Blue Fern Studios January Challenge

Hello Bloggers! It's been a dry month creatively as my Dad passed away, but I did find the time this month for some art therapy playing along with the Blue Fern Studios monthly sketch challenge, one of my favourite monthly challenges. I used papers from the Sanctuary collection - I love the dark, vintage tones in this collection.

Here is this month's inspiring sketch:

I treated a piece of the Software Pieces chipboard with some Shimmerz Dazzlerz, and sprinkled on some Vintage Photos Distress Embossing Powder while it was still wet, then heat embossed the entire thing - it creates a bubbly, pitted texture on the paint and a rougher, rusty look on the embossing powder - then brushed some white gesso over it with my finger once it had cooled. I cut the piece in two to tuck under both sides of my photo.

For the Ornate Shelf chippy, I coated it in embossing ink, then sprinkled on several colors of embossing powder, heat set those, and added some more embossing ink and Distress powder, followed by gesso, for a rusty, worn look.

I also added some Distress powder to the corrugated cardboard under the photo to tie it to the chipboard pieces.

Some metal pieces and textured flowers add a touch of pretty to a masculine layout.

For the background, I stencilled Black Licorice Dazzlerz by Shimmerz through an Andy Skinner mask, then added superfine glitter while it was still wet. Once it had dried, I splattered the background liberally with different mists and some diluted wet gesso.

Thank you for stopping by today!