H is for February

The Craft Barn calendar challenge February prompts were actually not very surprising: red and hearts. I don't really do red, so I decided to make a neutral page with red as a colour splash (on the heart of course, where else!). I am also posting this for the SimonSaysStamp Monday challenge (H is for...helmikuu = february, featuring also hearts and Holtz), the SimonSaysStamp Wednesday challenge (anything goes) and the Rubberdance February challenge (Loved up: colours teal, dark brown and raspberry). This time I wrote the calendar part by hand, using alphabet stamps only for the "February 2016" banner.

The background was made with the woodgrain layering stencil from Tim Holtz. My only brown spray is Walnut Stain (Distress spray) and since it is quite dark, I painted over the stencilled image (once it was dry) with a copper coloured watercolour. I like the look of burned old wood and the tone that came with the Distress ink reacting with water. I am planning to use old book paper for all of these calendar pages, here I tore of a couple of pieces and glued them together to form a base for the heart. I drew the heart with some chalk pastels, and as I feared, managed to smudge pink into the center while sewing around it. I should have sewn before drawing... And actually I should have adhered the heart to the background before sewing, since the old paper was so thin that the sewing machine wasn't happy. But if I had done it in that order, I wouldn't have dared to draw the bold heart once everything else was in place, it would have felt too irreversible! I used a shiny rasberry red machine embroidery thread, and the sewing machine kept tearing it (perhaps the needle has suffered from all the paper it sees nowadays) but I think the hanging pieces of thread are quite nice.

I used two stencils to frame my page: TCW Mini Divided Stones and Designs By Ryn Maidenhair Fern. Last time I used crackle paste with a stencil I had two major problems: the paste bled under the stencil and when it was dry it chipped of. Now I decided to start by dabbing a thin layer of gesso with my ink blender to give the crackle paste a base to attach to. I have also used plenty of washi tape to attach my stencil to the base and try and keep the paste in the image (luckily I have a few rolls of bad quality washi tape that peels of any project unless it is glued down, so I don't mind "wasting" it). The result is much better than my earlier tries. The gesso layer was obviously so thin, it didn't seal the brown ink from colouring the crackle paste.

The Craft Barn calendar challenge runs all year, with a prompt coming at the beginning of each month, and the link is open for two weeks. I love the idea of working a bit every month along the year and having a full calendar at the end of the year! If you haven't started yet, but want to join in the fun, you are only one month behind! The January prompt can be found here.