Underwater Wall Hanging (by Penny)

Hello everyone, it is with great pleasure that I am introducing a new member of our Guest Design Team on the Design Team Blog today.  Our newest member is Penny Butler, who has long been a staunch supporter of the blog, our Facebook group, and also our Challenge Blog. You can find beautiful examples of Penny's work on her own blog, Lady Penelope's FAB Crafty Blogspot. Before we take a look at Penny's first project, we are going to allow her to introduce herself to you:

Hi I'm Penny and I am very delighted and honoured to be asked to share some projects with you all. I've been crafting and drawing since childhood, art was always my favourite subject at school! I live in Somerset with my Husband and our cats, (mad cat lady alert!). We have four children and two lovely grandsons. I have been crafting as a hobby for over twenty years, dabbling in textiles, dress making, glass painting, beading, silk painting and more. About sixteen years ago I was introduced to card making and stamping - and that was it! Nowadays my main crafty passions are stamping, scrapbooking, mixed media and home decor - especially up-cycling! I don't really have a particularly crafty style, as I like all sorts, but I DO love colour! One of my projects involves using the first stamps I ever bought from Chocolate Baroque - Christmas Flourish. I hope that you enjoy the projects :)

It was lovely to get to know you a little better Penny, and without any further ado, here is Penny's first project for us, a piece of home decor made using stamps from the Underwater Kingdom and Seadragon stamp sets.

Penny writes:

I used a panel of greyboard as the base and painted it with white gesso. I used some acrylic paints in blue, green and silver, painting and blending them in stripes across the panel. The silver makes the other paints appear pearlescent. I then stamped and embossed some seaweed and the palace.

I masked the palace and brayered some texture over the whole panel using some crumpled paper. I used Brushos to paint the seaweed, rubbed off the mask and painted the palace. I mixed some silver paint with the Brushos to make them pearlescent. I stamped a sentiment randomly several times, stamped a couple of mermaids in second generation ink, then gave the panel a coat of varnish.

On a piece of white card I stamped and embossed the Sea Dragon and a few other images. I painted them in the same way and cut them out. I gave each image a coat of varnish, then adhered them to the panel. I punched a couple of holes and added some ribbon for hanging the panel.

I hope you enjoyed this project, thank you for visiting :)

Penny Butler.

Thanks so much for your inspirational project and detailed explanation Penny. We look forward to seeing another project from you next week.