Something wicked this way comes! by Anna Emelia Howlett

Some of our family live in Canada and it's kind of a big thing to decorate your houses and go trick or treating. Every year we get photos of the different outfits chosen and the copious amounts of candy my nieces have collected. We don't so much celebrate Halloween in our household. However, I do happen to have a Harry Potter inspired room. And this guy is going to fit right in. 

He was rather a challenge but here is my ghoul inspired Dementor. And I am about to walk through with you exactly how he was created. So you can make one as a decoration for Halloween or just as a permanent feature to your room. 

Suggested Ingredients list: Wire, empty kitchen roll, masking tape, skull head, Black Powertex, cheese cloth or old t-shirt, stockinette, powercotton, white powercolor, silver colortricx, interference blue pigment, varnish.

Step One: I had a spare mini skull in my stash. I cut his teeth out and changed the angel of his jaw. Holding it in place with a long piece of wire. Making a loop at the top I thread the wire through the top of the head holding the jaw in place, leaving a length as his neck. Then attached to a kitchen roll, which I bent into an arch for his shoulders and covered in masking tape. I measured about 60cm of wire to pass through the roll before taping up these would become the base of his arms.

Step two: I used some masking tape to fill in his mouth and around his eye sockets which I made a little larger by cutting out with a scalpel. And started wrapping the arm wire with foil. Using more around the top and bottom end of the section to create a bone looking shape.

Step three: I took 6 lengths of quite long wire. I wanted my ghoul to have long boney fingers. Taping at the base I bent one length done to be able to attach to the arm. The other lengths I trimmed so they mimicked the length of fingers on a hand. 

 Step four: Then I started covering with masking tape. Adding tin foil at the knuckles and then covering in masking tape. Attach the hands to the end of the wire arm by winding the spare wire at the hands wrist section around the bone arm base. Cover up with masking tape.

Step Five: This is the type of base you want to have created. I covered in Black Powertex and kitchen roll to give the base and extra sinewy finished. But you can skip that part if you like. 

Step Six: I draped a piece of cloth over the shoulders to create a base to work up from. An old pair of cheese cloth curtains, but you could use an old t-shirt.

Step Seven: Create a hood with lighter cheese cloth material or t-shirt. Then add stockinette to add depth and texture and then some Powercotton draped over for extra texture.

Drape all the different textures through the boney fingers.

Step Eight: My favourite part. Dry brush using varnish and white powercolor. I then used a touch of silver colortricx in places. And for the hands and the face a touch of interference blue powder pigment from The Secret Art Loft range. 

 I love to show how you can make a piece by re-purposing or building your own base. If you don't wish to create the structure you could always buy a skeleton base instead and decorate that in the same way. I also forgot to add some paper decoration. I love this as texture it would work perfectly for this project. The great thing about Powertex is you can add to it when dry. So I can always go back and add some paper dec at a later date! 

Don't forget to share all your makes with us on Facebook in The Powertex Studio group or on the Powertex Addicts United page.

You can find me at Rosehart Studio on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Toodles Anna xXx

Halloween Candlestick Holders

Sam is back with us at the Powertex UK blog and has been kind enough to share another of her fantastic projects with us. Read on to be inspired. Do leave a comment at the bottom of the blog or share your makes with us over on Facebook in The Powertex Studio group or Powertex Addicts United page. 

So here we are, all set up for another play.

I took a cardboard tube, the core of a kitchen roll, drew around the clay skull and roughly cut it out without squashing the tube.

I checked that the skull fitted in the hole, but I didn't want it loose.

Using masking tape I created a shelf about an inch down from the tops of the tube.

I started covering them with black Powertex. 

I covered the battery tea lights with cling film.

I covered both of the tubes in fabric and other embellishments. Once the fabric was on the taller tube, I pushed the skull into the hole.

Added more clay pieces, lace and wool.

Added the clay wings.

I painted everything in black Powertex and then set them outside to dry.

I brought them back inside and left them overnight to totally dry.

Once dry, I took out the tea lights which were still covered in cling film. The fabric where they'd been sat was still a bit wet, so I left them out to let the fabric fully dry.

Once totally dry, I dry brushed them with silver and turned on the tea lights.

And these are the opposite sides, ie the back.

Had loads of fun making these and love how they've come out.

Venetian Dreams

For this month's blog I was given the Venetian Masquerade Project pack to work with, and my goodness is there a lot to play with in this kit.  No less than three MDF masks, oodles of mdf embellishments, and some absolutely beautiful venetian rice paper.

How gloriously decadent.

I'm not lucky enough to have ever been to Venice, but I always imagine it to have a slightly surreal air about it.

