Hi my name is Tracey and I'm so very excited to be offered a place on Faith Pocock's Design Team.
A little about myself, I live in Auckland NZ, married to my Bestie Pete and have 2 Teenage Boys Jack and Ben who keep me motivated in all the best ways, I work from home in our business as an office administrator and look after my Dad who @ 79 never stops amazing me with his knowledge and constant hunger to never stop learning.
I've been crafting on and off since my boys were babes and enjoy the creative outlet it gives me and the challenge to always think outside the box, I also enjoy gardening and recently adult colouring-in to zone out.
I hope to inspire you with my creative ideas and look forward to the coming months of creativity with you all.
Tracey :)
Today I have an altered book box to share with you as my first offering, this is one of the treasures I received as part of my first Design Team projects, it is Laser cut and has so many possibilities. Also, part of my kit was the many different metal embellishments Faith has in her store (amongst other gorgeous findings) which I used to decorate the lid in a spooky Halloween kind of way.
I thought being that we are in the month of Halloween it fitted in well, so I knew instantly that this would go perfectly to create the grungy styled book box to contain a journal of spooky spells.
I hope you enjoy viewing my first project.
I prepped the book box by applying a coat of Finnabair Art Basics heavy black Gesso over the entire area. I then set it aside to dry. Once dry, I then covered the top with muslin using Mod Podge. This was mainly to add texture to my base.
Now the exciting part, adding the magic, which was all the metal pieces and other elements from my junk draw such as buttons, acrylic leaves, prima flowers, old skeleton keys etc metal cogs, seed beads and just things that add the texture I wanted.
Once I was satisfied with the placement of my embellishments I glued them into place using E6000.
Once I was certain everything was going to stay there. I then began to cover all the elements in Art Basics Heavy Black Gesso, this takes patience as there are nooks and crannies to get into and a lot of turning the box around, upside down etc to find all the spots needing gesso but the results are worth it.
Now comes the drying. I generally don't use a heat gun for this process as it can melt elements on the project or activate the glue again which may cause them to move or fall off, so I place it in a sunny spot which in Auckland currently is not easy but it dried in just under 1 hour.
Once that was dry I started to dry brush some areas with white gesso so I could add some colour to this which is probably my most favourite part of doing these mixed media projects.
I then grabbed a selection of Lindy's sprays, i mostly used Tibetan teal and Time Travel Teal and a homemade gold shimmer spray.
As i sprayed i would then let it dry and this continued for a few hours but i had so much fun, once i was happy with the depth of colours and shimmer i stopped and then lightly rubbed Inka Gold over all the raised areas.
This is the finished result. I was very pleased with the outcome.
.......and the gorgeous colours.
I recently purchased a digital kit and made up this small junky book which is 4x6 and fits nicely into the box, the journal is useable and contains tags and envelopes, and a great size i think to capture your pictures from Halloween night, especially if you have a Fuji Instax camera - which is like the old Polaroid cameras from the 70’s and 80’s. Gosh I'm showing my age here :)
Well that's it for my first Design team Project. I do hope you enjoyed my creation and look forward to sharing more next time, meanwhile be sure to take a look at Faith's store for all these goodies and more.
Till then take care, keep smiling and craft on….
Tracey xx