Nests and Eggs

 A Shadowbox for the Country View Craft Challenge - Easter - bunnies,chicks or eggs,

I have put together a curated collection of elements to create this curio shadowbox

Process Steps

Background - Scrape some gesso randomly on the paper, dry and stamp with text, I used ground espresso distress ink.

Making the nests - Pull out some natural cocosfibre, wind tightly round a pencil glue together with heat gun. Cut some of the fibre away and create a second one to glue on top keeping it to fit the dome. Keep pushing thumbs down in the centre to create the bowl nest shape. 

Spray with distress sprays to get the colour you want. I used gathered twigs. I then made two more and set them on two wooden spools bound with dark brown hemp.

Painting the eggs. Line them up on some double sided sticky tape to keep them secure and free from fingers for painting.

Here the nests were settled on the tops of two wooden reels.

The large bottles were filled with moss and three of the painted & speckled eggs. I added some brown paint to make them somewhat distressed. 

This is how I put the nest together for the dome.

The feathers actually ended up in a different bottle. 

And so did the twigs.

I used Tim's matchbox die to make these boxes for the larger die-dut eggs to sit in. I used leftover pieces of distressed card to cut them.

The smaller die-cut eggs were raised slightly by some small pieces of dowling wood my hubbie cut me.

It took several days to make decisions on how to put this together but I love that there are lots of eggs here to fit the theme of the challenge.

xx

Supplies

Tim Holtz latest paper pack for background and the title came from an old 8x8 TH pad  https://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/th94473-tim-holtz-palette-collection-neutral-8x8-183470-p.asp

Tim Holtz dies - Vault Matchbox 666604

Tim Holtz Stamps - Ledger Script CMS241   https://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/tim-holtz-stamps-by-stampers-anonymous-193-c.asp

Tim Holtz - Idea-ology Bottles, tny eggs, ephemera, Curator snippets,   https://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/tim-holtz-idea-ology-102-c.asp

DecoArt - Decoupage    https://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/decoart-americana-decou-page-sealerglue-gloss-4oz-167418-p.asp   Gesso not in stock

Tim Holtz - Ranger - distress paints - tumbled glass, weathered wood, fired brick, seedless preserves, ground espresso, vintage photo     https://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/tim-holtz-distress-paints-436-c.asp

Distress Inks - ground espresso, scorched timber  https://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/distress-ink-pads-1907-c.asp

Distress Sprays - Pine Needles, Twisted Citron, walnut stain, antique linen,    https://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/tim-holtz-distress-spray-stains-696-c.asp

Sizzix dies - eggs a very old set.

49&Market Mindful Moments words  Out of stock

Use a frame - CVC April #2

 Apple Blossom Frame

The cherry blossom in my garden, that I can see from my workroom window, is stunning and when I was out last month, in the sun, it was buzzing with bees, in fact I can see a few now flying around the flowers, in and out.               (Time of writing 23/03/25)

I have used the beautiful Apple Blossom edition of stamps by my lovely friend Alison Bomber to meet the challenge theme for Country View Crafts. I stamped all the images and then cut them out and watercoloured the blossoms with distress inks.

I adhered the large blossoms in the background and added some wood offcuts to support the frame.

I extended the layer frame to fit the size of the opening and sewed around it to match the rest of the piece.

The background was created using distress inks and clear embossing.

I added elements I had prepared to fill the bottom inside of the frame ...

.... and the top of the frame. The bottles have real dried seed heads, seeds and moss inside them. Some of the labels were bought from Etsy and others I have made myself. You can of course substitute them with TH snippets.

I also added the bird and 'Springtime'.

xx

Supplies

TH Distress Inks - Shabby Shutters, Tumbled Glass, Kitsch Flamingo, Evergreen Bough, Picked Raspberry,

Alison Bomber stamps - Apple Blossom Edition (PaperArtsy EAB46)

TH Idea-ology Layer Frames, Snippets,

TH Sizzix dies - Silhouette Birds

Ranger Archival ink - Peat Moss, 

My own bottles but Tim Holtz has great ones to use.

Country View Crafts CHRISTMAS Frame 'Grand Christmas Exhibition'

'Grand Christmas Exhibition'

Another project for Country View Crafts 'Christmas' challenge.

I couldn't resist making another Christmas frame for my sideboard display, and again a box frame from Ikea to match the previous one I made for the same challenge.

Process Steps

For this project I left in the internal frame and used a piece of lightly inked and painted background from my left overs box and then over that I mounted the poster ephemera piece.

It was then just fill the frame with bits and pieces that related  to the exhibition of toys, dolls, fancy goods and novelties. I made the gold packages, filled bottles with shiny beads .....

