Crackle Texture Paste from Prima

 Hi Antony here!

In this video I take a look at Crackle Texture Paste from Prima. This is only

one of very few crackle pastes/paints out there which is applied in just one

coat. It comes in a few colours and it great for adding that aged look to your

projects. The different colours can also be mixed together before applying them.

Hope you find this short video helpful!

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Antony

All About FMM Claycraft Clays

  Hi Antony here!

Here's a quick video I made for FMM Claycraft explaining the difference between

their two amazing clays. The Bright and Light, paper air drying clay and the

Soft then Strong polymer air drying clay.

If you're interested in getting either of these clays please head over to their website

FMM Claycraft (formerly FMM Funcraft)

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Antony

Lisianthus Flower Canvas

 Hi Antony here!

Well 2020 is behind us all now, but uncertain times are still with us. I hope you're

keeping safe and are able to find time to craft. For this post I've created a wall

canvas using some cutters from FMM Claycraft (formerly FMM Funcraft)

The cutter I've used in this project is the lisianthus. I'll be honest I'd never

heard of this type of flower before, so I had to do a bit of research to see what

colours it came in. In saying that the great thing with making your own flowers

in clay, is that you can create them to match your project.

All the flowers have been made with FMM Bright and Light clay. This clay

is a light weight, paper air drying clay. It's great for all types of projects, from

cards, to canvases and even home decor projects.

I've also used rice paper that i've stamped using a Prima Marketing stamp, as

well as some stencils from Viva Decor.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and are able to join me for a live show on

Hochanda TV on 16th of February at 9am.

Hochanda is available on:-

Sky channel 673

Freesat channel 817

Freeview channel 85

as well as on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, ROKU and online

For all of the cutters, clay and tools i've used please head over to the

FMM Claycraft website.

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Antony

Memory Box

Hi Antony here!

For these two video, I show you how I decorated a memory box using some

beautiful products from Prima.

As well as papers, I also used some of their gorgeous moulds too!

Hope you enjoy the tutorials!

Until next time, Happy Crafting and please stay safe!

Antony

The Equinox

  Hi Antony here!

Today's project is a follow on from another canvas of mine,

"Celestial Love" Once again I've written a short verse to go along with

it and a little music video too. Before I get into the crafting part of this post,

here's both the verse and video for the canvas, "The Equinox"

The Moon had written his love for the Sun

using the brightest stars in the midnight sky.

As the cogs of time turned and night became

day, the union of love between the Sun

and the Moon got ever closer.

Mother Nature peered out to gaze upon them

both, as they met in the warm morning sky.

She smiled as she slowly rose into the sky and

encircled them both with her mighty majestic wings.

“I will call this union of your love, The Equinox”

she said“ Love each other equally and you'll

blossom forever”

And so until the end of time, the Sun and

the Moon loved one another.

©2021 Antony James Minnis

Ok... now to a bit of crafting!

As I mentioned this canvas was a follow on from my previous one, so

I've mainly used the same techniques to achieve a similar look.

The main difference is the textured background.

Step 1 Using an old shirt, I ripped it into strips of about 10cm wide. Next came

the slightly messy bit! I filled a small plastic bowl with a product from Prima

called Sculpture Medium. It's a fabric hardening medium that is similar to

Powertex. However unlike projects coated with Powertex, the finished item

isn't weather proof.

Step 2 I massaged the Sculpture medium into the material until is was

thoroughly soaked. I left it soaking whilst I took a 6mm sheet of MDF and

stuck some hessian pieces on. I used the Sculpture Medium as a glue to

stick these on and paint over them.

Taking the soaked pieces of material, I then placed them onto the canvas,

making sure they had plenty of folds in. The Sculpture Medium on the

soak material was enough to stick this to the MDF sheet too.

Step 3 Using art balls of various sizes, I mixed them together with the

Sculpture Medium paint, into a gritty paste. Using an old paint brush I then

scooped up the paste and applied it to areas of the canvas. I then left the

canvas to dry overnight before painting over everything once more with the

Sculpture Medium paint. Once again I left this overnight to dry, but you

can force dry it with a craft heat tool if you wish.

Step 4 Once dry I painted over the entire surface with some black acrylic

paint. Once that was dry I then started to dry brush on a magenta acrylic

paint, followed by a turquoise coloured acrylic paint.

I went over both colours with a second coat to make sure the colours

could be seen on the black. Next, using a copper coloured gilding wax,

I went over the highpoints on the textured areas to help them stand

out more. Finally I used Starlight paints from Imagination

Crafts, to dry brush on to selected areas to add a bit of sparkle.

Step 5 Once the background was dry, I started to add the 3D embellishments

that i'd made using clay from FMM and moulds from Prima. If you want

to find out the process for colouring them, please take a look at my other

canvas "Celestial Love" and Step 2 in it.

 The only difference with the embellishments in this canvas, is that after

applying the 3 colours of gilding paint, I then dry brushed on some turquoise

coloured acrylic paint to help give it a sort of verdigris/aged look. 

Hope you enjoyed this blog post.

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Antony

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