Beware!

With today being October 1, our Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop is once again in full swing and this time, we're featuring seasonal home decor. Be sure to use the forward/back buttons on the Designer Crafts Connection logo at left to move through the hop.

Today is also what would have been my Granny's 105th birthday, the woman who had a great role in making me the artist I am today. Happy birthday, Granny. I know you're having a fine time in Heaven!

I attended a wonderful gilding workshop this weekend sponsored by the Memphis Calligraphy Guild with instructor Roann Mathias, the über talented calligrapher, painter and all-around good girl/great artist and teacher, as well as one of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine's Artisans for 2012. If you ever have the opportunity to take one of her workshops, don't hesitate. She is patient, organized and a wealth of information.

We were up to our necks in gold leaf. If you've ever used this stuff, you know how it loves to fly around. Just breathing will send it flying across the room. I took lots of photos with my iphone, but have misplaced my jack to plug into my computer. Apologies to Roann and the workshop attendees who allowed me to photograph their work. When I locate it, I will post the photos.

One of the things we did was to use a variety of acrylic mediums. Roann supplied a variety of stencils for us to try the different mediums with, but I wasn't through when I left for the day. I went home and made a ton more stenciled images on a variety of papers. The project I'm showing was made with Golden's Light Molding Paste. I have to confess that I've had a jar of this stuff for more than 10 years (with no breakdown in consistency!) and have never used it. That is all over, because I love it!

I started with black card stock, Golden Light Gel Medium, foils (available at Michael's and Hobby Lobby), Krylon's Easy Tak Repositionable Spray Adhesive, a heat iron, palette knife and a 6" square Crafter's Workshop's Branches Reversed stencil of barren trees. I coated the backside of the stencil lightly with the Krylon Spray (you could also use masking tape to hold the stencil in place), positioned it on the card stock and spread the Molding Paste over the stencil. I scraped off most of the paste to leave a very thin layer and let it dry.

When it was dry, I placed the foil over the image and pressed with the heat tool set to medium. The foil will not stick to the molding paste in a solid block, so some of the white shows through, which is exactly the effect I wanted. When I had the copper and purple down, I decided to add a gold moon, so I repositioned the stencil, added more paste in a circle, let it dry and applied the gold foil.

TIP: For neat circle edges, punch the circle from card stock, then place the open circle on top of the stencil and card stock and apply the paste.

I selected a shadow box frame from Michael's and cut a piece of foam board with a 4 1/2" square opening. I attached the foiled piece to this. I added gold and black trim and a spider web from PaperDreamsFactory around the edge, and a black spider from Michael's, enhanced with Viva Décor's Inka Gold in Orange. The spider web also has a light applications of Inka Gold Platinum to make it show up.

I had stumbled upon a 3D Beware piece at, of all places, the Kroger grocery store near my house. It fit perfectly in the shadow box. I added Inka Gold in violet, orange, gold and green to make the piece more prominent and placed it in the lower portion of the box.

I hope you like this project. It was easy, quick and fun to do.

Be sure to stop back by on October 13 for the Makin's Clay challenge and an opportunity to win this great prize package from Makin's Clay!

Now, go out and buy your Halloween candy and bring it home to share with someone you love.







I received product from Crafter's Workshop, Viva Décor and Golden Acrylics.