Jakobs Memorial Canvas

Sadly, today, I was given the challenge to step outside my comfort zone and try something new. A coworker and dear friends chihuahua, Jakob, passed away. As expected as it was, his momma is devastated. Her daughter and I have been talking since Jakob got sick of making a memorial canvas for her so she would always have something beautiful to remember him by.

I wanted to create something masculine but beautiful and simple for her. Now I usually am into bright beautiful shiny colors... That was not appropriate for this project.. enter the challenge!

I decided to go with a distressed brick look. I unfortunately do not own a brick stencil... or do I? I had a roll of Silhouette stencil material and the CTMH artiste cricut cartridge with a brick overlay. I get to create so I can create? Count me in!!! OK, I'm not a Silhouette user, I know NOTHING about them, but this stencil material is wicked!! I cut it into a 12x12 square with my paper trimmer, stuck it to my cricut mat, loaded it, cut it, and then proceeded to pick all the little brick peices out... what we learned.. when cutting stencil material: pressure medium, blade depth 4... at least I think... I used a blade depth of 3 and that was not enough. But once that was done that stencil rocked!! The Silhouette stencil material is sticky backed!!!!!!! Yup! Love that!!

So now we can actually start our project, LOL.

I did a base coat on the canvas of a grey and cream acrylic paint. I'm a cheap girl, raising to babies, the Michaels cheapy acrylic is all I use! Then I laid my stencil over the died paint and mixed me up some modeling paste. I mixed red, orange, and brown paint. My red and orange were RED and ORANGE so I mixed the brown in to kinda dirty them up a bit and give them a more brick look. I spread the modeling paste over the stencil kinda mixing the red and orange in some spots and leaving them separate in other spots.When I was happy with the coverage and the colors I took my scraper and tapped all over the top to create the rough look. I took the stencil off and baby wiped (I wasn't sure what washing in the sink would do to the sticky back) it to get it clean of the modeling paste.

And then I went to bed.

This morning the modeling paste was dry and we were ready to roll! I took a foam brush and some black paint and just dabbed it all over the tops of the bricks. Then I got out the Tim Holtz distress inks. I used aged mahogany, black soot, and walnut stain. I used my distress tool to rub the inks in between the bricks to give it a more aged look and less like a brand new brick wall. I also did some along the edges and sides of the canvas as I didn't want to have to paint them.

Next, I picked out my CTMH chipboard peices. The picture frame, film strip and name arrow are all CTMH dimensional elements that coordinate with the artiste cartridge, So then I distress all those peices too. I added some red inka gold, blue inka gold and gold inka gold to the peices for just alittle shine.

Then I took a peice of white cardstock and rolled it one way, unrolled, rerolled another way, unrolled, rerolled, unrolled, rerolled... you get the idea. I used an antique linen Tim Holtz distress ink to color it as well as the previously mentioned colors along the edges.

The sentiments are CTMH Big Hug stamp set and I hope they fit perfectly for what this canvas is for!! Jakob is stamped with CTMH small chocolate alphabets.

When I had all those peices put together I started on the roses, which I am assured are her favorite. I used my CTMH art philosophy cartridge to cut the roses in CTMH lagoon, CTMH juniper and CTMH glacier cardstock. The orange and yellow flowers are Heidi Swapp sprayed with Heidi Swapp mustard mist and Color Bloom gilded mist.  The rose metal embelishment is Tim Holtz. And I needed something puppy for this peice for sure so off to Michaels the babies and I went... and in the jewelry making supplies we found the puppy paw print charm.. I think its perfect!!

I then glued everything down. Spray sealed it. I used CTMH liquid glass to get the gloss on Jakob and "cry.laugh.remember."

I mounted Jakobs picture to the center of the chipboard frame (this pops out if you don't want to use it) and covered it in liquid glass as well. I wanted not only to give the picture the most protection I could but to really make it stand out.

And that's what I did. I think I stepped outta my box fairly well and I hope that she loves it!! I need to give a super shout out to my bestie Wanda over at Wanderful Creations, who does love distress teals!!,  for helping me all morning with the fine details!! A milllion text message pictures later and we got it just the way we like it!! Every girl needs a little back up right?

And that's all... here's my creation:

Let me know what you think!!