Summer Sun ....here at last, sort of!

On the rare occasion that the sun shines here in the UK us Brits can be found outside having a BBQ - in fact even if the sun isn't shining we just throw on a jumper, put on the patio heater and have a BBQ anyway!  Sometimes we even have to take it to the extreme of having an indoor BBQ with a couple of poor unfortunates manning the BBQ with an umbrella!!  They usually have a beer in hand though so don't feel too sorry for them :)

I think I was a bit optimistic when I picked this up in the supermarket, but I saw these lovely citronella candles in terracotta plant pots (or should I say I smelt them first!)  They were a bit boring though so I decided to make them a little prettier with a lick of paint.

The pot was created for my contribution to Unruly Paperarts (UPA) July edition entitled Catch the waves (If like me you are in the UK, you might want to substitute wave with cold - it's probably more appropriate!)  Pop on over here to see some great art from my fellow contributors at UPA.

Here's the finished pot, but if you want to know how it was made read on :)

The pot was gesso'd first as I didn't want the terracotta colour to effect the paint colours.  Word of warning terracotta sucks up paint so slap it on and move it quick! I then painted the bottom yellow, the top blue and the middle by mixing the paint directly on the pot.  This gives a much more natural look to the sea.
The pot was finished off by stamping a number of Crafty Individual sea shells on tissue paper and glueing them to the pot.  Use plenty of glue as it's harder to disguise the edges on this type of surface.  I finished the pot off by sticking some sand and trim along the bottom.

Happy Crafting

Debz
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