Grungy Heart!

Hi Folks!  Wet and very cold here in Ayrshire but it is good crafting weather!  I have been having a second play with a new Heart Stencil.  I used the inner bit on the book cover that I showed you in my last post about the Art Journal  The stencil is from Clarity Stamp and it is this months FREE stencil which arrived along with the new FREE stamp of the month.  I am part of the New Design Club at Clarity Stamp.  I am a GOLD member which means that I get a stamp and a stencil every month.
Along with the Stencil I have once again thrown in grunge boards, grunge paste and acrylic paint.   This is what I made.

I have to say at the start that if you plan on doing this then you will NEED a goodly amount of Wet Wipes, Kitchen Roll, warm Soapy Water (for cleaning your stencils, scraper, palette knife and paint brushes).  Use either a craft sheet or a glass cutting mat (I ended up using both).
Can I also say that this post might seem to jump about a bit but there was a lot of waiting around for things to dry so I have actually written this in the order that I did things.

So I began by taking 4 small boards, taped together (temporary) turned over and painted with White Acrylic.  Added a Flourish. Painted more Acrylic over the flourish. Left to dry.

      

Tape Heart Stencil over boards, add Grunge Paste, remove stencil, Leave to dry.  Place Inner part of Stencil over the Heart, add more Grunge Paste, Take Craft Knife through the paste to separate the squares. Leave to dry.

Lay down some Underskirt Netting then Paint Red Acrylic over Squares. Leave to dry.  Add a layer of Black Acrylic but before it completely dries, wipe a lot OFF with a wet wipe then leave to dry. You can then get on with painting any embellishments

I used a small butterfly die cut and some leaves from my stash.  Painted them Red, then Black repeating what I did above.  Then I did a bit of Brushing with Gold Mica powder.  So my Butterfly ended up looking like this!  Let everything dry.

Now at this point I would like to say that this project was inspired by a piece that  Maria Simms did using this technique.   I Would also like to say that I have altered it a bit, why?  Because Maria Used Gold Acrylic paint and I had none!!! So I had to improvise.  When I took the wet wipe to the Black Acrylic it made it a bit more tacky so that is when I added the Mica powder.  I used Perfect Pearls Mica Powder as it does have its own adhesive quality.

For Framing the boards I took a piece of Printable Canvas and once again repeated the Process with the paint and Mica Powder.  Once dry I cut it into an 8 x 8 square, attached it to a sheet of Patterned paper, cut this into 9.5 x 9.5 square.  I decided that the paper was a bit too pink so I used a Stencil Brush and Archival - Coffee to give it a better shade.  I then attached this to a 10 x 10 Canvas Board which I had cut to size and painted with Black Acrylic.

 I quite liked the boards before I added the Mica Powder.

I added the leaves and butterfly using a silicone glue.  By this time all the natural daylight had gone and my lighting is terrible. There is a lot more shimmer to it than I wanted but it has turned out well. It is also not so dark...must take lessons in photography!!

The piece is now in the hands of its new owner, so I am a very happy crafter!

If you have a go at this design, drop me a note and a picture and I will share it for you.

Happy Crafting!

p.s. Now I will go and have a play with the new stamp!