Decorating a Glass Jar using products from Prima

Hi, Antony here!

I've got more videos to share, this time it's all about decorating a glass jar.

I've used 3D Gloss Gel from Prima to give the glass that frosted look and

then added some extra detail using casts from moulds.

Once again the videos i've made here were used to broadcast some shows

for Hochanda, so you may hear me mention about other products that were

on the show too.

Hope you enjoy these two videos!

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Antony

Lockdown Project

Hi Antony here!

I hope everyone is keeping safe in these uncertain times. Stress levels for many

of us are at an all time high and for some boredom has set in... but wait, there is hope

...Crafting! During all these lockdowns, lots of people have discovered crafting for

the very first time. With lots of new Facebook groups popping up, there is plenty of

inspiration out there and these new crafters are finding how calming and fun crafting

can be... and now they're hooked! For those of us who already craft, we've had a

chance of trying different styles to our normal crafting, or even different types of crafts

that we've never tried before. For quite a few people they've also taken the plunge and

started to do Crafting Facebook Lives and sharing their ideas.

This post is about one of my lockdown projects, which is a very different

style for me. I was inspired a bit by Finnabair, but wanted to add my own twist too!

I don't usually name my canvases, but this one I've called

"The Angel of Hope"

Step 1 To start off with I cut myself some MDF, which was left over from my garage

craft room conversion. This formed the canvas. I painted this with white gesso.

Step 2 Once the gesso was dry I glued a pre-printed rice paper design on top. Then

I watered down some white acrylic paint and splattered it over the rice paper to give

it a distressed look. This using a stencil and some Prima texture paste I added some

extra detail. 

Step 3 I mixed a colour similar to the pre-printed rice paper design and went round

the outer edge of the canvas to form a sort of border.

Step 4 Using a clock face die, I cut out 2 clock faces on 1mm card and then

stuck them both together to create the main background embellishment.

I painted this white and added some texture to it using quick drying Polyfilla.

Step 5 For all of the other 3D embellishments I used a selection of Prima Marketing

moulds. Usually I'd have used air drying clay, but this time round I used some quick

setting resin. When all the casts were dry, I painted them with white gesso.

The only ones I didn't paint were the two wings that I would later place on top

of the angel.

I used 2mm card to cut out a circle that would be large enough to later glue the

angel on. Again I used Polyfilla to add some texture. I also cut some 2mm

card into strips and applied a bit of texture to them too.

Step 6 For the wings that are on top of the angel, I heated the resin casts, so that I

could slightly bend them, to give them some shape. When you use this technique

make sure you don't apply too much pressure to the casts, as you might leave

a few fingerprints. Once the casts had cooled down, I painted them with white

gesso. Once dry I painted the angel and the wings with Prima, gold coloured

metallic paint. I then used a slightly darker paint to dry brush on, which helped

bring out some of the casts amazing detail. Finally using some magenta

gilding wax I lightly went over the angel and wings, to help give them a sort

of vintage/aged look and also to add a bit of warmth to their overall colouring.

Step 7 For all the other resin casts, I painted them with various colours of

metallic paints and waxes. For the floral elements I picked out the colours

of both the flowers and the leaves. Once all the paint had dried, I them

used the same colour gold as I had used on the angel to lightly dry brush over

them. This helped tie everything together a little more.

Step 8 The final part was to position everything. Firstly I decided where I wanted

the angel to go and then positioned the clock. I then played round with positioning

the other casts until I was happy. When everything was in a good position, I

took a photo of it, before removing everything. Using 3D Gloss Gel medium,

I glued everything back in to position, using the photo I'd taken as reference. To fill

in gaps and to add more texture to my canvas, I used various size art balls along

with gel medium. Once dry I painted over these with white gesso and then

dry brushed with other colours to bring the whole canvas together.

Hope you've enjoyed this post, thanks for reading!

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Antony 

Opal Magic Paints from Prima

Hi Antony here!

Here's another video from my lockdown One Day Special for Prima on Hochanda.

