The big 50!

So, in a few days time my little sister celebrates her 50th Birthday, and I'd like to share the project I made for her, and it's matching card.

I've never really done anything 3-d in my crafting before and have never attempted anything that might even vaguely be classed as a mixed media project, so to say I was winging it wouldn't be too far from the mark. Here is the big 50 - what do you think? Hope she'll like it, and it might even make up part of the table decorations!

I started with a big cardboard 5 and 0 from Tesco's childrens crafting section (they had a BOGOF offer, which was lucky for me!), then painted them all over with two or three coats of gesso and stuck them together. I really need to be better at remembering all the details and having my camera to hand when I'm doing a project, but what can I say - I'm just not that organised!

I then used the Clarity Stamp Birdhouse set to stamp the fence, birdhouse, flowers, birds and animals onto white tissue paper, using black archival ink. When everything was dry, I then added a little texture to parts of the project using grungepaste through a honeycomb stencil. Then I had to wait for that to dry too....

About a week later, I started to adhere the stamped tissue paper to the white background, using Indigo Blue's Slap it On adhesive, making sure that the stamped designs went over the edges, and matched front and back for continuity.

Once that was all dry, I covered the images again with another coat of Slap it On to protect the stamping and to prevent the tissue from lifting at the edges. Then I waited again....I added Stickles glitter glue to the fence posts, to the flowers on the trailing boughs and the hollyhocks, and waited again for that to dry. Then I added a bit of distress ink to the honeycomb grungepaste areas, and a bit of dimensional paint to the hollyhocks, and then glued a few sequin flowers to the front for a bit more bling. Finally I used a little creamy lace and sewed some lace flowers as I felt there were a couple of bare areas that needed something extra.





I made a matching card using the same stamp kit, a black and old paper ink pad, and added my sister's name and age, just in case the Big 50 wasn't enough of a reminder!

I really enjoyed making this, even though I had sticky and inky fingers for the best part of a month, and I'd definitely do another mixed media project in the future - might even crack open those lovely pristine Clarity Canvasses that I've had up on the shelf for almost 6 months!!!

I'm entering this project into the Clarity Challenge for August, which is a Bingo Challenge - I've used the diagonal line Flowers, Stamp and Glitter, and also the middle horizontal line, Stencil, Stamp and GrungePaste - not quite a Full House, but definitely more than my usual less is more approach.

I love to read everyone's comments, so please let me know what you think - apologies if it takes some time to get back to you, but I've got a party to go to down in London!! Happy Birthday Jackie XXX

Susan