I made this shadow box years ago – the fairy has traveled with me to a
few houses, apartments, then across country.
The shadow box is only 4” x 4” and I found it at the Dollar Store. I kick myself often because there were a
bunch of them there and I only bought two thinking (yeah, I always get in
trouble when I think) that I’d be able to go back and buy more later. . .
Haven’t seen them since and I even wrote the Dollar Store company asking for
them & got no reply. I like the box
especially because it has a magnetic closure on it so you can open it and not
disrupt anything. I painted the fairy –
she is made of resin (I found her at American Science & Surplus) with
twinkling H20 paints, jazzed up a few flowers I already had, grabbed some velvet leaves out of my stash and here it
is!
OK, back to the ART! I made this wall hanging (well, we are going to put it on a small easel - one of those little metal triangle thingies that are made to put pictures, etc. on, so you can put it on a table) for my mom for Mother's Day. This was the first time I has used Wendy Vecchi's Art Parts and I am IN LOVE! I urge you to try some of them!!
I used the following items to make it:
- Dick Blick 6 x 8 panel
- Letters from & Gypsies Gypsy Market Collection
- Golden Gesso
- Golden Matte Gel
- Golden Quinacridone Red for the 2 hearts
- DoCrafts Papermania Urban Stamps Type Print for the brick
- 2 wooden hearts - the large one is about 3 1/2" wide, the small one about 1"
- Scrap paper for the sentiment
- Patterned paper with random text
- Ranger Products: Adirondack Espresso (stamped the sentiment), Adirondack Jet Black (for the brick), Distress Ink in Frayed Burlap & Distress Paint in Fire Brick Red.
- Wendy Vecchi, Studio 490 Products: Art Parts Residences (for the house) & Homemade Art Stamp Set (for the sentiment "Home is where love resides)
- Crafters' Pick glue (I use this glue for EVERYTHING - the only problem is that it dries glossy and sometimes I'd rather not have all my excess glue shinning for all to see, but that fact has made me a very careful gluer).
First, I covered everything with gesso except the letters. Once everything was dry (I leave everything overnight to dry - I have had a ton of experiences where I thought stuff was dry and nope) was dry I inked the panel, making sure I inked the edges (I personally hate white edges and have begun to be really cognizant of them).
Then I painted the house with the Brick Red Distress Paint and the roof with more of the espresso ink. Once the house was dry I stamped the brink stamp on the house (I sort of made a template to help me with making sure the stamp didn't overlap too badly) with the Jet Black ink. While waiting for that to dry I painted the 2 hearts with the Quinacridone Red - they turned out really glossy so I used some Matte Gel to dull them. I stamped the Wendy Vecchi sentiment on some scrap paper. I ripped the text patterned paper for the background and adhered it. Then I inked the panel again a bit to blend in the text paper. I put everything on the panel for a dry run, positioned and fixed the items, then glued everything down. Viola! A nice gift and my mom loved it (of course she did)!
I put the 2 pictures up so you can see what the panel looks like "flat" and then the second picture shows a bit of the 3D effect. I didn't put any sealer on it (I probably should have at least sprayed some fixative on it) but I was a bit nervous that I would mess it up somehow. Since if I am going to mess something up it is usually on one of the last steps - so better to be safe than sorry :)
I would LOVE to hear your comments on this - please let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading and looking,
Christi
