Friday, April 25, 2014

Tando Creative Sponsor Spotlight - Time to Bloom

Hello everyone, Alison here, and delighted to be offering up our third Sponsor Spotlight for April.  I'm sharing a project created with some of the wonderful products available from our generous sponsor this month, Tando Creative.  This is photo-heavy, so grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy the ride!


From their huge range of chipboard shapes I used...

the large one of the Three Clocks in One


and two of the Clock Hands

... and this is what it all added up to!  A 12 x 12 canvas...


with lots of texture in the background, and lots of crackle...


And dimension and words aplenty.


I started by coating the largest of the clocks with Croco Crackling Colour by Viva Decor.


My medium is actually white, so once it was all dry and crackled I applied Distress Stains in lots of colours from nature... starting with earthy browns at the bottom, working up through the leafy, grassy greens, to blue skies at the top.


I spritzed with water as I went to allow the colours to mix and blend on the surface.


I made sure I had the clock hands approximately in position (I generally go with ten to three - "is there honey still for tea?") so that I could see where the colours needed to go, and gave them the same treatment.


They're fastened together with one of the Prima industrial effect brads.


I'd originally been thinking of creating some sort of hanging mobile, but when push came to shove, I realised it would be tricky to get the hands in the right place and so on.  So instead, I decided to mount the clock on a 12 x 12 canvas.  (That should tell you how big the largest clock is!) You can see an early draft here... the untreated clock and flowers, with a plan to "hang" the clock on a "tree"!


In the end, rather than the tree bark paper, I used a piece of 7 Dots Studio paper from their 9th Wave collection as my background.  It already looked pretty good just as it was...


... but I decided to augment it with some actual texture.  I added pieces of lace and cheesecloth, and glued them down with multi-medium.


And I applied some texture paste through the Tim Holtz doily stencil in various places.


Once all that was dry, I applied gesso fairly roughly in places...


... and then set to with some spritzing and spraying and inking.


I used partly Distress Stains which I'd put into misters...


... and various other sprays including Dylusions, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists, and Ayeeda sprays from 13Arts.


I sprayed and dabbed and knocked back and sprayed again until I was happy that my added texture looked as though it was an organic part of the paper.


I glued the whole thing down to the canvas and gave the edges a good roughing up for texture and dimension.


Next it was time for the flowers...


Having created such a busy background, I decided the flowers themselves needed to be relatively simple and neutral.


I stamped the lovely SheArt Print Texture (by Christy Tomlinson, Unity stamps) in Coffee Archival...


... and did a little light inking around the edges, and then arranged the stems around the clock face, trying to make sure they balanced nicely.


The words arose out of the two Tando products in use - clocks and flowers... time to bloom, then.


They're stamped with my Hero Arts Playful Flowers letters...


... and inked and mounted on padded tape over the textured background.


The final step was to add some musical tissue tape around the edges of the canvas.  Never neglect the edges!  And I used the Distress Stains here too to tint the tape slightly to blend in with the main surface of the canvas.


So that's my Tando Creative Canvas for you.  I hope you like it (if you made it this far!).


If you missed the other Sponsor Spotlights here at Our Creative Corner this month, do check out Claudia's project, and Laura's creation - they're both fantastic.

And if you'd like to be in the draw to win the Tando prize package this month, there are just a few more days before the April 28th deadline to play in my With A Song In Your Heart challenge.  Don't forget you need to include the song title or some lyrics on your actual creation, and check out the rest of the rules by clicking on the challenge link.  Hope to see you there!  Thanks so much for stopping by today.

36 comments:

  1. Alison, this is gorgeous!! love the background, it looks fabulous with all those colours and layers of texture. A triumph!

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  2. Wow...all that beautiful texture and crackle...the colours are wonderful...Gorgeous canvas :)

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  3. Lovely choice of background paper and I love how you have added that yummy texture to it, Alison!
    A beautiful make!
    Claudia x

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  4. Fabulous creation Alison. Your choice of colours and textures add to very interesting piece. Enjoy your Day. Hugs Rita xxx

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  5. Wow, the textures on your clock canvas are AMAZING, Alison. Great idea to use 7dots paper as the base. Although there's so many layers on top it still adds to the depth.

