Hi everyone, Heidi here, today I have a special project to show you, it’s special to me because it’s a gift for my favourite aunt‘ birthday and on the picture is her first grand child.

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The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some product to create this project. The opinions I share are solely my own. This post also contains affiliate links.

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I took pictures of the different steps so you can see the project grow with me.

Step 1.

Coat a canvas 30 x 30 cm in size with a layer of The Crafter’s Workshop “White Gesso“ (TCW9001).

Apply a coat of Crackle Medium over this canvas. Also mind the sides of the canvas!

While this is drying, tear a piece of brown card board from a box, take of the top layer of card board, a fork might help, create a couple of nice shapes, by tearing the card board. These pieces will lay on top of the canvas and they will be partly covered, but it’s nice when they can peak out a little, so don’t make them too small. Cover these pieces of shaped card board with a layer of The Crafter’s Workshop “Gold Gesso“ ( TCW9003).

Also look for patterned paper in your stash that matches your project in colour and maybe theme: I tried to colour coordinate a lot of the items that I used on this project with the picture that started this project. It features light orangy/salmony colours and an dusty pink colour as well as some gold tones. Don’t choose to many colours to work with because less colours create a greater feeling of unity (everything fits together).

When the crackle medium has dried I applied two colours of acrylic paint mixing them on the canvas half way: I used DecoArt Americana acrylic paints in the colours “White Peach“ and “Coral Shell“ (also minding the sides of the canvas) and then I let the crackle medium do it’s work.

Step 2.

I selected a chipboard from Scrapiniec (“2642 Fioretta Frame“) to create a frame around the picture, cutting of some of the inner leafs that covered to much of the picture and cutting the picture to the right size.

Then I tore some of the patterned paper I choose in shapes that I liked and adhered them on the canvas using The Crafter’s Workshop “Matte Gel Medium“ (TCW9011) and a brush.

After the patterned paper the gold painted card board followed. When this was dry I applied one coat of The Crafter’s Workshop “Clear Gesso“ (TCW9007) to the canvas to ad back some tooth to the surface (I did this because I planned on using pencils in one of the following steps).

It’s important to create layers and different textures on your project to make it more interesting for the eye to look at.

The picture and the frame are not adhered yet.

Step 3.

Next I’m going to create one of the embellishments that I want to use on this project. For this I used a The Crafter’s Workshop stencil called “Celtic Knot “ (TCW731s).

I adhered this stencil to a sheet of Grafix Arts Shrink Film in the colour “Super Sanded“ and went over the stencil with StazOn ink in the colour “Jet Black“ and using a foam applicator tool. This ink will stain your stencil but that will not effect future use.

When the ink was dry I fussy cut around the design, this is very easy since the sheet isn’t that thick yet and then baked them in the oven (the instructions on the packaging of the shrink film are very clear and easy to follow). On the picture you can see how small they are once baked. This way I created several of the same embellishments (in the pictures you see how it looks on the “White“ coloured Shrink Film, but eventually on the project I only used the Super Sanded ones because I felt those fitted this particular project better).

The Grafix Arts Shrink Film is a great product to create your own embellishments pieces and very easy to work with: you can for example colour it, stamp on it, die cut it and many more endless possibilities! If you haven’t then you really should try this product out!

I also worked further on my canvas: I applied some The Crafter’s Workshop “Light & Fluffy Modeling Paste“ (TCW9004) over a The Crafter’s Workshop stencil called “Celtic Design“ (TCW732s) (my absolute favourite stencil of the summer ’17 release) in several places, also minding the sides of the canvas. I choose this specific modeling paste because it’s a nice white colour. After the modeling paste was dry I intensified the celtic design with a Derwent Inktense pencil in the colour “Sepia Ink“, I took the ink from the pencil with a wet brush and applied it to the canvas working around the lines of the modeling paste (this works better then applying the pencil directly to the project, since you have more control and the sharp pencil won’t damage the project). I applied the ink more heavily on the patterned paper and near the centre of the project then around the edges. I also worked on the sides of the canvas in the same way. If you feel that you applied the ink too heavily then you can blot with a paper tissue while the ink is still wet and start over, this way you can also take ink of the modeling paste if you don’t want it on there but just around it.

The patterned paper I used features flowers and butterflies so I decided on stamping one butterfly on the top right hand side: for this I used a stamp from the Kaisercraft stamp set called “Butterflies“ and I stamped with Archival Ink in the colour “Jet Black”.

Step 4.

Now that the background is ready I can put on the top layer of embellishments, starting with the picture and it’s frame and the shrink film Celtic elements. I also added flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts, wooden characters that spell the word Family and other elements that I found in my stash that I felt fitted the design I was going for. I painted some of the elements with the same salmony coloured paints that I used in the steps before. I also applied some Pebeo Gilding Wax in the colour ”King Gold“ to some of these painted wooden embellishments and later on on some parts of the canvas.

I adhered all the embellishments to the canvas with The Crafter’s Workshop “Gloss Gel Medium“ (TCW9006).

After I adhered all the embellishments I splattered on the project with some Coliro Pearl Colors by Finetec GmbH in the colour “Tibet Gold“ (I wet the paint with a brush and some water, bring the paint over to a clear stamp block and then splatter the paint from the block with the brush) and waited for this to dry.

And to finish this project I adhered some pearls, sequins and other sparkly bits here and there for some extra bling, adhering them with Ranger Glossy Accents.

Some detail pictures:

And that’s it for today’s project, I had so much fun creating this piece and I hope you enjoyed it too, until the next time, I wish you’ll a creative day!

Thank you Grafix Arts for providing the Design Team with some of the products used in this project, I loved playing with them!

We would love to see what you create with The Crafters Workshop Stencils and Mediums.
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Heidi Jakobs

The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Member