Altered Element DT pack 1

Each month, I will have 2 'design team' packs from The Altered Element. One will be a pack of things sold in the shop, and the other will be an 'Upcycle' pack consisting of something from a charity shop.
This month, the Upcycle pack is a beautiful piece of William Morris 'Agapanthus' fabric in blues, greens and lilac, with some ribbons and lace in toning colours. I'm thinking about the possibilities for this pack, but do have a project in mind.


The pack of stock items consisted of a large piece of black 30g weight Lutradur, and a copper themed pack of metal, bullion wire, knitted wire tubing, fine copper wire, and Lametta curls.

I have started working with the contents of this pack and hope to post a finished project this week. I'm waiting for something to dry at the moment, before carrying on to the next step.


What would you make with this pack?

Colorwash spray technique

I had a 'light bulb' moment today. I have lots of colourwashes in my stash, and have only ever sprayed them onto various surfaces, or painted them onto specific parts of projects. What was I thinking of? I should have thought of using them like this a long time ago, not finding out by accident today!

I was making something today when I accidentally got some colourwash onto some glossy paper. I dabbed it with a wet wipe. I liked the effect. I added another colour, dabbed, added another colour and dabbed until I was happy with what I had. It looks quite similar to alcohol inks at first glance, but it a much cheaper way of achieving the effect than using alcohol inks. I used what I produced as backgrounds to stamp on, and made these two cards.

Mixed media pendant

I had a few birthday presents to make, and reluctantly decided to use my last few Patera hearts. These are part of a range of really high quality jewellery findings, and the pendants all have matching punches, which makes it really easy to achieve a professional finish when cutting your artwork to fit.

I was only reluctant because I have a weird thing about not using things in my stash which I really like, especially the last of anything (because then I won't have it any more, and who knows whether I can get it again LOL).

I was also reluctant because I can't find a UK supplier for these beautiful high quality jewellery findings, and UK customs restrictions on imported goods means I can only buy 5 at a time from the US, unless I want to pay £8 handling charge plus 17.5% tax.

I took some fabric paper scraps left over form my last mixed media art quilt, and punched it to shape. I stamped with Versamark, and embossed with Stewart Gill Metallic copper embossing powder, then sewed on a bead and bead spacer. Voila! A pretty unique piece of wearable art. Apologies for the image quality, I scanned it and probably should have taken a photograph instead.
Anyway, I hope the friends who receive them for their birthdays like them!

Woo HOO

I used to buy most of my art supplies from the US, because I couldn't find a UK website which sold the eclectic mix of stuff I like to play with, and I was fed up of paying lots of expensive UK postage to buy bits and bobs from lots of websites. Altered Elements sells most of the things I like to use, so I am really happy to have found their website!

However, I'm doubly happy because I'm delighted to announce that I've been chosen to be part of a new Altered element design team. I will be playing with products from Altered Element for the next 6 months, and sharing whatever I create here.

I will also share them on this blog, so watch this space!