September Sponsor Spotlight With Tando - Number 1

Hello everyone, Julia here with the first of our Sponsor Spotlight posts this month. We are delighted to be sponsored by Tando who produce wonderful chipboard products along with stencils and other must have items. Click on the image below to be taken to the Tando website.

For my spotlight I chose to use the Floral Grab Bag containing a variety of flower shapes in different sizes.

These chipboard products are wonderful to use with layers of paints, inks, mediums and your heat gun as they won't tear or buckle. Click on the image above to read more information about this product.

I decided to continue with the orange theme for my spotlight - (sorry to those who will require sunglasses to look at this post!). The light wood and yellow gives a little relief this time! I've made a hanging sign using a piece of driftwood I found on a local beach. It's a little 'sweet' for my taste but the person I have in mind to receive it will be very pleased!

The sign is hung with rusty wire and the driftwood has been left in an unfinished state to show the natural beauty of the grain.

Each flower is embossed in a folder and coated with gesso.

To achieve the graduated colour (ombre) on the flowers, various DecoArt paints were used - you can see the colour names in each image. Some colours may need more coats / or a thicker coat due to their transparency or pigment content.
 

The next colour is blended with a brush into the first colour.

The final colour is applied. Don't worry if the blending isn't perfect - this will be corrected in the following steps.

Each dry flower is then coated with a dark shade of brown paint.

Leave the paint for a short time then remove paint from raised areas using a baby wipe. Do this carefully as you will remove all the paint if you are too vigorous! Once dry, each flower is coated with either DecoArt Triple Thick Glaze or One Step Crackle.

This flower has Triple Thick Glaze applied. You can see how the rather clumsy blending now appears to be smoothly graduated - love how that happens!

This little flower has One Step Crackle applied followed by a little paint rubbed into the cracks here and there. A small black gem finished the flower.

Foliage is die cut from grungeboard (Tando produce some lovely leaves - why not check them out!).
After a good coat of gesso, the foliage is painted with the darker shade (as shown above left) followed by the lighter shade applied randomly with a piece of cut and dry foam. Finally, more lovely crackle! 

The letters were hand drawn and cut from grungeboard. The colour was applied as stated earlier (ombre technique). Brown paint was not applied. Instead, a damask image was stamped onto each letter using versamark followed by embossing with gold powder - I tend not to fully melt the powder because I prefer the finished result to be less than perfect! The edges were inked with archival coffee ink. Triple Glaze was then applied but I it was not the look I wanted. Help! I wanted a more antiqued look but was faced with a super smooth and shiny set of letters. I then applied some One Step Crackle and hoped it would work. I really love how it changed the look of the letters especially after adding a little burnt umber paint here and there.
A crackled fimo heart had to make an appearance didn't it?!

The small round 'buttons' make another appearance - these are made from fimo clay and finished with paint and crackle glaze.

The wire is attached to the wood with staples which are then hidden by the flowers.

A happy accident occurred on the letters. Once all the layers were dry, some of the gold EP had changed to a more silvery shade which I love. It gives that old, used look.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you are inspired by what can be done with a simple chipboard shape.

Have you entered our new challenge yet called 'Flaming June'? Click here to read all the details - it would be lovely if you joined in the fun too. Keep visiting us throughout the month as we have lots more inspiration for you with sponsor spotlights, guest designer post not to mention the winners from last month and a showcase post for one of our very talented followers.