 Vivid White Paint then a smidge of Pebeo Studio Acrylic #50 Magenta just on the edges . It really reminded me of the Queen from Alice in Wonderland when I was painting these.... painting the roses red and all that. 

You can see the large queen of hearts playing card I have altered with white napkin here that I have used as the base of the embellishment cluster. I applied a white wash with Pebeo Studio Acrylic #41 Vivid White over the whole playing card before embellishing over it.

Here you can see I have used some Pebeo Studio Acrylic Paint #26 Mars Black and a dry foam brush to highlight the rim of the teapot and the spout just a little. I have also added subtle highlights to the textured napkin over the whole tea pot too.

I can also tell you too that I have played around with a few of the other paper roses on this teapot too with some of my Mepxy Markers. Once the aqua roses and pink magnolias were adhered to the tea pot I wasn't really happy with the colour match. The aqua looked too green to match the blue of the napkins and the pink magnolia were originally very very pale pink.

I did  the same thing with my Mepxy Brush Markers to finish off this large rose. It was also very pale pink. Just a touch here and there of the markers to the edges and I finally got the effect I was looking for. 

Have had so much fun playing around with creating this teapot and thinking outside the box just a little. Cannot wait to be able to set the table up for the party now. Have one very excited little girl who LOVES her new teapots for her party.

Lastly I wanted to show you the quick card I created using a digital stamp from my stash I have printed onto some Canson Illustration  250 Paper and coloured in using the Mepxy Brush Markers. 

Layered a couple of digital stamps onto a Project Life Graph card for the base age card. then adhered this on some of the matching Teresa Collins paper range I used on the teapots. Added some paper flowers, a chipboard greeting and matching sheer blue ribbon. 

To finish the card off I have printed the little girl digital stamp from my stash onto some Canson Illustration Paper and coloured it very basically with the Mexpy Brush Markers to keep it simple. 

She was then adhered using 3D foam to give a little dimension.

Super quick but fitting with the Alice In Wonderland look.

Well off to play with my Mepxy Brush Markers and some more digital stamps I have printed off.

Till next time. 

Get Creative !!

Michelle W xxx

Creative Inspiration - Week 15 2015

Hello.. hoping that everyone is having a super week.

I have been busy again using some more of this paper range by Teresa Collins - A Wonderful Life. 

Still loving this range. Love how the red really pops out. With that in mind I got to work on another piece for my daughter birthday party. This week I wanted to work on something more for the table. Looking at the red in the kit really got me thinking of Alice in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts.

 Now with the whole tea party theme I got thinking that I wanted to alter a tea pot... So I raided my cupboard for the tea pot I just never use and decided to take the plunge. Here's what I came up with.

I must say I am pleased with how it turned out.. but it did take quite a bit of patience when I adhered the paper napkins to the shiny surface of the tea pot. I then enhanced it all with a bit of black to the top of the tea pot and spout. Then added some black ink here and there to show up the crinkle of the napkin.

Once I had adhered the sealer was completely dry I have added a paper doily and then a die cut frame as the starting base for my embellishments. I was super excited too as I manged to find a number 8 playing card in my stash which I have added a pink peg to and adhered before adding in the floral embellishments (it's my daughters' either birthday, so wanted it to be a bit symbolic).

You can see in this close up that as with the canvas I created last week I have once again used some of the paper range to create a vine. I have adhered a couple of these throughout the handle and then threaded the paper flowers from Mad About Scrappin around it as I desired. I love the super tiny aqua rose buds. They add just the tiny bit of colour pop with being too bold. I have woven a sheer white ribbon throughout the flowers too.

As you can see I have adhered the top of the tea pot on a bit tipsy giving it a bit of a wonderland feel. I have then added the famous Mad Hatter quote "Its always Tea time" printed onto card stock using the Alice in Wonderland font. this was then adhered to the teapot using 3D foam. 

I have had so much fun creating goodies for the table centre piece. I cannot wait to see it all set up and promise to share when the day come.

Till next week. 

Get creative.

TFL, M x