Sunflower Project Tray (by Anne)

Today I am sharing a decorated recycled Balsa wood cheese tray (19 X 25cm) left over from Christmas. I needed a small project tray to collect together all my embroidery and sewing thread spools when working on one of my textile stitched paintings. I kept the 3D texture to a minimum as I didn’t want my fine threads catching and pulling on anything.

I chose one of the lovely Floral Rice Papers and the fab Duo Arty Quotes Mini Stencil from Powertex to decorate. I wanted to create something that would give me some ‘arty’ inspiration. I had a few grey board embellishments in my stash so added these too for a bit of interest.

I first used a water pen to dampen around the images enabling them to be torn and separated to form soft edged pieces that will blend into the background once decoupaged.

I coated the whole tray with Ivory Powertex and dried using a hair dryer. This provided a light background for the decoupage elements. Coating the tray with Powertex hardened up the soft Balsa wood and sealed it making it easier to keep clean too. I also coated the grey board elements with Ivory Powertex.

Decorative papers were then applied using Easy Coat Mat. Easy Structure Paste was then applied through the stencil using a recycled bank card. I also added a little more texture using a grid stencil from my stash.

The embellishments were stuck down with more Powertex and a little Easy Structure Paste where needed (i.e. onto textured areas).

In the background you can see a sneak peek of my next project in progress. I like to work on several things at once so that I don’t waste time waiting for layers to dry.

Next I used a white opaque pen (acrylic paint pen) to draw extra highlights onto the main sunflower image. Then I used the new transparent acrylic inks to brush over and add a bit of colour. These are fabulous as being transparent they don’t obliterate the layers beneath. I chose the Golden Metallic and Aqua Metallic Inks to blend in with the main colour theme of the decoupaged images and to add a little sheen. I emphasized the lettering using a brown fine tipped pen (suitable for going onto acrylic).

Where needed I also rubbed over a little more Ivory Powertex using my finger to blend in the colouring where I thought it was a bit heavy.

I also rubbed on a little gold gilding wax from my stash (Pebeo).

Finally I added a little clear PVA based glitter glue to bring a little sparkle. I just couldn’t help myself. Once dry I brushed over the whole tray with Easy Varnish.

Now I have a lovely inspirational project tray. Hope that you like it too.

Hugs all and happy creating, Anne xxx

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat

by Abigail Lagden

I was so excited when I unpacked all the Alice in Wonderland goodies that I couldn't wait to get started. The acrylics were so wonderfully bright and bold that I decided I needed to create something totally different to my usual style. So, it is the tea party set that I have chosen to share with you all this month.

Anyone who knows me and my work, knows I hate flat surfaces so the first thing I did was add some texture to the body of the teapot using wallpaper and painted over this with ivory Powertex. On top of this, I added a piece of the delicious floral rice paper using Easycoat Matt.

I did the same with the saucers and I also used a little bit of wallpaper on the top part of the cups.

I mixed up some Stone Art clay using ivory Powertex and Stone Art and applied this roughly onto the teacups. I used some flower stamps from my stash to make imprints into the clay. 






I then used the gorgeous acrylic paints to paint splodges of colour onto the clay. I left this to dry for a short time before using a damp sponge to gently wipe the paint back off the surface of the clay.

The two saucers were painted using the acrylic paints and left to dry. Again a damp sponge was used to lift the paint off the raised pattern.

More ivory stone art clay was added to the handle, spout and outer edges of the teapot. Lots of daisies were made using stone art clay in the daisy mould and these were piled onto the teapot (leaving some space for Alice) and secured using a little Powertex underneath the flowers.

In the same way as the paints were used on the cups, I coloured the teapot and all the flowers.

The little Alice figure was also painted using the acrylic paints and powertex.

Once all of the individual pieces were complete and dry, they were all attached together using some transparent Powertex and the MDF bar included in the kit.

Et voila!!

The brightest most funky piece I think I have ever made - I have a feeling I may have been converted from the dark side (well... temporarily at least!)

I hope you will all enjoy playing with the new templates, paints and pigments as much as I have. Don't forget to share your makes in The Powertex Studio, we absolutely love to see them.

Until next time, Abs xx

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Steampunk Travellers Mixed Media Canvas (by Anne)

Oh my goodness – I really enjoyed myself with this Steampunk canvas – I just love to get myself lost a bit of fantasy. I used lots of Chocolate Baroque stamps from my stash and two of the new stamps from Mark Gould (Sailor Jim and The Aviator).

