Nice Girl From a Good Home

Hello friends,

What a fun week we have had seeing the excitement surrounding the the new color Speckled Egg!  Everyone seems so excited about the color itself and using it in their makes.  I love the color too!

My second project using Speckled Egg is a great for the beginner or the seasoned crafter.  Follow along and I'll show you the steps to make your own.

I am using the largest of the Vignette Boxes for this project but any size would work by adjusting the things inside.  To create the detail on the front, I used idea-ology Ball Chain.  You will need a decent layer of Collage Medium on the lip edge to keep the Ball Chain in place but probably not as much as you might think.  You can see in the picture that the Collage Medium is white under the chain but it's not sitting in globs of glue.  Use your Tonic Scissors to clip the chain at each corner.  You can adjust the chain after laying it into the glue but one you have it in place, leave it alone to dry.  Drying time will always depend on your climate and how much Collage Medium you used.

You can see here that the Collage Medium has become transparent during the drying time.  I know it looks like the Ball Chain is just sitting on the edge on the Vignette Box, but it's absolutely secured by the College Medium.  At this stage you are ready for paint.  Of course I chose to use the new Speckled Egg on both the box and Finial.

Once the paint was completely dry, I sanded the paint on both the box and finial.  Once I wiped away the dust, I scribbled on Walnut Stain Distress Crayon (even over the Ball Chain) and rubbed it in with my fingers and a damp paint brush.  

The background paper is a great grid pattern that can be found in the Dapper Paper Pad.  I adhered it to the very back of the box then painted a layer of Collage Medium over the top, which allowed me to color the background with Walnut Stain Crayon.  You might even be able to see, just up the in the top right, that I sprayed over the Crayon with Speckled Egg Oxide Spray.  I did not add water because I wanted it to just sit right on top of the brown Crayon work.  Small detail are worth it!

The Finial was glued to the top and left to dry in place (at least 20 minutes). 

While the Finial was drying, I chose a Found Relative to use in my project.  I used the Distress Embossing Pen to color her dress with Speckled Egg Embossing Glaze.  The Embossing Pen is PERFECT for getting into tight spaces like the ruffle around her neck and the flowers on her dress.  The Embossing pad or Dabber could never give you that kind of control.  I tipped the card up to see the shine of the ink (and make sure I had her dress covered), then followed the basic steps of using Embossing Glaze; pour, tap off, melt.  I painted the Flowers and the background with Distress Crayons and a detailer Water Brush.

I also used Distress Crayon and the Bubbles stencil to add a whimsical layer over the background.

A Baseboard Frame that I colored with Distress Crayons was added to the Found Relative before being placed into the Vignette Box.  I added the words, "nice girl from a good home" that can be found in the Clipping Sticker book.

The Adornments Floral are very cool metal flowers.  I think they get overlooked a lot because they are metal and not a pre-colored flower.  After I saw Tim using Embossing Glaze in one of his Saturday sessions I knew I wanted to use that technique on the flowers.  I chose three flowers from the group + three leaves, two small and one large.

I followed Tim's technique (which you can find HERE...it's right after the 1 hour mark) to Glaze the flowers.  As you can see, my flowers are three different colors.  Glaze is a translucent medium so it is effected by the layer or color underneath.  This makes it even more exciting to use, since you can very easily change up what a color looks like.  I rubbed the larger flower with white paint and let it dry before the Glaze layer was added.  The small flower on the left was rubbed with Speckled Egg Paint and the flower on the far left was rubbed with Evergreen Bough.  In this process, much is dependent on how much paint you use...it's a process of experimentation! Each flower came out wonderful with the added Glaze, but it was much easier to see the impact with the larger flower (or the butterfly Tim demonstrates in his technique video).  Again, be sure to watch Tim's technique for adding Glaze to metal before beginning the process.

I added the tiniest of faux pearls (colored with Mushroom Alcohol Ink) to the center of each flower and let dry before adding them to the box.  

The Thimble was colored with Gold Alcohol Ink Mixative, then rubbed with Walnut Stain Distress Crayon to create the aged appearance.  It works perfectly with the flowers and the Vintage Flair button.  I have to say, I love this detail shot! 

The last thing I added was the string on the Finial, that allowed me to add the Story Stick (love) and the Antiqued Gem dangle.  The Gems are one of my favorite little details to add to any project because we have made them to look old, no shiny metal here! 

Glad you have stopped by to view todays project.  I'll be back again next week to share more on Speckled Egg!

Now carry on,

paula