8TH DG On-Line Christmas Craft Workshop by Betty/all welcome

I am so looking forward to learning this one! Not for sure about my painting capabilities, but I will try anything once! :)

Linda kay and everyone...

When I learned Smooshing, OMG I was Hooked, easy peesie!!
You'll Love it!

Oh linda kay!! You will love smoosh paintig!!!

Follow Betty ditection...jhehe thersn no messing up wirh smooosh paint....roflol trust us!!

Passi.g on the uh whatever ya drinkin.
Heje I way past bed time...

You' ll lovd it!

Morning all

Raining, something outside squawking so up and at it

I've patterns for tracing

A trip to home depot

Yes, I will go over the smoushing part again

You could omit doing this step but it adds just a touch of dimension to the project

Had to book flight home for Saturday as nothing available for sunday

I learned smooshing at the hands of the master. SOOOOOO EASY!!! And it always looks so great. Just remember not to do it too much or you just end up with a new background color!!! LOL And then you need to wait for it to dry and try again!

Sorry to hear your trip is cut short by a day Betty.

Love smoothing!!

Dang spell correct! SMOOSHING!

This message was edited Oct 15, 2014 9:28 AM

Betty, check your email please?

LindaKay, received your envelope and grrrr when I saw what you paid to ship to me I cringed

Got to send you something special to make up for it...
Judy you must be the squish Queen seeing I'm the glitter queen

Infact the sparkles around, meant to bring some with me so I bought a few Xmas ornaments..will scrape off some sparkles..you don't need much, just a few for those who like sparkles, means when you give finishing coat you can drop a few onto it so it dries within the finish

Got linoleum, bit thinner than ours but better than the floor canvas that moves all over the place

Also picked up bristle board to wrap for shipping

Undecided grrrr
Your linoleum is soooo thin, testing to see if the roll will lie flat, if it does I will put the sealer on to help, if it doesn't lay completely flat then I will forgo mailing and do so from home

Not satisfied with the linoleum even after I've sealed it soooo
There are 2 that Darlene took down for me, I will put everyone's name in a bowl and pick 2 names and send those from here

Then when I get home will get a roll, cut and mail..with everything else done it will be a snap

Had the best of intentions

Betty, there is no need for you to waste what you just spent money on! I am sure it will be fine!

Betty, you need to let us know what the extra expense will be. I know you were hoping to mail the linoleum from US. Let us know, we don't want you to bear ANY extra expense.

All is ok honest

Can't believe how paper thin this stuff is

I will be back on track by Monday. Lol

Julie has the Christmas Swap 2014 open, come and check it out!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1378821/

Barb, received your envelope

Have to pick up a roll of linoleum tomorrow so will get yours in the mail likely Tuesday/Wednesday

Glad to know it arrived safely Betty. I'll be watching the mail. Can we get some kind of supplies list? I need to be prepared before Sean arrives as trips to the store with him tend to get pricey!!!!! LOL

This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 6:56 AM

Will do today

Here we go, when we left off on the last photo you were taking tape off and you can now see a change showing an inner and outer border.

Make sure your mat is DRY:

Photo 1:

Place pattern I provided and trace..(pattern I'm sending is same size as the inner section)
couldn't find graphite in USA but hoping to provide enough for you to trace..if I cannot I'll post how to make do with the tracing

Photo 2:

with an almost white, I bought dollar store paint, for the snowman faces I used cream..just a tad darker than white but white can be used if you have some

as you see in photo 1 it will take more than 1 coat..think I took about 3 or 4 coats

NOTE: please let dry between coats or if you want you can use hair dryer to dry..just don't put it too close to the surface

Photo 1:

as you can see the snowman faces are solid in color after several coats

I prefer to paint the faces cream then when you've got good coverage take your scruffy brush and lightly with white add some texture to the faces

not sure if you can see it in this photo but I'll try and get a photo that really shows you the dimention



Photo 2:

traced eyes/nose
NOTE: at this time do not trace 'holly' on..I forwarded on seperate piece of paper
Photo 3:

dry brush with red cheeks *** hardly touch the surface when doing next step, be gentle lol

look for a scruffy brush (I'll post photo of the one I used, even soft cloth might do and or one that you might use to add blush to your cheeks)

in order to get softness and not full red round cheeks, put a wee dab of red and on a piece of paper towel or fabric keep wiping it off until you think no paint remains..when you think no paint remains, wipe again a few times

I'd say because this piece is on the floor and not at eye level you can be a little darker with the rouging



This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 9:21 AM

This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 10:24 AM

This message was edited Oct 21, 2014 9:31 AM

Photo 1:

with burnt orange paint in the nose


for those of you without a small liner brush I might want to pick one up, I think that $$$ store has them..actually when I was at walmart in USA last week they had a packet of brushes for $5.99 which had maybe 7 or 8 brushes, for those of you who might want to make other floormats it might be worth the investment.

(if you can't find a more pumpkin looking orange you can add a tad of brown to tone it down)

Photo 1:

with the wooden end of a brush I set dots in for eyes, to give them a little more character I pulled from the puddle with my lines upwards (or move mat in direction that makes doing this a tad easier)

now you could use a toothpick to do this rather than a liner

Isn't the mat coming alive???

