Use A Quote for A Vintage Journey

Hi everyone and welcome! Today marks the start of the latest challenge over at A Vintage Journey and this time the theme is 'Use A Quote', so unsurprisingly we need you to use a quote! Any quote! Whether it be on a stamp, a sticker, handwritten or sourced from the internet, make it the focal point of your vintage, shabby chic, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk project.

Our generous sponsors this month are That's Crafty! who are offering a £20 gift certificate to our Random Org winner.

As soon as I saw this clear acrylic light bulb surface on the That's Crafty! website I knew it was a match made in heaven with a brand new, as yet unreleased, A5 stamp set from IndigoBlu. Yes folks, you're getting a sneak peek of some of the images/words from the set right here first! And what encouraging wise words they are from everyone's favourite Hogwarts master. The fun bit was working out how to paint and stamp in reverse as all the colour is on the back of this once clear bulb!

If you are going to embark on a clear acrylic project my best advice would be to stamp the images and words you want to use onto copy paper first and work out where you want them to go and in which order. Remember, you are working from front to back so the foreground images come first. I stamped with black gesso and allowed each part to air dry before adding splashes of acrylic paint colour. You'll spot the colours 'inside' the lightbulbs had water added to allow them to run and merge a little. The rest of the painting was completed with undiluted paint to ensure it didn't move on the slick surface.

When dry I covered each bulb with white gesso to allow further layers to be added, like the background moths and hanging track flexes. Each of the bayonets were coloured with gold acrylic paint and I hand drew the screwcap detail on the main bulb shape with a permanent black Pitt pen. Oddly enough when wanting to make the main bulb opaque I discovered that simply using white gesso wasn't enough. A coat of black gesso was required to eliminate any light from coming through.

To decorate the clear base I added coarse texture paste and pushed car light bulbs into it. These had gold added to the silver metal endings and the same paint colours used to added drips across the tops. Finally to ensure the words were prominent I stamped them onto white card, cut them up and arranged them onto the front of the light bulb. It made for a portable, durable piece that showcased the stamps perfectly.

So that's where this month's fabulous theme took me. Now please do hop on over to A Vintage Journey to see what my fellow Creative Guides have come up with using their choices of That's Crafty! surfaces and focal words. Then it's over to you - the challenge will remain open for a month so there's plenty of time to get those creative juices flowing and link up your entries to be in with a chance to win.

I'm thrilled to be able to let you know that I'll be officially launching the A5 'Shine Bright' stamp set alongside more goodies from IndigoBlu on Hochanda, May 27th at 8am and 11am - hope you'll join me for that. And if you're going to the Create It Show at the Kent County Showground, Maidstone on May 13th and 14th I'll be demonstrating on the IndigoBlu stand.

As you can imagine there is a lot going on behind the scenes here in preparation for a busy month ahead. Whatever you are up to, have a fabulous weekend, get creative and take care of yourselves. Jenny xxx