Guest Designer Karen

 

Hello everybody! We're delighted to welcome Karen from Karen's Crafting Obessions as our guest this month.  Karen won our challenge in December and today she's here with her take on this month's Pimp It Up theme.  You're going to love what she's created, so without more ado, let's hand over to her...

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I have crafted in one way or another since childhood and I’ve learnt that I am one of those people that need to create or make something. I love creating home décor, mixed media canvas, journal pages and tags and I like to design and create cards. I’m learning to draw and paint from You Tube videos and online tutorials. I’ve tried different crafts: candle making, silk painting, glass painting, fabric painting, origami and sewing. These days I’m obsessed with mixed media products and techniques.
 

I decided to recycle three old paintbrushes that had damaged and broken bristles.  Originally I planned to bin them until the idea for this project popped into my head.
 

I painted the pallette with white gesso then added circles of texture paste with a stencil because I wanted it to look like there were puddles of paint on the palette.  Once the texture paste was dry I coloured each circle with a different colour of acrylic paint.  I attached a Tim Holtz stencil and added the wooden grain detail with Vintage Photo Distress ink pad and dried the ink.

 

I glued the three tatty paintbrushes together and gave them two coats of gesso before painting with white acrylic.  Once they were dry I added matt medium to the bristles where were rough and dipped them into glitter.  I used another MDF piece which I coated with gesso and then painted before stamping the sentiment onto it.

I then glued them together.