Back in November at the NEC, I was very lucky to meet a lovely lady by the name of Caroline Shinnie. Caroline produces the most beautifully Decorated and Painted pieces and has kindly produced a veritable treasure trove of samples for me :-)) Unpacking the box of samples when it arrived was like all your best Birthdays rolled into one! This has been a huge help to me as not only do I struggle with time issues and producing all the samples for new products, but it also means we can show another persons interpretation of how a piece can be decorated. The first pieces I have decided to feature are our Love Plaque and Home Plaque, which were much admired at our recent exhibitions.

The Love Plaque featured above is a beautiful example of Carolines excellent work and, I think, shows a wonderful sense for colour.  To produce this Caroline has first painted the piece with White Gesso.  She then painted the Heart with Red Chalk Paint and the Words in Pale Blue Chalk Paint, next using a Stencil she added detail to the Blue areas with Clear Ink and Embossing Powder, and then added additional detail with a small Leafy Stamp and Brown Ink.  After lightly distressing the edges she added Glossy Accents on the Red Heart and set aside to dry.  To make the Spray in the centre Caroline first cut out some Flowers from Craft Card using a Floral Die, inked their edges with Red Ink and added some Pearl Gem Centres.  The Flowers where added over some Die Cut Leaves and two of our Midi Bird Buttons, which have been inked added the finishing touch.... perfect!

The next Plaque is our Home Plaque. Caroline again started with a White Gesso Base Coat, painting the word in three different Chalk Paint Colours, these where then finished off with a Stitched effect edge applied with a Black Fine Liner. The word Happy from our Words Pack was painted in the same Paint as the letter "O". Once this was dry Caroline added White Paint Dots with the end of a paint brush and distressed the "O" and "Happy" with White Paint applied with her finger. Very Sophisticated Finger Painting me thinks!! The Scrolls are from our Scrolls Pack and have been Inked with Tim Holtz "Gathered Twigs" Distress Ink. Added to these was a Felt Flower and a Paper Clay Bird, made with "Hearty Super Lightweight Air-Dry Clay" and a Sugarcraft Mould, and three of our Mini Button Folk Hearts. Finally some lovely Chunky Beads, Ribbon and String to finish. These pieces are so beautiful and I am really look forward to featuring more of Carolines fantastic work on the Blog in the future.