You say to remove tape, but you still have tape over your snowmen?

tape was in earlier stages when you did the insert with smooshing
good question

Now you may notice the outer edge has a grey paint..I just did the next step as I was hurry'ing hoping to get the instructions done before leaving ..

paint dried I set tape on inner border to I can paint it grey

why grey, because if you were to to try and paint red a zillion coats would not cover

I took while and added a tad of black to make grey and gave a few coats

PLEASE ask away if my posts aren't making sense, sometimes one becomes so familiar that it's easy to omit

some are answered by seeing photo's

You can now remove the tape

now comes the red..likely 2 or 3 coats will make the outer border a solid red

This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 9:22 AM

Photo 1:

when looking at the 'holly' pattern I sent you will see I marked with broken lines forming a corner..this will make it easier for corner placement

with graphite trace pattern..I used white graphite here so you could see it better

Photo 1:

With medium tone green I gave 2 coatsto the holly leaves, seemed to cover well



Photo 2:

I'm used to shaded and highlighting so am trying to find a way that non painters in this group can get dimension..

make a small pool of your base green and add just a titch of black (or dk green if you have it) and
give a light coat of your base green, just enough to wet the surface with the paint then pick up the dark paint you just made and paint around the edges while pulling it in the base green just to give it a bit of shading to one side of your leaf




YOU can omit this if you think it would be too difficult

I'm waiting for paint to dry before I can give you the next step

any questions

as per Barb's request I'm going to post above in the 1st post where you signed up and add what paints we need..as I run across another I'll add it so keep an eye out

am trying to do it with minimal paint purchase

also

the 2 I sent out already had the sealer on them, saved my putting a bottle of sealer in the package...will do the same for all of you if ok or if you prefer to paint on sealer I'll include it...just let me know

This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 10:25 AM

now the holly leaves might be intimadating, I call this step the 'ugly' stage
don't fret it

Photo 1:

light green added to opposite side of leaf (same method as you did the dark)

Photo 2 & 3:

here's my scruffy brush, do you know this was once a flat brush
when the bristles started to divide themself from lack of proper cleaning
I would we and put soap in it and run it against the palm of my hand to feather the bristles, I'd do this several times until it fanned out...let me tell you I have lots of scruffy brushes lol

Photo 4:

I picked up some bright green, if you've no bright green but have a little yellow at home you could add to your med. green

dry brush again is putting on brush and wipe paint off, wipe until you think there is no paint left on brush and drybrush in center of leaf

I know you are thinking you are not liking your leaves, don't despair, in the end they will look fine.

Photo1:

with your dark green or black and a liner from where the berries sit I pulled down some lines
don't go crazy with lines, a few will do

I also took my liner and picked up dark green and did a few outer lines on the holly and did the same with the light green...again this is optional

with mixture of my off white/white or what you used for your outer border base coat your berries

I did one at a time and just painted the other two over each other to give them dimension..

REMEMBER, you are looking at this piece from a few inches..when done you will be looking at it from afar and we'll be doing a few other things as we progress

with me so far or are you shaking your head

if at any time you've a few questions please ask so I can go back into the post and clarify

I

Photo 1:

While I was waiting for the paint to dry I added a little highlight to all their eyes

Photo 2:

starting to look pretty good isn't it???

What happened to all the post, everything is blank?

you mean all those photo's I posted are blank?

just incase I'll post these then stop

Photo 1:

with drybrush and a titch of white in with the red, drybrush in circular motion to create highlight in barried

Photo 2:

I took a bit of red and a titch of black and made a maroon and added a bit of shading in the berry

Photo 3:

with end of brush I put a white highlight in each berry

They are all showing up for me, text and pictures...and looking quite festive.GRIN

LK, try rebooting and see if that takes care of it.

Mine both on laptop and ipad had disappeared..few girls on different threads same they lost everything as well..another glitch I guess..just glad I see photo's and hopefully you all do as well..

omg was worried we had lost all

thanks Jean

Big sigh

went and typed in supplies needed in the edit portion of 1st post..got it all done and the send was missing so will wait a tad until glitches are dealt with grrr

I see it all now.

Last photo's before I refine posts and do final coat on it and a few sprinkles of glitter

you might want to practice on a piece of paper or cardboard before doing on your mat

I sometimes do the speckles after my 1st coat of finish is on and DRY so if it screws up then it can be wiped off..that being said it can be wiped off doing it now with a cloth and clean water


Photo 1:
I mixed a tad of black in with orange and made fine lines in the nose, now if you are sure you have a waterproof permanent fine liner around you could mark them with the pen, think for non painters it migt be easier.

Optional: added white to the orange and made a few squigglies at edge of nose..

Photo 2 & 3:

with white or off white paint and just a tad of water in the paint I set my toothbrush into it and ran my fingernail across bristles so that it would speckle..did this on the red boarder and on the blue of sky..not overpowering just adds a bit of texture.

Photo 4:

with the sky background color I speckled a few on the snowmen to also give them interest


This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 3:07 PM

Photo 1:

when put the floormat on the floor I found in uninteresting so decide to make a few snowflakes in the centre..don't go crazy with these, a few of different sizes is sufficient..

with a liner I make a cross then ran alternate lines across the star to form a snowflake then with wood tip of your smallest brush I dipped it into white/off white and dabbed in the dots at the end of the snowflake

remember, make small, med and lg.

Photo 2:

again it was missing something

oh yes 'snowman smiles'

you can do these with liner brush and black paint SLIGHTLY watered..just enough so when you paint the line you have some length to the paint..think had I had a permanent water based thin liner that's what I would have used BUT on the other side, it running out and making the best of it where it did is made the smiles less structured

just know you don't go over your leave..make the break


Photo 3:
found a wider permanent market (water proof)
try it if you are unsure..took a ruler and made a line between boarder and insert..beats painting it without having crooked lines but crooked would be ok



This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 3:06 PM

He turned out cute didn't he

tomorrow if I get time I will do a 2nd one should some of you wish to try another

I'd show you a photo but making as I go following a regular tray pattern for the 2nd one and this one was make as you go..

know it might sound confusing for some of you but just follow the steps as posted and as you all know from other workshops I'm only as far as your computer to help out.

I do hope many of you make this and many more floormats, some for all occasions

This message was edited Oct 20, 2014 3:10 PM