Shire Hall Exhibition

I called in to the Shire Hall Gallery in Stafford town centre yesterday and fell in love with the exhibition they have on at the moment, called 'A sense of place'. I couldn't take my eyes off of Rachel Grant's collaged pictures of houses and a huge quilt type piece of a map depicting the local area. You must go and see it if you want to be inspired. She has a web site too. www.rachel-grant.com
I have been preparing for my crop class. We are on holiday next Saturday for a week, so I needed to get it done this week. Those who want to do the class will be using embossing as a resist, painting, and making wax embellishments. I loved playing and hope you will too!

Waxworks

I just finished decorating this box in my scrap room. Click on the picture for a close up. I brushed a layer of melted wax over it first, to make a base. I then dipped various collage pieces in melted wax and laid them on the base. In a few areas I built up the wax a little deeper, used my heat gun to soften it, and pressed stamps into it for a few seconds. I then used gold metallic rub ons and buffed it up. I also added a little perfect pearls to give some dimension. That is what I like best, the depth of the effects, and the layers with peeps of colour and pictures showing through. The top drawer I collaged a photo and scrunched up tissue paper in to the wax. Interestingly, the photo dipped into hot wax suffered no ill effects :D I thought it might soak up too much wax, or be difficult to work with but it was fine. So much fun to do!

Experimenting with wax

I am having a blast experimenting with the melt pot and beeswax. The picture above isn't mine, it's taken from a google search on beeswax collage. Not sure who the artist is. You know how I love beeswax! I've done 2 layouts as samples for the September crop class. Think vintage, think blue, gold and grey, you can even think sand and sea. Bring with you either a sea side photo or an old vintage style photo. Black and white would work well too, any theme. I love it when my scrap room is littered with brushes, glues, fibres and papers. It means I'm in creative mode. There are some interesting videos on the Ranger web site that give some inspiration about using wax. Oooohhh just the thought gets me excited! Everything will be provided for the class, but if you want to bring any of the following it will save you having to wait for things:

clear stamps, heat gun, non-stick craft mat, blue acrylic paint, natural sponge, clear or white embossing powder, brown distress ink pad, stickles.

Things

Next crop is 11th September, and I can't wait! I really missed the last one. I am doing a FREE class! Ellie will be bringing the shop, and we will have a theme of cupcakes. I will bring some (I have a great new recipe, see previous post, yum yum)and if any of you would like to bring some too that would be great.
We have had some good news too. Community learning have awarded us £100 to try running and evening crop. Woohoo! I am going to sort some dates out, one a month for September, October and November. Let me know if you want to come and there are certain evenings you can not make. They will be free for the first 3 months.
Finally, Stampington magazines have their annual back issue sale on. Shipping is the killer, but I've ordered 3 magazines and it will work out about £5 each. Have a look: http://www.stampington.com/back-issue-sale/