Be Happy! - Wall Hanging for Country View Challenges

Hello my dear friends! And welcome to my new followers, I´m very happy to have you here on my blog 💖

Today I want to share my project for the June Challenge at Country View Challenges. My lovely teamy Teresa is the hostess of it this month and she has chosen the theme: "The written word".

And here are some steps:

I took a very thick cardboard from a left over packaging and cut it to size (20cm x 30cm; about 8" x 12").

I covered it with a thick layer of white Gesso glued some stripes of old book pages randomly on top and added crackle paste and clear crackle glaze here and there in different thickness. Then I left it to dry over night.

Look, what stunning crackles appeared! I really love it, it´s always such a lovely surprise.

Next I fuzzy cut some clock faces from LaBlanche and glued them down with DecoArt Matte Medium.

Now it was time for some color: I used different shades of brown DecoArt Fluid Acrylics (Burnt Umber, Yellow Oxide, Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide, Titan buff), some coffee and some black and white Fluid Acrylics.

Then I played with some other colors (Cobalt Teal Hue, Quinacridone Gold, Antiquing cream Patina Green) until I was quite happy with it. After everything was dry, I added some modeling paste through the stencil #6 from AALL & CREATE (one of my new favourites) and left it to dry.

Meanwhile I prepared my vocal piece. I drew a heart on watercolor paper and cut it out. My desired look should be a kind of 3D, so I cut out another heart of thick cardboard, slightly smaller, glued it on the watercolor paper heart and squeezed the edges. Then I cut out another heart, way smaller than the others, and glued this one down in the middle, squeesing the edges of it too (I hope you understand, it´s hard to describe *lol*). The last step was to cut out another heart and paint it with two shades of red. The edges I distressed with black Archival ink.

Then I did some very light stamping and put it together with the bulky heart.

I went back to my cardboard and painted the modeling paste with cobalt teal hue, quinacridone gold and some Inka Gold Turquoise.

Some more stelciling with Archival Ink Jet Black,
Some background stamping with Archival Ink Potting Soil and Jet Black. I went around the edges with the black ink to frame it and added black and white splatters.

Now I prepared the background for my focal image. I took some gauze, cut it in a circle, distressed the edges and colored it with some Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide and some Quinacridone Gold combined with water.

For the next steps I don´t have pictures, sorry! But I´ll try to describe what I did.

I stamped the words with my new stamp set "Alphabetical" from Visible Image and Gabi´s Word Stamp Set from 49 Market. I cut it out, adherede it to the wall hanging with Matte Medium and when dry, I colored them with the same colors I used for the background. Then I took a fineline applicator, filled with 50:50 brown acrylic paint and airbrush medium and went over the letters. I also scribbled an uneven frame around.

To emphasize the saying even more against the pretty busy background, I surrounded the words with a black posca pen and spreat it with a nearly dry brush.

Now it was time to take care of my vocal point. I glued down my cut out gauze circle with matte medium and put some titan buff  fluid acrylic to the middle, to make sure, the heart will stand out later.
While the glue and paint are drying, I made a circle frame with some home rusted wire. I fixed it with some screw breads when the background was dry.
I glued the words "be happy" on top of the heart and glued it into the circle using matte gel.

As the final step I added some red sprinkles to the background - and that´s it!

Here are some close ups (yes, I´m in love with these crackles 😏)

So, now it´s enough for today! Thank you for your pacience!
I hope, you will find time to join in with our challenge "The Written Word" - the possibilities of use are nearly endless.
As always you have the chance to win a 20 £ voucher for the shop.
Hope to see you!
Thank you for your visit!