Industrial Guest Designer - Karen Petitt

Hello all!  We are delighted to have some extra inspiration for you for the Industrial theme this month, courtesy of our December winner, Karen Petitt of Karen's Crafting Obsessions.  We're very happy to have you on board to help us celebrate our birthday this month, Karen!

Without more ado, let's take a look at Karen's amazing creation, and here some more about Karen herself as well as her beautiful Industrial hanging, in her very own words...

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I’ve crafted in one way or another since childhood.  At school I gained a Needlework O Level but I had to drop art which is a story for another time.  I’ve dabbled in glass painting, silk painting, watercolours, fashion design and I attended many different classes at Liberty’s Sewing School in London.  With the exception of the Liberty Sewing School Classes I was not inspired by the other courses.

About eighteen years ago I found stamping and paper crafting and very quickly I fell in love.  I am a stamp addict who adores playing with inks and or paints too.  I started creating cards for my husband and to me they had to be perfect and I continued along that journey for about sixteen years.  About a year ago I started to feel a little bored creating cards and the odd tag.

After seeing many wonderful projects in and around Blogger I fell head over heals in love with mixed media.  I’ve been happily experimenting and learning about different products and techniques for the past year.  Also I’ve a new found passion for shabby style cards and tags which are the complete opposite of what I used to create.  

For the Industrial challenge, I decided to create a distressed mixed media hanging.  I used an A4 chipboard sheet cut down to 15 cm x 20 cm.  I added a layer of white gesso and once dry I used Tim Holtz Salty Ocean Distress paint, two coats, gently drying each coat as I didn’t want the gesso or paint to bubble.  I attached a stencil with Washi tape, and added layers of Distress Stain that I dried with my heat tool.  I painted Tando Creative Chipboard Cogs with Distress Paint.  I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment and cogs onto card and attached using Matt Medium.

I used Distress Stains to add more colour, sprayed with water to get layers of colour and distressed look.  I used a tube of outliner to connect the cogs to each other.  I coloured the outliner with Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold.  I used a Crackle Paint on sentiment and chipboard cogs.  Once dry I used gold acrylic paint to rub into the cracks and added a final layer of Matt Medium to the whole piece to seal it.

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Do hop over to Karen's Crafting Obsessions and take a look at the project in full - it's fantastic.  And especially given what you'll discover there about her first reaction to the theme.  What a brilliant leap outside your comfort zone, Karen, thank you!

We hope that will nudge you to leap into Industrial action and come and play along with the birthday challenge this month.  As always, there's a prize voucher on offer from the wonderful Country View Crafts, and you could be a Guest Designer here on the Country View Challenges blog too.  We're looking forward to seeing what you create.

Happy crafting all!

Alison and the CVC team x