Alchemy Wax Echinacea by Margaret Brackenbury

Hello, Imagination Crafts' fans, Margaret here with another tutorial for you. I have been asked so many times for details of how I made this little card, so I decided to write a post.

First step I took a piece of A4 card, and used Alchemy Waxes, in Coral Reef, Cobalt Blue and Bronze, just a little amount onto my craft mat, added loads of water and used a large, flat brush to sweep the colours across the card diagonally.............

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When the Alchemy Wax paint was dry I stamped the Echinacea Art Stamp onto the card with Onyx Black Versafine ink, I have found that you need a juicy ink pad and hold the stamp on to the card for a bit longer than normal to get a crisp image. Then I heat embossed with clear detail embossing powder and matted the painted card onto black card.................

 I then covered the rest of the painted card with Diamond Sparkle Medium using a brayer, you could use a brush but I find that the brayer works better. I cut another piece of black card as a mat for this too.

Finally I attached all the layers to a white card blank. I find that the Sparkle Medium mat needs to be attached with strong double sided tape and wet glue on top of the tape will give you a very strong seal.

        

There you have it, my final card. I hope you like it and I will be back again soon with another idea. Thanks for visiting the blog today.

Margaret

Nautical Crate by Martina Tidball

Good morning everyone!

So, the NEC Trade Show is over, Sue, Harvey and the whole Imagination Team have worked their socks off and we will have so many new treats to play with soon! How exciting!! Today 

I would like to share with you another of the projects I made for the launch of the Starlight Waxes – a nautical themed crate.

My first step was to cover the whole crate in a coat of White Gesso and once this was dry, paint the ends of the crate with Baltic Blue MDF Paint. I wanted to add some detail to the ends of the crate, so reached for some of the Art-Cutz. Not wanting to use loads all at once, I decided to turn the ‘waste’ part of the Art-Cutz into a stencil!

 

 I used Mediterranean Sky Starlight Wax and a Stencil Brush to stipple birds all over the sides of the crate; the wax went perfectly with the Baltic Blue to make a gentle contrast. I also added wax to the top edges of the box and the inside of the handles to tie it all together.

 

I still wanted to add something more to the edges, so I decided to use a little of the gorgeous new Diamond Blue Sparkle Medium. Taking just the border from the one of the word stencils featured in the Hochanda shows, I added a small ‘frame’ to each end.

To decorate the sides, I used Magi-Bond Decoupage Glue and some of the beautiful Rice Paper Pattern 337. I used two sheets in all to decorate the whole crate, even though each crate side was longer than A4. The paper allows you to cut or tear into it and then overlay, or add, to extend the pattern (see below – can you see the join?!).

To add the ‘gaps’ back into the crate sides, I used a craft knife to slice the paper in the middle of each gap...............

With the cuts nice and even, I used more of the glue and pushed the paper inwards with a thin nail file.

Once all was dry, I decided to paint a small strip of the Bird Art-Cutz with Sax Blue Starlight Paint to break up the images on the side of the box and add another layer of interest. The final touch - some ribbon from my stash and all done!

              

                      

Thank you for reading, I hope you like the finished crate! 

Most of the products I have used are still on the Imagination Crafts Website, the crates and the MDF Paint are still available from Hochanda at the moment, if you’re quick!

See you again soon!

Love, Martina

xxx