Magic in our Hearts Canvas

Hi all! It is Monday and a new Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is starting. This week we are doing another alphabet challenge, namely 'H is for'. I went with hearts, and was initially planning something for Valentine's, but it turned into a canvas for my son instead.

I worked on canvas board (8 x 6 in) and aimed to create a lot of texture and use darker colours than I normally use. This sentiment from a Tim Holtz stamp set is lovely and I thought it worked well together with the stamped focal point of the little boy. I started taking step photos, but then got so involved in the process that I forgot to continue with that. Sorry!

After covering the canvas board with gesso and letting it dry, I smeared Ranger's Texture Paste on sections of the canvas. I had already planned where the main image and sentiment would go, so I avoided those parts. Ranger's very cool texture tools were dragged through the paste to create the texture you see here. The set comes with six different textures and is easy to use and fun to play with.

When the paste was dry, I painted the canvas with a layer of Antique Linen.

The main image, sentiment and heart were stamped on tissue paper and adhered to the canvas with gloss multi medium, after the Antique Linen paint had dried. Stamping on tissue was easier than stamping directly on the canvas, because of the texture. I painted the stamped images with Distress Paint, and when dry added back some of the details with a marker. The flower was coloured with Distress Paint.

I decided to smear Prima's Texture Paste Clear Crackle on a few places on the canvas, leaving it to dry before continuing. The text hearts were drawn on old dictionary paper, cut out and inked. The little bead heart was distressed with alcohol ink.

I continued painting the canvas with shades of brown Distress Paint as well as Broken China. By adding paint, the texture of the texture paste parts becomes even more evident. The canvas was also stamped with a dot stamp and Picket Fence paint, since I thought it needed a bit of white. The enameled tag was given a rub-on sentiment and aged with alcohol ink.

Here you can see that I added new pen marks to the heart after colouring it. A Heart Charm was also glued to the canvas.
 

When I was done with the colouring, I wanted some gold paint on the canvas too. But my gold acrylic paints are in the container. I did have Gold Mixative alcohol ink at hand though (I had to give my alcohol inks away since they were not allowed in the container, and have started buying new ones). The alcohol ink did the trick and when swept lightly over the canvas, mainly the textured areas picked it up. It looked particularly good on the crackled parts if you look at the photo above showing the crackles. The mirror star was also altered with alcohol ink. 

The metal pieces were altered with paint and alcohol ink and the lace was dyed with Walnut Stain Distress Spray Stain.

My son helped pick out some of the embellishments, such as the alphabet beads. He loves everything that contains an 'A' since that is his own letter. He also wanted to add an autumn leaf, but that still hasn't made its way onto the canvas yet.

A key and a Word Band. You can see some fine crackles in the left hand corner. I also stamped on the canvas, right on top of the texture with a date background stamp.

I hope you can join us this week in our fun 'H is for' challenge, and of course, as every week, one random participant wins a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp.

Thank you for visiting today!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:
Surfaces: Canvas Board (8 x 6 in)
Stamps: Stamper's Anonymous Tim Holtz: Good Thoughts, Ultimate Grunge, The Boys, Love Struck Valentine,
Ink: Ranger Archival Ink: Jet Black
Paint: Distress Paint: Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap, Black Soot, Broken China, Walnut Stain, Picket Fence, Peeled Paint; Ranger Dina Wakley: Umber
Alcohol ink: Ranger Adirondack: Gold Mixative, Stream, Ginger, Teakwood
Medium: Ranger: Texture Paste, Dina Wakley Gesso; Prima: Texture Paste Clear Crackle
Marker: Ranger/OHTO: Fude Ball
Embellishments: Tim Holtz idea-ology: Heart Charms, Word Bands, Mirrored Stars, Nature Adornments, Arrows Adornments, Number Brads, Enameled Tags, Botanical Remnant Rubs, Locket Keys
Tools: Ranger: Texture Tools