Releasing the Inner Magpie - Inspired by Alison and Sue!

Welcome to Magpieheaven, where all things shiny are definitely given a good home! You can imagine how excited I was to discover that over at PaperArtsy the theme is 'Shiny Things'! The Guest Designers have been dazzling us with a wonderful array of shimmering projects, using everything from Plumber's Tape like the very enterprising and talented Keren Baker to exploring the fabulous effects we can achieve with those little pots of delight Treasure Gold! Once I've laid my hands on some tape, I'd love to have a go at Keren's project, but another post that caught my eye was that of the very gifted, Sue Carrington here. I loved how beautifully her metal flower went with the Medieval Stained glass effect of the new Lynne Perrella stamps, which we've been getting a sneak peek at lately. I'd also - like everyone else lucky enough to feast their eyes on the blog that evening - fallen in love with Alison Bomber's beautiful candlelit creation for the previous Fragile Papers theme. My inspiration from PaperArtsy is a response to both Alison and Sue's beautiful creations and I should like to link up my project to PaperArtsy's Shiny Things theme here.

What I loved about Alison's project was that she altered a book, transforming it into a glimmering tea-light holder. I am very partial to altering books and I have towers of old volumes waiting to be altered. The cutting and sculpting involved is great fun, but I recently bought a little wooden box shaped like a box and I was keen to give it the Fresco treatment!

Here are all the bits and pieces gathered together. You might be able to see that I've given the box a coat of Little Black Dress Fresco and then a thin coat of Crackle Glaze in this picture. I've also rusted some corners with rusting powder and cut some flower and leaf shapes with PaperArtsy dies. Lin Brown's tutorial, which Sue provides a link to is excellent. I had some of the PaperArtsy metal card sheets and some embossing folders, but none of the tools that Lin uses. I really love the effect she achieves with these, so I'm planning on getting some, but meanwhile I improvised, using painted and Treasure Golded pearls for the flower centres.

I aged the flowers by painting them with Black Gesso and then, when they were dry, adding Indigo, Florentine, Rose Quartz and Classic Treasure Gold.

The box came with an acetate panel, intended, I think, to protect a photograph. I stamped the Lynne Perrella image on the acetate with Stazon. Normally I would stamp Lynne Perrella images with Archival or Versafine, as these inks have lots of body and stamp the fine detail really well. Stazon, however, works best on shiny surfaces and I also used it to stamp some Mini Gothic text on the flowers too. After stamping my image onto the acetate I painted some tissue with PaperArtsy translucents: Hey Pesto, Beach Hut, Cherry Red and Yellow Submarine. So as to place the colours I wanted in more or less the right places I stamped the image onto a plain sheet of white paper and placed the tissue over it, using the stamped image to guide me.

A Prima embellishment, painted and then rubbed with a little Sapphire Treasure Gold adds the final touch. That word 'art' set me thinking. I have often wondered if the rich and glorious manuscripts and illuminated books in places like The British Museum and The British Library were ever illustrated by women artists. At school we were always given the impression that these were created by monks in chilly cells, shivering in the light of one candle, but nobody ever mentioned nuns in draughty convents with the ability to create the colourful and lively worlds that danced down the margins of illuminated books. I was at university in the seventies and I don't remember this being mentioned then either! I was really excited then, when I found the information on the Internet that nuns did in fact illustrate books and that they often presented them as gifts to rich city officials or other religious houses in Medieval times!  Apparently they decorated crosses and cards and baked cakes as gifts too! This little box is not anywhere near as beautiful as what these anonymous women produced, but it is to remind me of those early women artists. Thank you to Sue and Alison for bringing so much inspiration in their fantastic projects for PaperArtsy and Thank You for stopping by.Magpieheaven today.