DECOUPAGE: PORTRAIT ON A WOODEN BOARD

Today I'd like to start a short series of presents for my mother-in-law, her twin sister and their brother. I thought there was nothing that would satisfy those proud grandparents more than the likenesses of their lovely descendants. Each portait was made in different style and technique to match different interiors they're going to hang in, but the connecting line between them is that they're all made on wood. 

The portrait I'm presenting today was made on a small cutting board. I painted the wooden board with purple wood stain, then applied one coat of crackle varnish and painted the board with white paint mixed with a hint of the purple stain I'd used before.

For the image I used a family photograph which I had processed slightly by adding some purple undertones to it. I wetted the edges of the laser printer printout to be able to rip the contours off nicely and achieve this battered vintage look.

I glued the image on using transfer gel and removed the excess paper by rolling it with wet fingers.

Then the time came for some final touches, scrubbing the edges with sandpaper, reapplying some wood stain in places where bare wood was unveiled, used an ornamental stamp with pearly ik in the upper corners, coated the finished work with a couple of layers of matte acrylic varnish, tied a ribbon with a purple wooden bead and that was it!

GARDEN INSPIRATIONS

Pictures taken in the former shipyard area during our trip to the newly opened Museum of Solidarity. The first one is a mural that dates back to the golden age of the shipyard back in the communist times. The remaining pictures are true enlightenment to someone who hates gardening, stubbornly refuses to burrow in dirt, makes all plants wilt yet has to do something with a couple of hundred square metres of  uncultivated land. A  

Buffett, where the pictures were taken, is a brand new discovery of ours. Located in the most industrial part of the city, hardly visited by anyone, is a perfect place for thirsty parents who won't be frowned upon because they've brought children to the pub and whose kids may run wild without the the risk of being pancaked by a car or scolded by an elderly lady. 

DECOUPAGE: MASONIC BOOK

My future target is to hack Ikea Alex chest of drawers, but in order to do that quite professionally I need to start small to gain hands-on knowledge about materials and techniques I'm going to apply, to master my skills, to learn from my mistakes to move on to bigger objects.

I know I should have taken pictures of work in progress, but the idea of running a blog devoted to crafts hadn't occured to me until a couple of days ago. So the bare description will have to do.

The Masonic Book is my favourite work so far. 

I started with painting the wooden, book-shaped box the colour of cigar (my favourite acrylic paint, love the shade). Then I covered the spine with crackle vernish and let dry briefly. I rubbed all edges with a candle to make scrubing with sandpaper easier and less abrasive and applied two coats of cream matte acrylic paint to the cover and inside the box. 

Then, using the same paint and a stamp I added the handwriting on the cover, and in the inner part of the box I used a clear plastic pattern.

On top of that I decided to stick 2 images printed on an ordinary laser printer, using two different fechniques.The owl on a skull was a piece of cake. I soaked it well in water and then patted dry with a tissue and glued with decoupage glue.

The second one was more challenging. I coated the face of the image with Heritage Transfer Glaze, then soaked in water and rubbed off most of paper on the reverse. To prevent the image from getting deformed, I glued it on the book cover. Once dry I wet the image slightly and continued rubbing the image, rinsing it briefly, letting it dry  and repeated the process a couple of times. When I was finally satisfied with the result, I evened out the edges of the image with sand paper making it look old and battered at the same time. Then I ran sandpaper along all the edges, previously rubbed with a candle to give the box the vintage look I like co much. Finally I coated the whole work with matte acrylic varnish and that was done!

I must say I'm very pleased with the results. This box is a present for my mum. I hope she likes it! 

INTRO