Sweetie!

Hello!
Have you checked out the A Little Bit Crafty challenge blog yet? no? you should......!
Paula is doing a great job of bringing loads of crafters together, whatever their styles or tastes. With each challenge having a broad theme, and the fact you are positively encouraged to enter any kind of craft at all, these challenges have proved very popular so far!
Whilst my messy painty style may look a little 'out there' compared to some of the other players, that is the whole point! If I can encourage just one neat and tidy crafter over to the dark side of mess...then my job is done!!! he he he.....
Anyway, my contribution to the brand new 'something sweet' challenge....

I started off with a plain canvas board. My first job was to add some texture by scraping texture paste through stencils. I've done this with two different designs, a harlequin and a more 'dotty' pattern....

I also glued down a few wooden embellishments. I've kept it quite simple for this panel, just using two scalloped borders and a few wooden hearts....

I then gave the whole thing a coat of gesso. This gives an even white covering to the entire piece, so the additional colours I want to add on top will make everything blend in seamlessly. I used a simple colour scheme of red and turquoise, simply smearing the turquoise paint on with a makeup sponge. Once the base colour was dry, I then went in with the red paint to do a little printing. I've used lego pieces and bottle tops for this! I also gently rubbed some red into the raised areas here and there...

I added some stamping too, using black ink. These particular stamps are unmounted, so I can use just a little of the design, and its a doddle to add random bits here and there! A few black splats of paint (flick a loaded paintbrush at it!), and the background was done.
I painted the larger heart with red paint, then once dry covered it with Crackle Glaze. I smeared a little black paint onto the dry crackles, just to grunge it up a little!

My little girl is a simple stamped image by Paperbag Studios. I'm not a scrapper at all, but if you are then this kind of design works fabulously with photos!!!

The finishing touch were some Alphapart letters....

So, you can still be a sweetie whilst being grungy and messy at the same time!
Have a play with paint, you'll love it!!!
Trish xxxxxx