This one is all about Opal Magic Paints. These paints are very clever, as depending

what colour surface you paint them on, they come out differently. In a later video

I show you them in action within a project, but this video just shows you the basics.

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Antony

Prima Clay and Moulds

  Hi Antony here!

I'm sure you can remember last year when we had the first nation lockdown.

At the time Hochanda asked all demonstrators to video the demo from home

and send them in to then be broadcast.

At the time I had a Prima One Day Special set of shows. I made quite a few

videos, so I thought I'd upload them all onto the blog. They might come in

handy for someone, one day.

My first video is an introduction into using Prima Modelling clay with their

moulds. However the same method applies if you're using other types of clay too.

I'll be uploading more of the video over the next few days.

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

 Antony

Sun & Moon Canvas "Celestial Love"

 Hi Antony here!

I thought I'd share another lockdown project with you, this one has a sort of

story behind it, which evolved whilst I was making it. In my previous post

I mentioned that I didn't normally name my canvases... but whilst putting all the

elements of this one together it came to clear to me that the canvas was a

love story, between the Sun and the Moon. And so I named the canvas

"Celestial Love"

The Sun felt alone in the Sky, but every night the Crescent Moon would

show his love for the Sun by laying down a carpet of stars that shone

brighter than the rest of the night sky.

However the Sun was always too late to see this act of love that played

out in the night sky. So the Crescent Moon left a key to his heart, in hope that

the Sun would find it and make his life whole. Months past until the equinox

came and finally the Sun saw what she had missed for months.

The Moon was finally whole and the Sun knew that she was no longer

alone in the sky. She now knew that although she couldn't see the love of the

Moon during the day, it was always there for her.

©2021 Antony James Minnis

As well at the short story, I also created a video too.

Ok... story over, here's how I put canvas together!

Step 1 Using Prima Marketing moulds, I made what seems to be a ton of

embellishments. For these I used FMM Claycraft air drying polymer clay called

"Soft then Strong"

I also cut out a circle using 2mm card, and added texture to it using quick drying

Polyfilla. I sank the Sun and Moon into the Polyfilla whilst it was still wet.

When dry I painted everything using various colours of Prima metallic paints.

Step 2 For all of the polymer casts, I painted them with black acrylic paint and

then used 3 colours of gilding paint from Cadence, to give them their metallic finish.

First I dry brushed on Antique Gold, then Antique Silver and finally a copper colour.

Step 3 I cut some strips of 2mm card to create some interest for the background.

With these I used Polyfilla and various size art balls to create texture on them.

Step 4 For the canvas I cut myself some 6mm MDF and painted it with white gesso.

I also used some structure paste along with some stencils to add interest to the background.

For the colouring of the background I used Liquid Acrylic paints from Prima.

I applied a small drop of the paint directly onto the canvas then water it down and

tilted the MDF canvas so that the colour run. I repeated this process with a second colour

of the Liquid Acrylic paints.

Step 5 Where I had used stencils on the background, I placed these back over

the now raised areas and used a gold gilding paint to lightly brush over. This

helped just show the stencil work a little more.

Step 6 With all the elements painted, it was time to start laying them all out. I never

use glue for this next bit, I just place things until it all balances nicely. When I was

happy I took a photo then removed all the elements. Then it was time to glue everything

into it's final position, using the photo i'd just taken as reference. I used the 3D Gloss

Gel Medium from Prima. It gives plenty of wiggle time and it's a fab strong glue for

holding all of the embellishments.

|Step 7 With all the elements in place, I then painted the stars with a metallic paint

from Imagination Crafts and added a little magenta gilding wax to a few of the

embellishments too.

Step 8 Using some Stampendous Chunky embossing enamel along with a glue, I

created a sort of border round all the 3D embellishments. This was to help soften the

colour change from the polymer clay elements metallic look and the pastel colours

of the background. It also gives the look that the metallic elements have been dropped

into a liquid metal and it's splashed out onto the background.

Hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed creating this piece.

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Samantha and Antony