pretty little embellishments

I’ve been in a little of a creative rut lately, so looked through my papers and scraps to see if I could find any inspiration.  Of course whatever I was making had to include gold… clearly I have an addiction^^ … but what else. I picked out the Pink Paislee C’est La Vie number 03 paper as it is well gorgeous and set to work with my acrylic paints, firstly giving the whole sheet a ‘tea stain’ effect.

From there I set about painting the roses with watered down acrylic paint … (you could also use watercolours if you wanted to try this, I just like acrylics ^^) .

Once the paint was dry I did add a thin layer of matte varnish (the DoCrafts brand that is sold alongside their acrylic paints) this got rid of the slight chalky texture of the paint and added a little protection for the embellishment. As a finishing touch I highlighted some of the details on the floral design with gold paint. This was definitely a labour of love, thank goodness for TiVo, needed a lot of saved up TV ^

Then it was just a case of layering up paper scraps, washi tape and die cut and embossed gold circles I made from gold card from the craft store to create the main body of the embellishments, with chipboard buttons (from My Mind’s Eye), machine stitching, puffy heart stickers (from Freckled Fawn) and some word stickers (from Crate Paper)

Slowly but surely I am wriggling my way out of my creative rut ^__^