Melt Pot Magic Workshop

 

Had a lovely day's play on this workshop at Craftique in Hessle, Hull (http://www.studiocraftique.co.uk/) definitely worth keeping an eye on the website as many more brilliant workshops in the pipeline for 2014!!

 

We turned up to find the wonderful Hels Sheridan bedecked in fabulous antlers:

 

  and this as our inspiration for the day : 

 

We each had three canvasses - one approx. 8" x 8" and two smaller ones at 2.5" x 2.5".  Hels introduced us to the scraped paint technique - well it was completely new me anyway (!) - using a palette knife to spread the paint thinly over the canvases.  We had one large canvas and two small ones.  The paints I used were mostly from the eco-green range - Sand, Orchid and Black, all acrylic, and an Adirondack dabber in Hazlenut. We built up the layers from the lightest to the darkest (the opposite of if you were using oils) and then adjusting any areas where one colour appeared too dominant.

 

 

Then to creating our images :) Hels had a box load of stamps for us to choose from, initially I picked up a music score one and a butterfly together with a couple of sentiment stamps, but then I spotted this set from Dylusions - Doodle Parts - something I've wanted since I first saw them, so I just had to use those instead - am I'm so pleased I did!

 

 

I used three of them - the mushrooms, the arrow corner and the zentangled swirls.  We stamped them onto a single ply of tissue using archival ink and dried them with the heat tool, being careful to also clean up any excess that came through on the craft sheet underneath.  We had all chosen separate stamps for the smaller canvasses - mine were both sentiments - and also stamped these onto tissue.

 

The next step was to adhere these to the frames using melted beeswax.  I placed my 'Life' sentiment to one side as I knew I would like to put an embellishment next to it, and on the other canvas I put 'Dream' and 'Wish' at an offset angle to each other and then played about with how I would position them.

 

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Then it was lunchtime!! Amanda laid on a lovely light lunch for us - a choice of soup and breadrolls, followed by mince pies :) That wasn't all though as we were also treated to a mid-afternoon snack of cake!!  Sorry didn't get any photos of that - was too busy eating!!

 

During the lunch break it was a perfect chance to go and check out the shop.  All the usual bits and pieces you would expect in a craft shop but also bits that I can usually only find online.  Tim Holtz Alterations, Dylusions stamps, Melt Pots and accessories plus lots of alterable things too.  I don't know whether it was a good or bad thing that I didn't have my Christmas money with me - I could certainly have spent it all!  Thankfully I'm already planning my next visit and shall attend with full shopping list!

 

After lunch we moved on to using UTEE in the Melt Pots.  This was the bit I was really looking forward to - up until now I'd been stuck with melting embossing powders in empty tin foil pie cases over a tea light - not the safest of operations, and they solidified really quickly, before giving you a chance to pour out how you wanted.  We experimented with Texture Treads, upturned stamps, cookie cutters and molds made from Mold and Pour.  It was great - like watching alchemy take place before your very eyes!  Once our chosen embellishments were set we used hot glue guns to adhere them into place.  What I really liked about this workshop was that all of us (a dozen or so) had turned out pieces that looked different from each others, it had really given us the chance to learn new techniques and put them to use in our own creative styles.

 

 

 

Time seemed to speed up now as we approached the end of the day, another 2-3 hours playtime at least would have been appreciated but armed with all the knowledge gained, I know I've actually got hours of play ahead of me.

 

 

 

Many thanks Hels and Amanda :)