I decided to create a triptych using three long canvasses.  Because of my perceived idea of what Venice is like, I was aiming to create a dream like feel. I don't know about you, but I always find Venetian masks gorgeous, but also slightly ominous, and I also  wanted to convey this in my final piece. 

To start off with I laid out my three canvasses, and placed my Powertex goodies on them to get a rough idea of how I was going to do this. I always do this in the full knowledge that my ideas will change once I get going, and I'm absolutely fine with this.  Go with the flow is my motto.

Once I had a rough plan, I set about creating a watery feel by pouring ivory powertex and blue powertex onto the canvas, and swirling them together with a scraper.  I then added some blue bister in patches to add a feeling of depth.

Now it was time to add the absolutely beautiful Powertex Venetian Rice Paper, which I did by tearinground the bits I wanted to use, and then carefully adding them onto the canvas using easy varnish.

I then painted my mdf masks in the Secret Art Loft Acrylic Paint Blueberry Pie, before adding some Easy 3D Flex on top of this.  I like to add a bit of colour underneath 3D Flex so that you get glimpses of it coming through once the cracks start to appear.  To make 3D Flex I mixed in in with Ivory Powertex to create a clay texture and then put this on top of my masks.  I left them in a warm place to dry overnight, which is when the cracks develop.

Now it was time to start putting the whole thing together.  I used the gorgeous inteference pigments to add an ethereal sheen to my masks, and for the lips I used red powertex sprayed over with brown bister to create an end of the night decadence to them.

Ages ago I had picked up the black lacy masks knowing that at some point the perfect opportunity for using them would arise, and here was just that opportunity.  I soaked these in transparent powertex before adding them to my masks.

I wanted my smaller mask to have a bit of bling to it, so added some chainmail junk jewellery I had in my stash to the beak. I then made a headress using more jewellry and the mdf feathers.  I  toned the whole thing down by spraying with brown bister before using my fingers to rub in more interference pigments and also turquoise throughout the whole piece where I felt it needed a bit more light and shade.

Finally, I felt the need to add actual feathers to my smaller mask.  I always know once I get my feathers out that it is time to stop, so I downed tools at that point.

If I'm perfectly honest, I did find this project a bit of a challenge.  But I'm really pleased with the end result.  I'd love to see what you do with your project pack.  Please do post them onto our Powertex Addicts Facebook Page.

You can see more of my work on www.facebook.com/artmuralsbydonnamcghie  and   www.artandmurals.co.uk

Powertex Fairy House Step by Step

Making your own Powertex fairy house wall hanging is as easy as ABC when you use the Powertex MDF project pack.

Here are my simple step by step instructions.  Feel free to use your imagination and come up with your own versions.

1.  Lay out your template and whatever embellishments you choose to decorate it with.

2.  Use black Powertex hardener to paint all the mdf pieces.  Then attach the roof to the main body of the house.  You can use Powertex to do this as it acts as a very strong glue.

3.  I had originally planned to use some textured wall paper for the body of the house, but as I was using corrugated cardboard for the roof, I decided to use this for the body of the house also, but added variety by turning it sideways.

Draw around the shapes you want to cover and cut them out of the cardboard (or textured material/paper of your choice.)  Then soak the this in the powertex and place it onto the mdf.

(I don't know why, but I always imagine fairies living in quite ramshackle houses, so before soaking my cardboard, I tore off random pieces of the ridges to reveal the smoother underneath card, just to add a feeling of wear and tear.)  I also added some thin string in sort of hash tag shapes to give a slight patched up feeling to my house.

4.  Now place the embellishments where you want them to go.  For my design  I also soaked some pieces of thin material to add texture to the door, and added some little buttons just because I thought they looked cute.

5.  Allow the house time to dry off completely.  This process can be speeded up by using a hair dryer.

6.  Once it is dry, and the fabric feels hard to the touch you can dry brush your design.

Dry Brushing

7.  Dip a flat brush into a small amount of Powertex Easy Varnish.

8.  Now dip your brush into a small amount of Powertex Colour Pigment of your choice.

9.  Wipe the brush off on a piece of paper towel before sweeping it gently over your design.  The aim is to pick up the highlights of your texture, not cover the whole thing completely.  It is advisable to start off lightly and build up the depth of colour you are aiming for, as a little goes a long way.  You do not need to use a huge colour palette.  For this design I used Burgundy, Silver and a tiny bit of White

And there you have it.  A gorgeous little Powertex fairy dwelling that any of the little folk would be proud to live in.

Please note, the little sparkles are my own little resident fairies courtesy of the KiraDroid photo app.

