Another Dare at Emerald Creek!

Servus!
Today sees the start of a new challenge over at Emerald Creek Dares and this time it is an "anything goes" (which makes the dare a lot less "scary" ;)

I decided to do another heart as I still have some blank ones left to alter and I love to create variations of a theme.

The gorgeous "Edison Bulb Charm" can be bought at the Emerald Creek online store as well as the embossing powders "Verdigris Sparkle" and "Burnt Copper Leaves".

Along with these I used some white air-hardening clay (to form the flames), Tim Holtz Distress inks, re-inkers, paints, markers, spray stains and Ranger Matte Medium to create the heart and the background panel.

I always love to get most out of my stuff and found that the Distress range is adaptable to a lot of mixed media techniques - and the marbling effect of the Distress paints is just so stunning and unique - I love it!

Here's the how-to:


First I dabbed some antiqued bronze and weathered wood Distress paint onto the wooden heart and while the paints were still wet I applied some drops of peeled paint and walnut stain ink directly from the refill bottles. Then give it a light spritz of water from the spray bottle to make the media flow.

Some of the effect gets lost when speeding up the drying process with a heat tool (like I did) - so if you really want this to be your main focus I recommend you let this air dry. And also keep in mind: the spots where ink has been added will reactivate when getting in contact with something "wet" (like paint or glue for example...but on the other hand this adds some exciting randomness to the process...which is something I love).

I didn't wait until all the paints had completely dried and sprinkled on some EC Verdigris Sparkle embossing powder - using the wet paint as an adhesive.

Next I did the same with some EC Burnt Copper Leaves embossing powder using Ranger matte Multi-Medium as an adhesive. You can see that it reactivated the peeled paint ink and made it pop more.

To make the Edison Bulb Charm match my heart's background colour I dabbed some antiqued bronze Distress paint onto it and dried it with a heat gun.

To give it a more grunge look I added some drops of walnut stain ink.

To make the ink adhere I "cooked" it onto the charm by thoroughly heating everything up with my heat tool.

Next I carefully dabbed some more antiqued bronze Distress paint  onto some spots of the heart to use as a "glue" for my Stampendous Fran-tage mica and teal flakes.

Once that was dry  stamped on some crackle texture using Ranger jet black archival ink and an Andy Skinner stamp.

To intensify the vibrancy of the greens and turquoise tones I added a contrasting colour - wild honey Distress paint - which I scraped on with a palette knife. I recommend you unscrew your Distress paint bottle and spread some of the paint with the palette knife on your non stick craft sheet first before applying the paint to your project. That way you make sure you don't have too much paint on your palette knife.

See how the warm yellow makes the dark green, the cool turquoise and shades of verdigris pop?

Once all was dry I fixed the charm to the heart using a small screw that I painted with antiqued bronze Distress paint too. I did some shading around the charm with a black soot Distress marker - using a damp soft flat brush to soften the outlines. 

To create my background panel I glued an old book page to a cut to size piece of sturdy card.

Then I sprayed the whole panel with Distress spray stains gathered twigs and rusty hinge and dabbed off the excess with a soft cloth.

Once that was dry I sprinkled on some water to create a stained and worn effect.

Once that was dry I darkened the edges with some walnut stain Distress ink and a blending foam.

As I had used the word "shine" on my project I thought I needed some flames on top of my heart. So I formed some from white air-hardening clay (I used Fimo but there are a lot of other brands) and once that had hardened I sanded it and painted it with the same Distress paints I had already used on the heart.

For the center piece I used a large half pearl. To make my flames match the heart I finished them off by adding some more wild honey Distress paint.

Now all that was left to do was assemble the pieces, add an idea-ology word sticker - et voilá!

I hope you like this heart project as much as you liked my first one (over HERE)! Thank you all so much for all the lovely comments on it!!!

Now, please, hop over to Emerald Creek Dares to check out my wonderful teamies' makes! I am sure they all will inspire you to play along! Hope to see you over there!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia 

xxx