Crafty countdown- 66 days to go

Today: sitting in my messy craft room, the weather chilly and blustery outside, the dogs chilled, radio 6 on with Giles Peterson playing some cool tunes. Crafting. It's one of those days when I have to steal myself, this is bliss. I thank my lucky stars that I'm able to do this. 

And, talking of stars (seemless), sitting in my room are 3 boxes of cool little stars which I bought ages ago for my web site, but couldn't list as the boxes were all damaged - it's not a major disaster as I kept them :)

Normally things like this make we want to get out the triple thick embossing powder, but as these have holes in, they're shouting out to be used with wire.

I also had on my desk a piece of Meg which had already been base coated with black paint, then white gesso

I blobbed some paint on my craft sheet, and applied with an old towel. This adds texture whist applying the paint 

Next I used a stencil and sponged the paint through 

I didn't worry about It being perfect. And I never pre-plan these things. It's all about playing and experimenting - seeing what happens. To emphasise the circles I used my pocky tool to scratch rough circles into the mdf

I like the exposure of the black paint and mdf. However, it looks a little heavy, so I used white gesso to knock the intensity back a little

The base is rough from the scratching, so I lightly sanded it, and sanded the edges, to reveal some of the black paint.

Really happy with this now, like the texture and the colours, so I'm ready to stamp. This is the scary bit - once I've stamped I have to love it or paint over the whole thing! I didn't want to stamp with black as I thought this would be too heavy, so I used a nice denim from Adirondack, and one of my fav stamps from stampers anonymous, another Tim Holtz collection.

I then painted my stars and threaded them with coated wire. I used a nice pliable wire 

Don't they look cool! Now to apply them to my base. I used 3D foam under the moon, and then a combination of pinflair and cosmic shimmer glues. I sculpted the wire, so my stars say precisely where i wanted them:

Really happy with it. I added a little black paint to the moon and stars to lift them off the base, and then couldn't help myself - glitter glue!! Has to be stickles star dust. Not to much, but just enough to give it a subtle sparkle:

Countdown - 69 days to go!

Hooray, day 2 of the countdown, and I've done a post (it would have been bad if I hadn't got to day 2 wouldn't it!).

However, my obsession with Angelina fibres has continued.  Once I get started with them, I don't seem to be able to stop.  And why should I stop, they are fabulous to play with.  

I decided to continue with the technique I showed yesterday, when I made the free standing cone.  This time I dug out a battery operated string of tiny LED lights.  These are already pretty, but I made tiny Angelina cones to fit over each LED light.  I punched two holes in the top of each cone using a hole punch, to thread the wire and lights through each cone.  A twist of the wire at the top of the cone, holds each one in place.  I've had them on a few hours now, and they are perfect:

Angelina fibres only bond to each other, so that means you can "trap" other things in them.  Experiment with this, as it really can change the look of your finished piece.  I created quite a thick sheet of fibres and trapped some silver metal flakes, and some white snow flakes:

Sandwich in between greaseproof paper and iron both sides.

I actually over ironed mine, on purpose of course (!!), you will hopefully see from the photo, the part that isn't burnt shines more than the part that has been over-heated.  However, I still liked the result, so still used it:

I created a thicker sheet as I wanted to die cut the fibres.  If they are fine, a regular die will have trouble cutting them.  The thicker sheet cuts well, but I did add a shim.  I used a lovely die from the Sue Wilson collection, it's the poinsettia collection.  I used the full die set with the angelina fibres, and then with the frame dies I just cut plain white card stock.

Glue them together, and then I popped a brad through the center.  My brads are so old!  These are from a kit I used to have when I worked at QVC.  This is why us crafters don't chuck anything decent away, stuff always comes in handy.  

Cut your ATC card to size, I used red card, then a smaller piece of white card, which I embossed and added a touch of gilding wax.  Glue the poinsettia in place, and then add a little Christmas message.

To finish, I added a little glitter glue.

Two down.......