I first cut 2 pieces of left over mount board and trimmed them to approx. 25 X 31cm and 31 X 41 cm. The back board was coated front and back with Bronze Powertex. The second board was coated with Ivory Powertex.

I used a page from an old atlas and glued it to the board using Easy Coat Mat decoupage medium. Note: There are some lovely map themed Rice Papers on the Powertex website.

I then applied some Easy Structure paste through stencils from my stash to create some wave and cloud textures.

Next I applied elements from decorative rice papers (sea themed and pocket watches) using Easy Coat medium. It looks like the pocket watches sheet I used is out of stock but there is a similar Victorian Steampunk sheet  available. Tip: draw around the parts of the image that you desire using a water brush or pen, then gently pull away the image from the sheet. This avoids harsh cut edges and the images will blend better into the background.

I also applied a little of the new Golden Metallic Acrylic Ink through my stencils, and onto areas of the pocket watches.

I next stamped my images using Versafine Ink (Onyx Black) onto recycled tissue paper (packaging). I also stamped some onto white card using Versafine (Vintage Sepia), cut them into little sentiment strips and edged them with a dark brown alcohol marker. The images and text sentiments were applied to the canvas using Easy Coat decoupage medium.

I added a little colour over the decoupaged stamp images using Golden Metallic and Aqua Acrylic Inks. These inks have a lovely translucency so do not obliterate the image beneath. You don’t need to be super careful with colouring either.

My characters were stamped onto smooth stamping card using Versafine (Vintage Sepia), cut out and coloured with pencils. I applied Ivory Powertex to the backs to seal them, curving and doming them slightly. I coated the fronts with a layer of Powerwax to protect them. I chose this option as I was concerned that a slow drying wet medium might smudge some of the pencil colouring.

I used one of the MDF Heart Flowers (approx. 12.5cm across) to make an embellishment for the top. The moulded flower was from my stash. It had been made with Stone Art and Ivory Powertex mixed into a clay and used with one of my moulds. When dry it was painted with Easy Varnish tinted with Burgundy Powercolor, then dry brushed with more varnish tinted with Silver, Rich Gold and Copper Colortricx. The MDF flower was coated with Bronze Powertex and the moulded flower glued to the centre with a little Easy Structure paste. Easy Structure paste and Powertex were used to glue the embellishment to the top of the canvas.

Black cotton netting was treated with Bronze Powertex and applied to the canvas base and diagonally across the middle. The characters were then positioned and glued down with Easy Structure Paste (i.e. using it as a 3D glue). Care was taken not to smudge the images with paste or Powertex. Any slight mishaps were wiped away quickly with a damp sponge.

I gathered together lots of Steampunk and nautical embellishments from my stash including die cut ship wheels, anchors, gears, swirls etc. I also had a stash of shells created using paper clay and moulds (already coloured with ink sprays). The embellishments were all coated with Powertex (Transparent or Bronze) and glued in place, using Easy Structure paste where needed. I also dropped some 3D Sand and Balls into wet Powertex for added texture.

In addition I used some recycled gear cogs from the inside my finished double sided tape rollers. These are plastic so I used copper gilding wax to colour the top surface (Powertex doesn’t stick to plastic) and embedded them well with Easy Structure paste and Powertex coated card pieces etc.

Finally I dry brushed Easy Varnish tinted with Bronze Gold Colortricx lightly over the embellishments to enhance them.

The canvas could be mounted into a 3D box frame to fully protect it from dust etc. It could also be hung directly – perhaps holes cut in the top edge and a string would look quite nautical? If hanging without framing I would advise that everything be fully sealed with Easy Varnish (the characters with more layers of Powerwax); particularly the areas coated with transparent Powertex (coloured Powertex is already weather resistant). It could then be cleaned with a damp cloth (or even rinsed under the tap).

I hope that you like my fantasy creation. I have included a few more pics for more close up views, Anne x.

Product developement day at Powertex UK

It is very important to us at Powertex UK hq that we make sure we use the products to the best of our knowledge and what better way to do this than having a product development and experiment day! 

This was no way at all, just a jolly and play day! It takes hard work and tons of dedication and effort to push the boundaries of products and ideas, it's a tough job but someone has to do it! ha, ha, ha. 

We did have a fabulous amount of fun, pushing the products in every direction so that we can learn and pass on that knowledge to our tutors and Powertex addicts. 

Here's some of the new inks in use, they come in a fabulous variety of colours. 

 

 It would have been rude not to have tried out the new rice papers and on a big canvas too! We were really going for it and learning new techniques.

 We can't wait to see what you create. Toodles Anna xXx