..... and collected together other small elements to add to the top too.

The sleigh of presents was die cut from one of Tim's Bigz dies and painted green with some narrow washi tape added. The sledge part was cut from some card painted painted and distressed to look like rust.

I added some icicles and snow-tex and ....

.... some rub-ons from 49andMarket.

I have to admit the designing and finding all the elements took much longer than the actual making, lol.

 

                                             

Materials

Tim Holtz Ideaology - 

Ephemera pack - Noel

Bottle brush trees

Corked vials

Alpha parts - frozen

Tim Holtz dies - Sizziz

Sleigh

Festive Gatherings

49andMarket - rub-on transfers

Miscellaneious from my own supplies Silver tree, games pieces, small santa, small vial, beads, icicles die - not named, the star is an old punch by Tim Holtz.

Be inspird by bottles #2

HI Everyone. I hope you've had a lovely weekend. Today I am sharing a mixed media board as my second make for my 'be inspired by bottles' challenge at Country View Challenges. 

I really got into the background layers starting with my 'Layered Shapes' technique that I taught at the CVC workshop a week or so ago.

This is how the board looked after I had glued on the die-cuts and then covered it all with gesso.......

 ..... and this is how it looked when I thought I had finished it (if you take a look at the finished photo you will see some changes). Using mainly DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints I added layers of colours and a spritz of the white media shimmer mister.......

......  finishing with some distress inks and then another shimmer mister spritz. 

The bottles were die-cut from chipboard (greyboard) and given a coat of white gesso. From there I used mask and peel, black modelling paste with a stencil, paints and metallic lustre to get these final effects

I also found photos I could use on the blocks and punched them out.

I had fun putting it all together adding some rusted elements and ribbon and also practising my asemic writing. I have collected examples and written a description of what it is on my Pinterest page.

 

I continued to add little splashes of colour with a brush a tiny amount of titanium white on a brayer and shading with both paint and distress markers until I was happy with it. I really didn't know when to finish on this one, I could have gone on forever I think.

 

If you haven't yet visited the challenge do pop over and see all the inspirational ways the team have come up to show you how to have a go at this theme.

Do pop back Friday when I will be sharing some photos from my Journalling day at Pickwell farm on Saturday - what a great day we had with some fabulous results.

Enjoy your week.

hugs Brenda xxx

Bottle shrine for CVC

Little houses seem to be all the rage at the moment so I thought I would make my own little bottle shrine for the Country View Crafts Project blog and to fit with the new Country View Challenge for January. 

 

 Once I started I was reminded of the fabulous make that Tracy sent me for my Secret Santa gift. 

Details can be found at the Country View Crafts Project blog.

Thanks for stopping by today.

hugs Brenda xxx

A new year challenge at CVC

This is my second post for today so if you missed my new year's greeting and project for the new challenge at A Vintage Journey please take a look Here.

Our new theme at Country View Challenges was chosen by me and is -

Be inspired by Bottles.

I created a table decoration for my New Year's Eve party.

 

Life began as an old glass Starbucks caramel syrup bottle and I gave it a coat of matte medium glue and when dry a coat of rustic DecoArt chalky finish paint.

I added die-cuts and Tim Holtz industrious sticker borders ......

.... and then a coat of DecoArt black gesso.

Over this I dabbed DecoArt media gold acrylic paint and because it was too bright I dripped over prussian blue, but I couldn't achieve the effects I wanted so I ended up dabbing over a coat of black.

To give me the metallic effects back over the top of the black paint I brushed over treasure gold and treasure pewter and the patterns and raised areas came back to life.

To add just a little more zest I used a fine paintbrush with the gold acrylic and dry brushed the stars and the 2016 die-cuts.

Knowing that I wanted to use this as my New Years Eve party table decoration I used Tim's snowflake rosette die with silver, gold and glitter card making double snowflakes to go back to back over BBQ sticks.

After I had added some gold Christmas twigs with baubles on and set it on the table ......

 ..... it reminded me of fireworks and looked lovely once the party arrived and we had the Christmas lights on and candles lit.

Thanks for joining me for a second time today and over 2015, I have really appreciated you visits, comments and continuing support. If you are wondering if I have a new years resolution? I have just one  --------  and that is to try and get over to your blogs more often than I have this year. I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. And to those of you who follow me by email - thank you for taking the time to pop in and see what I have been creating and making. I regularly look on Blogger stats to see my page views and am staggered that I get between 300 and 700 page-views a day. That just blows my mind.

Wishing you peace, joy and happiness for 2016.

hugs Brenda xxxx