Sunday, February 5, 2012

Lessology: Metallic Flower Décor

Supplies: upcycled items (vintage book page & advertising magnet), cardstock base (October Afternoon), shimmer mist (Tsukineko), gold paint (Stickles by Ranger), alphabet stickers (Creative Imaginations), flower and heart stickers (Cosmo Cricket), gold pen (Sakura), black pen (Zig).

I'm playing along with the latest challenge at Lessology.  This time around, it's all about having fun with flowers.  I decided to make some floral art to decorate a plain, boring file cabinet in my home office.  Since the file cabinet is black, I thought that metallics would stand out nicely against it.  So, I made the silver-and-gold artwork that you see in the photo above.  Let me walk you through my creative process.

First, I tore a page from an old book, then adhered stickers to it.  The stickers are masks.  I made the "lollipop flowers" with a sticker set from Cosmo Cricket that included blossoms and hearts.  I cut the stems and leaves freehand from the blank parts of the sticker sheet.  I sprayed both the torn book page and a miscellany card from October Afternoon with pewter-colored Shimmer Mist.  (Since the book paper is old and thin, I needed the miscellany card to use as a a base for my project.  During the course of the project, the cute picture of parading kids got covered up.  It's a shame to lose such a cute picture from my supply stash, but it was worth it, since the miscellany card is exactly the right size to use as a base for my art project.)



Here is a closeup of the lollipop flowers, before I misted them.





After the mist was dry, I removed the masks.  I traced around the outlines of the letters and flowers, first with a gold pen, then with a black pen.  I used Stickles to add a gold edge to the torn book page.  To create the gold heart in the center of the focal flower, I used the negative piece of a heart sticker (from the same Cosmo Cricket sticker sheet) as a stencil.  I applied Stickles (using a paint brush, not squirting straight from the bottle) inside the stencil, then carefully removed the stencil).  After the Stickles had a chance to dry thoroughly, I adhered the torn book page to the miscellany card base.



The fun thing about the book page I used is that it's about gardening.  Can you see the words "lettuce patch" and "clear of weeds" in the closeup photo above?  It coordinated well with my flower garden theme.  I can't wait for spring, when I'll have flowers and plants growing in my garden!

I cut an old advertising magnet into four pieces and adhered the pieces to the back of my artwork.  The magnet pieces allow the artwork to stick to my file cabinet.
It was easy to cut the magnet with my photo trimmer.
Here is the finished artwork, in place on my file cabinet.  I love the way it sparkles against the plain black cabinet--it definitely dresses up the room.

Thanks for stopping by my blog to look at my Lessology entry.  I hope you will have a chance to check out the rest of the challenge entries as well.  Have a great week!

11 comments:

~amy~ said...

I ADORE this...thank you so much for showing the FAB tut on how you designed this gorgeous project! Thanks so much for playing with us at LESSology!!

Kirsty Vittetoe said...

Very creative, thanks for playing along with us at CCCB!

yyam said...

Wow! That's awesome upcycling! And a beautiful project to show for it!

Thanks for joining us at LESSology! :)

BabyBokChoy said...

This is really cute. I love how you always have so many wonderful and green ideas!!! cutting it into fourth!!!

Patricia said...

What a greet.. ahd green tutorial.. Thank you Denise.

Angi Barrs said...

Love that you used a vintage book page. Thanks for playing with us at LESSology. :)

Unknown said...

cool work and thanks for showing how to make!
byebye,Lean

Luciana said...

Amazing!!!! I loved, Denise! Very creative!

Kisses!

Linda said...

This is amazing! What a great idea! Thank you for joining us at LESSology with your amazing creation.

Ella Swan said...

Oooh I love what you have done here - so creative & artistic!! Great job!

Dora said...

This is so so so cute!
thanks for playing!