WOYWW #434: Two grungy tags

I'm slowly getting back into a predictable routine, so I remembered that it was Wednesday today - time to do our weekly WOYWW desk hop on the Stamping Ground! Now that I have a dedicated art room, I find myself with very little time to use it. I didn't even have a chance to go in there yesterday, but luckily I had done some work earlier, which I can show you.

I had to jump on the Distress Oxide bandwagon to try them, so I ordered two colours just to see for myself what they are like. I opted for the refills rather than the ink pads as seem better value and I would only ever use them for backgrounds anyway. I love the chalky finish they produce - they're definitely different from the regular Distress inks. I tried them on a couple of tags:

Then I went completely overboard and used some fluid acrylics and bits of my erosion bundles to cover most of it up! I ended up with a pair of uber grungy tags - they were not planned - they just happened this way. Everything, including the sentiments, was totally random. I tend to use things that I randomly pull out of my stash, or what is already on my desk, instead of looking for something specific. It's a kind of serendipity, I guess.

Oh, I almost forgot to share this photo - I took it on a sunny morning. Oreo is getting more and more settled each day, but he's still not ready to go outside. He quite likes sitting in the window, though:

Thank you for visiting today. Hope you all have a lovely week! 

Two wooden plaques

It was my son's thirteenth birthday on Thursday, so I made him a non-traditional birthday card in the form of a wooden plaque. I used a piece of MDF base that I picked up on Ebay and a set of wooden letters from The Works. I stuck them down with tacky glue, added a couple of strips of drywall tape (imported from the US), gessoed the whole thing and then painted it with acrylic inks. This is what it looked like at this stage:

I finished it off with some gold Lumiere paint, that I dry brushed on top of the letters and I also added a couple of cabochons that harmonized with my colours. My son loved it and said it was the coolest thing I'd ever made for him. Awww! This is what it looks like in its completed state (it has some photos and sentiments on the back):

But that's not all! I was on a roll, so I decided to alter my husband's wooden Man Cave sign that we had bought him for Fathers' Day back in the summer. I always thought it needed altering - the original colour was an unsightly red and white - not at all manly!

I simply black gessoed the whole thing and added several shades of lumiere paints on top it. Oh, yes, before that I also added a strip of the same dry wall tape I used for my son's plaque. The results made the sign look metallic and practically unrecognizable from its original form.

 Happy weekend! I'm planning to take my son shopping today to spend his birthday money. If you want to see previous birthday projects, just click on the birthday label below this post.

WOYWW #433: My new art room!

It's been four weeks since I last posted but it feels like four months! We were without internet for more than two weeks and I narrowly missed last week's WOYWW. I thought it was unacceptable of BT to make us wait this long, when all it took was a flick of a switch to get us connected, but they redeemed themselves by providing reasonable speeds - we're up and running now, so I'm happy!

We've settled into our new house nicely, though it was a bit of a shock at first and very tiring. Most boxes are now unpacked and the cardboard taken away. Even I (being a hoarder of reusable materials) couldn't have reused all that cardboard in a lifetime!

It took me a couple of weeks to set up my art room - I thought I'd give you a little tour today. These are the three main storage areas of the room, using bits and pieces of eclectic furniture salvaged from our old house:

At first I thought of putting my desk (our old dining table) against the back wall, where it would have fitted quite neatly, but then I decided to place it so I can still look out the window sideways. I will cover that grey feature wall inherited from the previous owners with gelli prints. I've already started on it:

Oreo has been unsettled by the move. He's definitely more needy and doesn't like to be left alone, which is becoming a problem at night. We used to lock him in the conservatory in our old house and he was always fine with that. He now makes a racket trying to get out and has even managed to open the door somehow! Then he goes gallivanting around the house at night disturbing our sleep. We'll have to find a solution soon! Installing a cat flap might be the answer, but we haven't let him out yet. Here he is discovering that there are bunnies in the garden! Hopefully, he'll leave them alone.

That's it in a nutshell. I could go on and on but I don't want to keep you up when you have all those other desks to visit. I will go around visiting as soon as I can, though it won't be until later in the day. We couldn't get our son into the local middle school for Y8, so we're homeschooling for now, while waiting for a place to become available. It's hard work and takes up most of my time, but hopefully it's just for a few months. See you soon!