Deck the Halls ........

Hello again ......

The weekend is almost here ... yeah!!  Or has yours already started!

We're still in the festive spirit I'm afraid ........ for this month's Happy Little Stampers Mixed Media Challenge

This month's theme is ....... Crackle and I've used it here to paint an MDF Christmas bauble

I love the crackle effect and it's so simple to do.
I gave the bauble a quick coat of gesso followed by a coat of acrylic paint.  You need to put a colour down first so that it shows through once the crackle has done its magic ..... I chose a bluey grey shade here

There's quite a few Crackle paints or glazes on the market ..... I used the 2 step Cracking Paint from Sweet Poppy Stencils, it works really well and dries reasonably quickly.  Another one of my favourites is the PaperArtsy Crackle Glaze.

OK ...... so I've gessoed and painted my bauble.  Next comes Step 1 of the Cracking Paint ....... the Primer.  Simply painted over the bauble and left to dry ...... it dries clear.  Then comes the magic ..... Step 2 painted over the top and left to dry.  I like to leave it to dry naturally but, you can heat it to speed up the process.  As it dries, the cracks appear.

I then used a stencil and texture paste to add my design followed by a covering of fine glitters to add the colour ..... very sparkly!

I stamped the words and heat embossed with gold powder, both on the front of the bauble and the back ....... adding more of the stencil design too

To finish off  I added a festive bow along with some seasonal foliage

What will you design?

As with all the HLS challenges there's a prize up for grabs ..... a $20 gift certificate to spend in the HLS Store.
You can check out all the challenge details HERE and why not pop by and see what the rest of the Design Team have been up to ...... Happy Stamping!

Well that's me done for this week ..... it's time I had some of that Christmas spirit.  I think there's a glass of something chilled waiting with my name all over it ..... Ho! Ho! Ho!

Thanks for popping by ........ have a great weekend.

Cheerio until next time .....