Dotty the Whimsical Bird

Back to the Tando Creative and this time, Whimsical Birds. These come as a variety of grey board shapes that make bodies, heads, wings, arms, eyes and legs and the possibilities are endless. You can mix and match as you like. Here is my finished bird. I called her Dotty because she is covered in dots and spots

Orange isn't normally a colour that I would go for, but for some reason I was drawn into making an orange bird. I mixed red and yellow acrylic paints together and covered all the shapes, apart from the legs, in orange paint. I then toned it down a bit and made a yellow acrylic wash and painted over the orange. Then I covered some bubble wrap in yellow paint and stamped it all over the bird.

I hand painted orange spots on and then went around the edges of the bird with black dots made with a fineliner. I added the detail for the beak and also outlined the eyes with a thin line of black dots.

For a finishing touch I added glossy accents over the eyes and the legs. Here is a slightly better close up

For the background, I had some mini canvases that I hadn't thought of a use for before so I painted it over in a pale blue crackle paint. I then mixed some green acrylic paint with water and added a wash to the crackle paint, which really helped draw out the cracked effect.

I sealed this with glossy modge podge to stop the cracks from flaking off.






Then I decided I needed some clouds. I found an outline online, traced it onto tissue paper and then modge podged it on. However, the clouds went see through so I had to paint over them with white paint
I wasn't sure what to do at the bottom, but then I found a brick stencil and thought I would make him look like he was sat on a wall. I used texture paste, let it dry and the painted it over with brown acrylic paint

When the bricks dried they look really nice and stone like and full of texture.

I then stuck on Dotty the bird with some acrylic craft glue and she will hang pride of place on the wall in my craft room

Claire x

The distressed look, heat embossing & acrylic paints

This was a technique that I tried out a few months ago and thought I would share it with you. It involves heat embossing and acrylic paint to achieve an unusual distressed look.

Here is the first card I made:

Here is what you need:

Coloured card, co-ordinating coloured acrylic paint, clear embossing powder, versamark ink pad, stamps of your choice, heat gun, large paint brush, a tissue

1) Choose the coloured card - this will be the colour that shows through your design.

2) Stamp your chosen image with the versamark ink onto the card and emboss with the clear powder.

3) Paint over the image and the surrounding card with the acrylic paint and allow to dry

4) Once the paint has dried, take the tissue and dampen it with water. Lightly rub over the embossed image to remove the paint, revealing the coloured card underneath. Then leave it to dry.

And now you have your image. Here is a close up of the flower on the card:

I applied some turquoise ink to the edges of the flower. On the background, I highlighted some of the features of the stamp, such as the watch and some of the wording, with some gold perfect pearls.

I then had a go at another card, which didn't turn out quite as expected but it can always be worked on:

The background was made using black card. I didn't have any white paint at the time (I have now purchased some so might have to try it again), so I used some picket fence distress stain. It didn't work quite as well as the paint probably would have done, because the black still shows through quite a bit.

The picture in the middle was made using red card and a bronze paint. Again, it didn't stand out as much as I would have liked because the colours were too similar, but it was an experiment and now I know what I need to change next time.

It can be a bit messy and time consuming as you have to wait for it to dry each time, but it can be very effective.