Teatime in wonderland, wearing my best hat!

Hello lovely people.

I hope you enjoyed the show on Hochanda and it has got your creative juices flowing.

I was lucky enough to try out the project packs before the show and I have to say I really enjoyed doing them.

I created the hat first as my muse was screaming at me to do that one.

Sadly I did not do step by step photos as I was way too excited to crack on and play.

I had a piece of quite chunky crochet material I wanted to use and this was just the job.

I first laid out all the parts of the kit and decided how I was going to display them, before getting out the Powertex and going for it.

My muse already knew what colour theme I was going to do, so first I painted the top hat in the BLUEBERRY PIE and MOJITO LIME

Paint and Powertexed my crochet material and laid it on the hat.

I used the green and did a bit of blending with the blueberry and dry brushed with the white pigment to highlight.

I added the rice papers to the playing cards and added texture in the form of sand balls to the top part of the cards.

I took the feather and added texture to that using stone art and Powertex and used a pokey tool to make it look like a feather, dry brushed with black.

I used more of the crochet material to the bottom part of the hat and then measured and soaked some material to give it a more 3D effect to the middle part of the hat.

I used easy 3D FLEX on the tag and gave it a crackle effect using some brown bister and added the MDF numbers and painted them with easy varnish mixed with black pigment.

And my mad hatter's hat I felt was completed.

The next kit I found more of a creative challenge and my muse was stumped on how to go about this one, I think as the rice papers are so pretty, it kind of threw me a little, as this is not more normal style!

 I sat and played around with combinations for a while until I decided upon a design my muse liked but once I started, I did not stop until it was done.

Firstly I wet ripped the rice paper, by this I mean if you dunk a fine paintbrush in water and run it around the part of the rice paper/tissue paper you want to use, it comes away quite easy and looks a better finish when laid down on a structure.

I then added lace to other parts of the teapot and cups and saucers and decoratively painted the flowers and flamingo and the little mouse on the top. I added a piece of string dipped in transparent Powertex. I painted the MDF wording in the blue paint and stuck down using Powertex as my glue.

I forgot the mention I added a few lace butterflies as well.

It turned out very pretty (for me) and I loved incorporating the rice papers into my design.

I hope all the design team blogs on this theme have inspired you all.

Until my next blog .... Go be creative

Jinny x

Pixie's Powertex Palace

Pixie's Powertex Palace by Abigail Lagden

I absolutely love all things magical, so I was ridiculously excited when my fairy house project pack arrived and couldn't wait to get started. Here's what's included:

First, I laid out a rough design so see where all the bits looked best whilst I had a little think about texture. I like my pieces to have loads of texture and depth and I don't like to leave any flat surfaces plain if I can help it.

I wanted to give my little house a natural feel, like it had grown from a woodland. So for the texture for the roof and toadstools I went for a rummage through my pieces of embossed wallpaper. I drew around the MDF pieces on the wallpaper to cut out the perfect size and shape.

The paper decoration included in the kit gives a lovely natural stringy texture, so a piece of this was perfect to cover the base of the house.

Once I had all my bits prepared, it was time to get house building...

I painted the top surface of the house base with black Powertex and the bottom part of the back of the roof, and attached the two pieces together (Powertex is one of the best glues I have come across!!). I wanted my fairies to have a shorter, more squat house so I attached the roof quite low down leaving a bit of the base part poking up out of the edge of the roof - not a problem as I had an idea to disguise it.

I then painted the front of the roof with black Powertex and whilst wet, placed the pre-cut piece of wallpaper onto it and painted it over with the Powertex. I did the same with the toadstools using some different wallpapers.

To cover the base of the house I worked black Powertex into a piece of natural paper decoration and gently stretched it out to produce a stringy sheet which would give texture across the wall.

On the MDF door, I used the stencil from the kit and Powertex Easy Structure to add the word 'dream'. (This is after all going to be the dream house.) 

Once dry this was painted over and attached to the house using Powertex along with the toadstools.

Now it was time to add all the windows, lace and embellishments. As well as the embellishments included in the kit I also added a moulded fairy door and a few buttons and hessian covered hearts from my hoards. To cover up the sticking up corner of the base, I added a hessian chimney - fairies love an open fire you know.

Whilst I wanted my house to have a natural feel, I couldn't resist a magical rainbow roof using a mixture of powercolor pigments and varnish. Once coloured, I felt it needed a little bit more magic so I used the interference powders in the kit to give it some iridescent highlights. 

These powders are truly magical and can appear quite different depending on the base colour - so have fun experimenting.

Can you spot which extra embellishments I snuck on before adding colour?

It's always tricky to know when to stop!!

If you like this project, you can have a look at what else I've been up to on my Facebook page and my website.

Until next time, Abs x