framed art...

Good morning all.  I am really excited to share with you today a project that I have made with one of the February new release sets, my favorite this month, "You Will Find Refuge".   I have to say I am really very proud of this one.  Anyone that follows my blog, knows that I have a major issue with three dimensional projects, I almost never do them because they never, ever come out the way I pictured them in my head.  But one thing I can do is framed art.  I love doing them as gifts.

I started with a really cheap black frame that I picked up on clearance.  Usually I sand the frame and then paint it.  But today because I wanted a very distressed look so I didn't, the paint doesn't stick as well if you don't sand first.  I painted the frame with a thin coat of Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint in antique linen.  When the paint was dry and crackled I lightly sanded the frame to distress it.  I then ran a Tim Holtz Distress pad in vintage photo over the painted surface and quickly rubbed it into the paint.

For my image I stamped the chickadee in Versafine Black on vanilla card stock then colored with Prismacolor pencils blended with odorless mineral spirits and a blending stump.  The image was cut out with a circle Nestabilities, then I masked the chickadee and sponged a sunny yellow around him.  He is layered on a chocolate brown scalloped circle.  The background paper is from Basic Grey the Indian Summer collection.  I used the Victoria Cuttlebug embossing folder on it then sanded it and sponged with Tim Holtz antique linen distress ink.  I added the verse, some chocolate ribbon and some fun corduroy brads to finish it off.