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  6. Stunning Alison, you are on a roll, another favourite!! I love the mixed media background with all the lace and other textures and crackling! The colouring on the clock moving from earth to sky so to speak, looks wonderful too and the flowers and words make the perfect finishing touch, love this canvas!!

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  7. Gorgeous as always Alison - A spotlight to be proud of! xxxx

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  8. Alison, wow, this is even better than your Cry me a River piece. I love it. Again, you've used my favourite blues. This is truly gorgeous. Jean.x

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  9. Another crackling work of art! You have such a talent for putting the right colours and textures together to create impact and beauty. You are truly the Queen of Texture! Wonderful piece of work, Alison. xxx

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  10. this is smashing alison. totally awesome. great texture snd crackle and colouts. beautiful x

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  11. Such a pretty and clever project Alison, gorgeous! Chris xxx

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  12. Another beautiful piece of art Alsion, I always love the crackle, and the lace and fabrics look wonderful xx

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  13. Love those stamped flowers, the whole project!

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  14. Wow. At first I thought it was a card and what a lovely surprise it is to see that it's actually a canvas! I love that clock and the crackle. I love everything! !! xxx

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  15. A stunning canvas Alison...gorgeous textures and colour with more of that stunning crackle. Thank you for sharing the wonderful details with us

    Hugs Annie x

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  16. Wow, a work of art and as for all your texture, words fail me.....its just so amazing.
    Julie x

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  17. Gorgeous Alison. I always love your choice of colors and design. <3 Candy

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  18. Queen of crackle, this is gorgeous- what a fantastic background Alison, with the laces and texture ,the watch is wonderful in all the blue,green tones and love the little flowers!!
    Another amazing fantasie piece!!
    Dorthe, xox

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  19. Wow! Hee Hee, I have to laugh at the Queen of Crackle comment above, but so true! Great project!

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  20. Is there no end to the gorgeousness of your creations! I love it all. The clock hands and texture, the background, the colours representing the landscape, the crackle. Simply stunning xx

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  21. Absolutely gorgeous Alison, love that background

    Sam xx

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  22. You are an artist in every sense of the word, Alison. This is pure magic!

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  23. Fabulous canvas, great work for Tando Alison!!! I love the intense colours, the different textures, the quite simple treatment you gave to the stems in contrast (so lovely these stems, one of my favourite chippies...), in summary: ALL. Coco x

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  24. Brilliant! All the textures and colours are just amazing (:o)

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  25. Wow Alison, what a masterpiece, I love the structure, the solours and what a great image of the time to bloom!!!Great ART!!

    Greetings
    Maria

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  26. Truly stunning with outstanding texture. Love all your step x step photos to see it's making. Brilliant spotlight. Nicola x

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  27. I first saw this on Pinterest and was blown away, one of my fave's for certain. You achieve the best crackle effect I have ever seen Alison. It gives it such depth and the colors are fantastic. A superb canvas!!! xx

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  28. Wow Alison - this is amazing, I love everything about it.
    xxx Hazel.

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  29. Wow Alison this is stunning, I love the way you have managed to match the background papers so well with the sprays, and all the textures are amazing. I also love the way you carry your textures and colours around the edges of your projects. Mo x

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  30. Alison
    I absolutely love your treatment of the paper, making it your own and bringing even more texture to this stunning canvas.
    Also love the idea of such a large canvas, I've never worked on a 12"x12" (a little lie as I have done when I dabbled in scrapbooking onto canvas but it was never for me, scrapbooking didn't ignite any passion.)
    Carrying the colour and texture onto the edges is always a gorgeous touch and shows attention to detail.
    Wishes
    Lynne

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  31. This is superb Alison. Fabulous crackle and stencil background and perfect rainbow dial. Love it. Jenny x

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  32. This is absolutely beautiful, Oh gorgeous background and colours fascinating. Fab clock's cracks and colours. Just wonderful. xx

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  33. Wow awesome canvas with lots of amazing texture with some of my favourite products :-) Kezzy xxx

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