Secret Garden

Hello and welcome to my blog  :)  I have a piece of home decor/mixed media to share with you today.  A friend of mine gave me a couple of MDF watering cans that she had got from Dreamees   https://www.dreamees.org.uk/  and I immediately thought 'Vintage' and 'Secret Garden' theme.  I have recently aquired some new silicone moulds which I use with air dry clay that I knew would be great for this project.    

So, I have used acrylic paint and mat arylic paint from my stash, air dry clay, moulds from Prima and La Blanche, Little Birdie paper flowers, La Blanche paper ephemera,die cuts from my stash, That's Crafty crackle gel, La Blanche antiqueing laquer, 13 Arts grit, Distress Inks, a little garden twine and gold gilding wax.

I  began by painting all surfaces with a terracotta acrylic, letting it dry then painted on a coat of crackle gel.  When that was dry I painted all the surfaces with a mat acrylic paint and watched the cracks appear, giving the effect of old, cracked paint.  

I added antiqueing laquer using a dry brush to age everything a bit more.  I wanted to include a brick wall in my design and some texture.  I have a brick wall stencil in my stash but it's too big for this project so I made one myself.  I took some clear packaging, which is usually very strong, and I used a die from my stash of a small brick wall.  I then mixed some sand texture paste and terracotta paint, and stencilled it onto the body of the watering can.  When that was dry I took the air dry clay pieces that I had prepared earlier; a bird bath, a figureen head, a bird house on a post and some tiny birds.  I painted the birds and the bird house but left the other pieces white so they looked like marble.  I attached them all to the watering can with multi purpose gel medium.  I added some die cut Ivy leaves, which I had edged with white gesso, to replicate creeping Ivy growing on the wall.  I then attached some white paper flowers, a couple of painted clay flowers, some die cut trellis and added some garden twine on the handle.  

I took some La Blanche paper ephemera sheets and cut out a dragonfly, a small photo and a tag.  I tore the edges of the photo and added some DI to them.  I then added ink to the edges of the tag and the Dragonfly before attaching all the pieces to the spout of the watering can.  

    

Next it was time to decorate the other side, I wanted to create a secret entrance to the garden.  I took another of my clay pieces, this time an old wooden door, and I painted it with mat acrylic paint.  I used gold gilding wax on the hinges and door handle, then added antiqueing laquer to knock them back a bit.  I dry brushed a light colour over the door to accentuate the grain then decorated the doorstep in the same way.   

I wanted to create the effect that the door to the secret garden was a bit hidden by lots of overgrown foliage, so I added various die cuts from my stash in different shades of green card.  I then added DIs to the edges of the leaves.

The next stage was to add the old brick wall, using the same products and techniqes as before.  When the 'bricks' were dry I attached the door and doorstep with multi-purpose gel.  

I then attached all the die cut foliage including the creeping Ivy across the top of the door.  I wanted to create some scruffy grounding for the piece so I took some fine grit and attached it on both sides, at the bottom of the watering can and over the base.  I then painted the grit with a mat acrylic in a tonal colour.   I attached a small white flower as a little tease of what might be behind the door.  

I added gold gilding wax to all the edges of the watering can and base, then cut out a butterfly and attached it to the spout to complete the design.

I had so much fun creating this piece!  I used around 8 different techniques and lots of products, in other words I had a wonderful playtime lol!  I am so pleased with the results too, it looks just as it did in my head when I was thinking about how I wanted to decorate my MDF watering can.

Thanks so much for dropping into my blog today, I hope you've enjoyed this post.  Feel free to browse further and I hope to see you here again soon!  :)