First Project Time by Hels - Darkroom Door London Vol 1

Hellllooooo!!! I am soooo happy to be here! This is my very first Design Team post - I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Val & Don for allowing me to be a part of their fab team - I am honoured to be a part of such a great team with Gillian, Astrid, Lesley and Minxy. I am in very esteemed company :O)) So, this month the focus is on those gorgeous Darkroom Door stamps and I chose the London Vol. 1 plate to play with. My first project is a canvas oil board that I have covered with papers, blocking and layering them and then adding a gentle wash of Gesso over the top so the papers all blend together neatly. I added some shadowing using a charcoal type pencil, smudging the lines around the blocks to emphasise the layers. Once I was happy with tis look, I popped a nice thick layer of Ranger Glue & Seal over the top - this effectively seals the papers, making them waterproof and that way they will be protected when hanging on a wall.


I mixed some texture paste with Pitch Black Dabber and left the mixing marbled, so the black of the paint and the white of the paste weren't completely blended. I then spread this through a couple of different Crafters Workshop Stencils, using a random pattern onto the board so it didn't look too uniform. Once this had dried, I used my favourite applicator tool (my index finger) to smudge white Gesso over the textured bits so they pop a little bit more. In my head the larger circle of texture is the London Eye (I know, it looks nowt like it but it is artistic licence lol)



I stamped out the buses using Versafine Satin Red ink - this is a really lush red and worked perfectly with the bus images. I then used some Distress Markers to colour the rest of the buses and added a couple of silver brads to the wheels for hub-caps. Then I stamped Big Ben (I know, that is the bell not the tower but it is so well known as that :O)) using black Archival ink, adding some colour with Distress Markers and then folding it so it is dimensional. The buses and the tower were then popped onto some super cool Stix2 Clear 3d tape - this stuff is FAB, no sign of it peaking from underneath the images like the white stuff! I am sold on this, I need more already!!! I added on some bits of Idea-ology to make a hanging for the board - Hitch Fasteners with Charm Clips glued to them and some Bead Chain popped through, using the clasps to stop the chain slipping through the Charm Clips.



Thanks for looking... I will be back later in the week with my second piece using the fabby stamps. Have a great day and don't forget about the candy giveaway this month - all the deets are HERE, just leave a comment and you could win a set of these stamps, how fab is that!!! TTFN

Hels x