Home May You Find Comfort. . .

I found a bunch of samples of different art boards I had sent away for eons ago.  They were all held together with a long plastic screw (it was similar to a book binding or scrapbooking post – of course, I saved it).  After trimming the parts of the board that were either dented or had writing on it I had this piece left that is about 6 ¼” tall and about 4 ¼” wide. I wanted to make something folksy and colorful – I am having a BLAST using bright colors, which is something I am totally new at.  My décor and clothes consist of basic neutrals – lots of olive green, black, white; pretty boring pallet but after all this experimenting with color who knows what it will inspire me to do! I just got my order of Sizzix dies that I scored during their huge 4rth of July sale and also wanted to play with my new dies so I figured out how I could incorporate it all together. I am fighting a yucky head cold so I hope this tutorial makes sense - LOL.  Here are the products I used:

• Piece of Foam Board
• Golden Fluid Acrylic paint in Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Teal & Titanium White
• Distress Paints in Wild Honey & Mowed Grass
• Home May You Find Comfort & Rest sentiment from Wendy Vecchi Homemade Art set
• A piece of scrap cardboard (I used flimsy all white cardboard – one step thicker than cardstock)
• Distress Ink in Frayed Burlap
• Tim Holtz Movers & Shakers Die – Mini Openings
• Sharpies – Dark Brown and Magenta
• Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black
• Heart Corner Punch from All Night Media (it has a total of 5 little hearts and they bracket your corner)
• Scrap of Text Paper (I used packaging from a 7 Gypsies product)
• Piece of Clear Plastic (I used packaging from one of the dies I bought)
• Scrap of Brown Paper (for the “frame” under the sentiment)
• Scrap of Red Card Stock (for the Heart Corner Punch)

First, I mixed the ultramarine blue and titanium white together and painted the background to look like the sky.  I painted the board about ¾ of the way down, then used some cobalt teal diluted with titanium white to sort of end the sky; then used my Distress Paint in mowed grass at the very bottom.  I just used the dauber and swiped it across the edge of the board.  For the clouds, I loaded a small paint brush with titanium white only and just kinda dabbed it around to give the clouds some fluffiness.

I then cut out my openings using the Mini Openings die – I knew I wanted the half moon window over the door so I positioned the dies accordingly.  I cut out the square opening on another piece of cardboard to use as the roof and used the window pane die cut separately since I wanted to mount the window onto the “house”.  I cut out the square “house” with the 2 openings in it (it’s about 2 3/8” wide and 2 ¼” tall) and then angled the piece of cardboard with the square cut out for the roof (I just used a ruler – on the other side of the cardstock – and made a triangle so I could be sure the square opening was were I wanted it and that the roof was big enough to fit over the house the way I wanted it).  I painted the house with wild honey Distress Paint and used the direct to paper technique for the roof- just pouncing the frayed burlap on the triangle until I got a pattern I liked.  I heat set both the house and the roof.  I colored the window pane with a magenta Sharpie.

Taking a piece of clear plastic from my stash of packaging I cut out little squares to fit behind the square window in the roof, the half moon window in the house and the window pane die cut.  I stamped the Wendy Vecchi “Home may you find comfort & rest” in Jet Black ink on the back of a piece of 7 Gypsies cardboard that was used in packaging product because I liked the illusion of text under the stamp. I then mounted it on a small piece of brown card stock to frame the sentiment.  I also cut out little squares to fit behind the square window and the window pane.  I took the die cut of the door and colored it with a Sharpie in dark brown. 

 

Next, I took the clear plastic I had cut out and adhered it to the half moon window, the window pane & the square window.  Using a scrap of white card stock I glued one of the little hearts from the heart corner punch on it, and then glued that onto the plastic I had cut for that window.  Subsequently I took the text background and glued it to the specific clear plastic for the square window and the window pane then glued that to the back of the windows.  I glued the window pane, roof and door to the house.  I set my roof “over” the house, so it sat on the house like a hat.  Adhered the sentiment mounted on the brown card stock to the board. Finally, I took the remaining little hearts from the corner punch on the board where ever I felt they added some splash.

Since this project only uses one stamp I am going to enter it the Simon Says Stamp Challenge “A Little Stamping”.  Thanks for looking and I hope you like my project!

It's kinda quirky, but I like it :)