Hats off to Powertex UK and the New Alice in Wonderland Inspired Kits

Powertex combined with Alice in Wonderland? Whoever would have come up with that idea?  The guys at Powertex UK that's who.  And you've got to admit it, it's a match made in heaven.

As anyone who has ever dabbled with Powertex will tell you, the possibilities for going with the imaginative flow are limitless.  Throw in a bit of the total other wordliness of Alice in Wonderland and you just know you are in for a roller coaster ride of creativity.

The kits I got to experiment with were the Top Hat Set, and the Tea Party Set.  Both available from Powertex UK.   

They are both the most fun ever, but being more of a mad hatter type of girl than a tea time kind of girl I have decided to show what I did with the top hat set in this blog:

 I started off by painting the whole thing with black powertex, and allowing the pieces to dry separately.

I then carefully tore round some of the card shapes in the Alice in Wonderland Rice Paper. I used Powertex easy varnish to position the Cheshire Cat in pride of place on the hat.  And then placed the smaller ones over the card shapes.  I decided to have these sneakily poking out of the top of the hat.  I used some very scrappy thin lace that I had in my material stash to add some shabby texture to the hat.

Doing the feather was my favourite part.  I used Powertex Power Cotton covered in black powertex and gradually built up the strands of the feather shape and allowed it to dry.  I then used the new inteference powders available from Powertex UK to add a gloriously irredescent sheen to the feather.

 I wanted the hat to be at a slightly jaunty angle, so when I was piecing it together with the hat band, I made sure not to be too accurate with my placement of the top part.

I used a nice quality piece of natural fabric soaked in the powertex to cover the band with, making sure to get lots of nice texture and wrinkles going, and again used the inteference powders to enhance this texture once it was dry.

I fished out an old bow tie I'd picked up from a second hand store ages ago, and also knew at once that I had to use a little tassle I'd been hanging onto waiting for just the right project.  I think it adds an air of shabby decadence.

I added a few stone art flowers, and couldn't resist adding  an mdf cobweb as I very much doubt the Mad Hatter takes good care of his possessions.  I also got to use the wonderful new and very bright acrylics on the 10/6 price tag.

All in all I would say this has been my favourite MDF kit to date.  I just love the crazy funkiness of it, and the freedom to go fairly wild.

As Alice herself said 'This is my dream - I'll decide where it goes from here' I wonder where your Wonderland adventures will take you?

We hope you are enjoying this new theme. Do share you makes with us over at the Powertex Studio as we love to see your creations.

You can see more of my Powertex creations on my facebook page and also my website www.artandmurals.co.uk 

Take time to do what makes your soul happy

When I first caught glimpse of this project pack I was super excited. This was one fun project to make. And I thoroughly enjoyed creating this pocket watch. It was even more exciting because I got to use our Tracey's studio at hq to create mine. There is no feeling like being in a big studio with every Powertex product imaginable to hand. Oh its heaven.......

So without further a do here is my design for this months project pack.

As usual I made a layout of the items I was going to use. I just had to use some of the rose and daisy embellishments. I made some stone art clay with the stone art powder and Powertex and pushed the  clay into the daisy and rose mould.

Top tip: If you layout your composition for the design you wish to achieve before you start, its a lot less messy.

 Next I took my Ivory Powertex and coated all the mdf and embellishments. The only thing you need here is Powertex. It's magic formula glues, sticks and paints your works of art.

Top tip: I didn't use all of the mdf shapes in the pack. This means I have them leftover for any other projects I wish to use them on. You can chose to use them all or save some for other projects you have in mind.

Top tip: Your items won't be instantly stuck so if you want to relocate them you can pick them up easily and move them to another part of your design.

To add some extra texture to the piece I took some sand and balls and mixed them into some Ivory Powertex I had poured out. I then used a plastic palette knife to apply the mixture on various areas of the piece. 

 I then sprayed blue bister on the left side, green in the middle and black on the right side. I accidentally used brown and only have the photo with brown. But I just sprayed the black on over the top. Bister is a walnut stain so it covered the brown perfectly.

Top tip: I like to mix my bister granules in a small bowl with hot water, this enables them to dissolve better. I use the back of a teaspoon to crush any granules that haven't fully dissolved. You can pop them in a spritz bottle and shake them, it completely personal preference.

I then dry brushed red ochre, yellow ochre and turquoise powercolor over the black stained side, to give a faux rust effect. And turquoise, moss green and yellow ochre on the blue side. 

I think you can tell I loved creating this one and I had some left overs that I can use for other projects. I hope you all enjoy the project pack and find some inspiration in our blogs. Do share your makes with us at Powertex addicts united on Facebook or join our new group. We love to see what you are making. Toodles Anna xXx You can find more of my work on @ Rosehart Studio.