Faux Metal Wall Hanging with Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts and DecoArt

Hi everyone!  I hope that wherever you live, you all are keeping warm!  We've certainly been having some crazy weather lately.  But, when it is freezing cold outside, I can't think of a better thing to do than hunker down in my craft room and get busy with some craftin'!

I love this  Flying Heart Wall Hanging, along with the Gears Texture Sheet 6x6, from Gypsy Soul, and I've been holding off using it until I had a good idea for decorating it.  Scroll to bottom to see close-ups.

I always lay my pieces out to see how they look, and move them around if I need to.  This is the arrangement I think I will be sticking with but, of course, that could change.  I never really know.

Faux Galvanized Metal Technique:

Step 1:  Paint both sides of the chipboard backing pieces with black acrylic paint.  Let paint dry.

Step 2:  Dry brush a coat of silver metallic paint over the surface, leaving some of the black paint showing. Let paint dry.

Step 3:  Brush a wash of silver metallic paint plus water over the surface again, leaving a smaller amount of the black paint showing.  Let dry.

Step 4:  Run chipboard pieces through die cutting/embossing machine with embossing folder.

Step 5:  Lightly sand the embossed areas to enhance the design.  Use a damp baby wipe to pick up a small amount of black paint and edge the pieces, as shown.

Gears Texture Sheet

Brush crackle paste over the Gears Texture Sheet 6x6 on one side and let air dry.

Turn  over and brush crackle paste on each corner, again let paste air dry.  These corners will hang off of the background piece when attached diagonally.

Brush coat of Yellow Oxide over gears sheet, then a coat of Quinacridone Gold.  Use baby wipe to wipe away some of the excess gold, leaving a bit more of the yellow to show through.  You will need to do this same process for the corners on the back of the sheet.  Glue gears sheet to square background chipboard piece, as shown.

Large Heart and Wings

Add a thick layer of crackle paste to the heart and allow it to air dry. 

Paint heart with Transparent Red Iron Oxide and let dry.  Add a light coat of Interference Gold over heart and let dry.

Use a baby wipe to pick up a small amount of carbon black acrylic paint and wipe over surface of heart, letting the color go into the cracks.  Wipe away excess before it dries.  Add a tiny amount of Primary Magenta over the surface and let dry.  Then add one more light coat of Interference Gold to bring back the shine.

Paint wings with silver metallic paint, then with 1-2 coats of Titan Buff.  Sand some of the buff color off of the wings to reveal some of the silver. 

Add a wash of Cobalt Teal Hue with water to add the blue tint. Next, dry brush Worn Penny paint over the wings with a stiff brush.

Apply a coat of clear crackle glaze over the wings and let air dry.

Use damp baby wipe to pick up Carbon Black antiquing cream and cover wings, let dry.  Wipe away excess  antiquing cream, which will bring out the cracks made from the crackle glaze. 

Repeat the wings process for the words, as shown below.

Corrugated Chipboard Pieces

Paint corrugated chipboard pieces with a coat of white gesso first.  Spread patches of crackle paste over both pieces randomly, as shown, and let air dry.

Paint both pieces with Bright Brass metallic paint, let dry.

Then add a coat of Rich Espresso metallic paint.

With a damp baby wipe, pick up a tiny amount of Carbon Black acrylic paint and hit the tops of the corrugations, as well as the edges.

Glue both pieces to backgrounds, as shown. Remember to leave some space for the large key at the top of the square piece, and be sure not to cover up the single hole that is centered on one edge of the rectangular piece.  This hole will be at the bottom of the wall hanging.

Small Heart

Cover heart shape with clear glue and pour texture pebbles and texture sand over it.  Set aside to dry.

Paint with a wash of Transparent Red Iron Oxide and let dry.  Then add a coat of Quinacridone Burnt Orange to give it a really deep color.  Let dry.

Pick up a small amount of the Champagne Ice metallic lustre and hit the high spots.

Keys

Paint both keys with white gesso, let dry.  Then paint both with Worn Penny acrylic paint and let dry.  Emboss keys with Stripes embossing folder.    Pick up Burnished Brass Metallic Lustre with your finger and rub over high spots, then seal with Gloss varnish.

For added depth and dimension, I added the carbon black antiquing cream over the keys to age it.  (See photo of finished project).

Crown

Paint crown with white gesso, then silver metallic paint, let dry.  Use stiff brush to dry brush Rich Espresso over bottom section of crown, let dry.  Glue diamond gems to the top of each point on crown.

Finish gluing all the pieces to the base, as shown.  Add metal embellishments to the bottom half, as shown.  Hang more metal pieces from the center hole at the bottom.  After I put it all together, I realized that the red in the hearts was the only red on the piece, so I just added little splotches of Transparent Red Iron Oxide to the corrugated piece on the bottom section to bring it all together.  

Here are a few closeups of the two sections.  

Supplies Used:

GSL Flying Heart Wall Hanging
GSL Gears Texture Sheet 6x6
Teresa Collins Circle Décor 8.5x11 embossing folder
Teresa Collins Cut n Boss machine
Sizzix Stripes embossing folder (for keys)
Texture Pebbles (Brea Reese)
Texture Sand (Brea Reese)
DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics
  Quinacridone Gold
  Carbon Black
  Carbon Black Antiquing Cream
  Titan Buff
  Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide
  Quinacridone Burnt Orange
  Cobalt Teal Hue
  Primary Magenta
  Interference Gold
  Transparent Red Iron Oxide
DecoArt Dazzling Metallics
  Bright Brass
  Worn Penny
  Rich Espresso
  Shimmering Silver
DecoArt Metallic Lustre
  Champagne Ice
  Burnished Brass
DecoArt Media
  White Crackle Paste
  Clear Crackle Glaze
  Gloss Varnish
Metal pieces (Tim Holtz Idea-ology)

I hope you enjoyed today's project, and I encourage you to stop by the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts shop to see all of the fabulous laser cut chipboard available.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a super creative day!

