Be thankful for what you have ...

Hello and welcome to something a little different today! 

An altered wood block!

We have a brand new challenge at A Vintage Journey. I am the host for the challenge this month and I have chosen

WORDS THAT ARE SPECIAL

We often use words for card making, scrapbooking, journaling, layering backgrounds, stamping, collage, in mixed media work, on our tags .... in fact words are often an integral part of our design processes for many of our projects. This month show us words that are important or special to you and how you incorporate them into your vintage; shabby; mixed media; art journaling; industrial or steampunk art.

When I was a child I had these words printed on a small card which sat by my bed. I think it was a present from one of my Nana's. The words have always remained with me and when I saw the stamp a number of years ago I just had to buy it.  The little card is sadly long gone.

When I searched for the origins of the words it now seems that Oprah Winfrey has coined this as one of her "phrases" but to me it has always been an old saying, almost a prayer.

And this is what I started with! My husband is a woodturner and has a bin beside the wood burner in his workshop full of odds and ends. So I saw this rather tatty piece and decided to give it a make over.  (He has said since that if he had known what I was going to make with it he would have cut me something nicer!)

I painted the wood block with Raw Sienna DecoArt Acrylic (two coats) and then applied DecoArt Crackle Paint.

When it was fully dry (I left it overnight to do it's magic) I started layering these lovely shabby roses from a napkin. I used a tiny paintbrush and some water to paint around the edges so that I could tear them easily and used Multi Medium to adhere them.

It was quite easy to layer the different flowers on top of each other and mould them around the wood block.

I stamped my words on Tissue-Tex paper and again used Multi Medium to adhere it.  Finally I blended a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink around the edges and gave the whole block a coat of Multi Medium to "fix" it!

I played around with different embellishments but in the end everything was just too much and so I decided to keep them minimal.

I painted the metal with PaperArtsy Snowflake Fresco Finish paint to create the shabby chic look.

I really love the way the tissue just blends into the crackle and who would think that it started off as a piece of wood destined for the wood burner!

I do hope you will join us in our challenge this month and hop on over to the challenge post HERE to see some amazing projects from my very talented fellow Creative Guides - you can't fail to be inspired!

Thank you for joining me today and have a great weekend!

Jennie x