Animal Magic at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello! I don't know about you but I can't believe it's August already! Don't know where the time goes these days and it seems like it goes faster the older you get!
As it's August, we have a new challenge starting today over at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog and the theme for this month is Animal Magic so you can make anything you like as long as you have at least one animal of some sort on there.
My inspiration has 3 from one of Magda Polakow's cute stamp sets for That's Crafty! which I've used in a somewhat outside the box project. Hope you like it.

I've taken one of the quirky shrines for my base, using the tree stump one as I'm sure you all know how much I love nature themed artwork.
I assembled the shrine back, painting the inside with orange multi surface paint for a lovely warm glow.
I then used the larger tree bark stencil with texture paste to add a bark pattern on the front. The twiggy bits at the top being done by dabbing on paste and scratching a bark pattern with a cocktail stick as I found this easier.
When it was dry, I painted the bark with a mix of multi surface paints, using chestnut brown, red, green, orange and metallic bronze. I misted on water and allowed the colours to run a little. When the paint was dry, I glued the front to the shrine base.
I then wanted to add some interest to the tree stump and was inspired by a tree I saw on a visit to Petworth Park in June - here's the photo which is quite weird!

As you can see, it looks like there's a creature's eye peeping out of the knot in the tree so I decided to try and create a knot around the oval aperture in the shrine.
I drew around the oval removed from the front on a piece of mixed media paper. I then used this to construct my knot, drawing the shape and cutting it out then piling on texture paste which I added a pattern to with the cocktail stick. Once it was dry, I painted it with multi surface paints and glued it in place.
I took a tiny MDF heart which I painted red and glued this inside the shrine using a stack of leftover greyboard waste (from the clocks set). I added the text over the top which I stamped with black ink on mixed media paper.

I stamped some leaves using the leaf from Magda's set, stamping on paper painted green. I added more detail before cutting the leaves out and glued these in place.
I then took 3 of the new MDF ATCoin 2.5 inch rounds and painted these with green and teal multi surface paints to roughly approximate sky and grass, then added some pattern with the new Clouds & Hearts stencil designed by Magda using white multi surface paint.
I stamped the cute critters from the stamp set on mixed media paper, coloured them with Zig clean color markers and cut them out, gluing them to my painted rounds which I added to the top of the tree stump.

Aren't they cute!

The last thing I did was to brush 3D gloss gel over the tree surface for some added oomph.

Supplies Used:
That's Crafty! ATC Art Shrines Set - contains the 4 new shapes including this one and the 2.5ins rounds
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - Baby Bear and Friends by Magda Polakow
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Set - The House Collection by Melina Dahl
That's Crafty! 8 x 8 Stencil - Clouds & Hearts
That's Crafty! Texture Paste
That's Crafty! 3D Gloss Gel
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paints - White, Chestnut Brown, Red, Orange, Green, Metallic Bronze, Teal
Black Archival Ink
Mixed Media Paper
Zig Clean Color Marker Pens

I hope you can join us for some lovely prizes as you have to be in it to win it!
Have a great day,
Fliss xx