Barbara

Mixed Media Desk Accessory with The Mailbox Muse

Hello everyone!  I want to share some more stamping ideas using the Mailbox Muse stamp sets.  Today I am using the Muse Dragonfly stamp set with a really fun substrate from the Square Coaster Book w/chain.  You could use it to display a small calendar, but I wanted to make something to sit on my desk that I could look at every now and then and make me smile.  This little piece did it for me.  What do you think?

Paint both sides of one coaster with Carbon chalk paint; let dry.

Use a spatula to spread the Aleene's Tacky Glue unevenly over the coaster, leaving some areas thicker and some areas thinner for a variety of crackle effects.  Do not let the glue dry completely, just until it is tacky.

Apply a coat of Vintage chalk paint over the glue surface, but do not brush over it more than once or twice.  Don't worry about your brush strokes or uneven paint coat.  It is best not to over work the  paint.

As the paint dries, you will see the cracks develop.  

I decided to add a bit of soft color over the background by adding these two colors from the Gelatos Macaroon Set, using my finger to blend.  It is very soft and subtle, but I love the layers of color.

Use StazOn Midi Cactus Green ink pad to stamp the three tiny butterflies over the background.  In the photo below, you can see where I began to add color to the dragonflies with my watercolor pencils.

Stamp the large dragonfly from the Muse Dragonfly stamp set onto a piece of white card stock using the VersaColor Black ink pad.  Heat set the ink, then color the dragonfly with the watercolor pencils.  Spread the colors over the wings with the clear Wink of Stella Glitter Pen and let dry.

Here's another tip.  While I was playing around, I got the "bright" idea to try coloring with my gelato and the Wink of Stella clear glitter pen.  It worked similar to a water brush but with sparkle.  And I was able to clean the brush tip by brushing on scrap paper until the color was gone.

Use the .01 Micron Pen to darken the details of the wings and body.  I also used some dimensional paint from my stash to make dots for eyes.   

Color a pen nib with the Metallic Rub Ons  from Kit #2.  The nib on top was colored, whereas the one below it was not.  The change is subtle but effective. 

Stamp "Dragonfly Dreams" onto a piece of print paper from the Glitz 6x6 Paper Pads (Happy Travels) paper pad with the VersaColor Black ink pad.  I used a decorative punch to punch out the sentiment.

Edge the punched sentiment with Leather Mix'd Media ink using the Ranger Blending Tool.  

I fussy cut the dragonfly, less his antennae, and glued only his body portion to the top right of the coaster.  I adhered the pen nib over the body, and redrew his antennae with the .05 Micron Pen, as shown.  I used Dimensional Adhesives to pop the sentiment up from the page and adhered it, as shown.

Use Splash Inks Blue and Yellow to color some large flowers green.  I simply mixed the two colors on my craft sheet and picked up the color with my Waterbrush, adding more water as needed to achieve the depth of color I desired.  I cut the flower apart to form leaves.

Next, I colored the center of a second flower with strokes of the green mixture.  Then I mixed yellow and magenta Splash Inks and continued coloring the outer petals, again adding water to strengthen or lighten the color, as desired.

Here are the  pieces after they have dried. This flower is too large for my small coaster, so I cut it up into thirds, as shown.  

I used the Aleene's Tacky Glue to pinch the flower bottom and hold it together, as shown.

The same pinching technique was used to form the leaves, and I cut off the ends to shorten them.

The flower petals and leaves were glued down to lower right corner, as shown.  Extra glue was added in the corner, below the flower, to hold a decorative metal embellishment.

I used a clamp to hold the metal embellishment in place until the glue dried.  I also used a Uniball White Gel Pen to doodle around the edge.

And here is a closer look at the decorative metal embellishment at the bottom of the flower.

Now, if you prefer to use an easel to display your inspirational desk piece, you can either use an easel die or purchase them ready made from your local craft store.  I used a die, but it is too large, so I measured and cut it down to size, along those white lines.

Adhesive was added to the section that will be adhered to the back of the coaster.  These easels fold flat for mailing, too.

And here is what it looks like with an easel back, instead of clipping onto a note stand.  

Supplies:

Muse Dragonfly stamp set

Square Coaster Book w/chain

.01 Micron Pen

.05 Micron Pen

Watercolor Pencil Tin (11)

Uniball White Gel Pen

Chalk Paints (Carbon Black, Vintage)

Aleene's Tacky Glue

Flowers of All Sorts

Pen Nibs Assorted

Wink of Stella Glitter Pens

VersaColor Black ink pad

StazOn Midi Cactus Green ink pad

Mix'd Media Ink Pad (Leather)

Splash Inks

Gelatos Macaroon Set

Metallic Rub Ons (Kit #2)

Ranger Blending Tool

Acrylic blocks

Waterbrushes

Glitz 6x6 Paper Pads (Happy Travels)

Dimensional Adhesives

Decorative 3-1 corner punch

Easel die

3D paint (for the eyes)

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial today using these fun rubber stamps from The Mailbox Muse collection. I hope I have inspired you to try some of these wonderful products from Altered Pages, and see what you can come up with.  Experimenting is so much fun, especially when you discover something new.  

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful, creative week!

Barbara