Happy birthday to you, happy birthday day to you

Just to let you know I have the voice of an Angel.  In fact a few years ago I dreamt I'd won the X factor or Pop idol whatever was on at the time. 

Anyway, fresh from drawling over a rather annoying person's ramblings from Ranger U - I mean who'd want to go there anyway.  OK just about all of us - one day, one day :)  Distracted again, anyhow I've been making a birthday present for my wonderful mummy and after her kind permission I'm blogging it for you to see.  Rather glad to be honest as it was inspired by Ink on my fingers (or Hel's) challenge this week which is Summer of '69 or numbers.  Good job it's numbers as I wasn't even a glint in my daddy's eye by then.  Love the song though.

I then had rather a clever idea as I wanted to mark my present so mum new roughly when it was made (in my fourth decade) which is where my number came in.  Using inspiration from Hel's I then "hid" an "O" to coincide with her 40th and followed on decoration my house with lots of lovely techniques.  I'll show some pics and then try to list out all the techniques I used (if I can remember then).  Heading towards the big 4-0 does effect the grey matter a bit (or maybe I was dropped as a baby, always good to blame someone else!)

So that was the little house which I painted in teal dabber.  Once dry I used my finger and a dry brush to highlight it with Cranberry dabber.  Then it was on to all of the bits. 

The embellishments in no particular order:

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  Stampboard which I covered in teal and raspberry tinkerbella inks before deciding it was too strong so out came the trusty Crafty Notions white spray.  I then stamped Kathleen (B Line) before using Cranberry dabber and a finger to soften the edge of the stampboard and covering the yucky edge with Gold Krylon.  The inks just about show through in a subdued manner but I love the look.
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  Fragments with stamped tags and a Crafty Individuals picture.  The tag was covered with Distress ink before being masked and then stamped on with a mesh stamp before I used a couple of stamps over the top.  If you look closely at the top fragment it has the initials HS on it, which whilst being Hel's initials happens to also be my mummy's (Sorry Hel's!!) This fragment also appears to be hoovering as it was all shadowed in the back of the house so I stuck some dominoes together and then stuck it on top, much better.  See picture at the end.

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  A utee heart which is a mixture of blue and red to show a marbled effect (still perfecting this, but who'd of thought a old necklace would make such a great mold).  This is stuck on some distressed paper so that it didn't become part of the background.A metal rose spritzed with glimmer mist (it looked way too shiny!)

• Painted canvas with metal and Terra.  I'm still working on combining metal and Terra so I ended up painting over it to disguise the fact that it's a big lump where the Terra and metal join!  On the other hand I did wonder what would happen if you put the Terra on thick and then semi dried it before pushing it about a bit.  The effect is a lovely texture which looks a bit like wrinkled paper but dries solid.  I painted over the top, sanded the metal which I'd embossed with dots before highlighting the Terra with Raspberry dabber.  One of them has a fragment on and the other the rose.
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  At this point I was chuffed with my hoovering fragment so I wanted to make the little pink disc hoover too.  Not so easy!  Firstly there were too hole's in it as it came from a necklace so I wound some wire around both holes and created a sort of wobbly stand for it.  I then held it for 30 minutes in front of the TV whilst the glue dried.  It was for my mum I doubt I'd do it for anyone else, sorry!

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  I die cut some shrink plastic which has a little squares all over it, shrunk it and covered it in alcohol ink before sticking an Ideaology dream ticket on it.  I then held this for slightly less time whilst the glue dried but boy was it difficult to get the glue on and get it to stand up whist my shakey little hands did their best to scupper my plans.

The rest are Ideaology and scrapbook embellishments.

My mum loves it so I hope Hel's does too.  I loved spending time on so many different techniques with only a colour scheme in mind.  Maybe that's why I love Artsy Craft so much.  Oops almost forgot the number is a stencil I've had for ages which I covered in embossed metal and sanded down.  I think there may also be a little bit of alcohol ink on that.  Not sure if I used every technique I know but I sure gave it a go and my craft room looked like a hurricane had hit it - always proves I had fun!

Hope you like it

Debz

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