Helmar Creative Team: June 2024

Hi everyone, Nat here with a fun project to brighten up the cold Winter days here in South Australia!
I will be making a set of two ocean-themed wall plaques with items I have collected, and a few I recently found at the second-hand store. Also, I have a go at techniques I am not too familiar with and learn a lot in doing so.

On a recent second-hand splurge I discovered a bag with six of these plaques in. I will be using two of these for my project. Firstly I will spread some PVA glue mixed with a little water over the plaques using my paint brush. I am recycling some tissue paper by scrunching it up in my hands and laying it on top of the wet glue then sealing it with more of the PVA brushed over the top to create a nice texture for my backgrounds.

Once my glue is dry, I pull out my shell collection and some gorgeous sea-themed dangles (also found at the secondhand shop) and find an aesthetically pleasing combination of these for each plaque.

The dangles have screw hooks in them and I remove these to use later.

Next I paint my pieces with some white Gesso and leave to dry.......

....... I then adhere them to my plaques using Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive.

Gesso is painted over both of the plaques to prepare them for some colour. I will be using Distress Oxide Sprays to do this, starting with a coating of 'Old Paper'. I spray a little onto my plaque, then some water and tilt my plaque to help move the ink around. Next I use 'Mermaid Lagoon' to get a nice blue colour and 'Twisted Citron' (which I swapped out for the pictured 'Speckled Egg') for the contrasting green. I further used the inks with a paint brush to add highlights and reach areas missed with the spraying. My heat gun was used to dry in between layers to avoid my tissue paper getting soaked and creating holes (I did learn this as I went and had to patch up some small areas with more gesso and ink!)

I love the texture of the tissue paper and the colour of the inking.

I re-use the screw hooks from the dangles by inserting two to the bottom of the plaque that will be at the top of my wall hanging, and two to the top of the bottom plaque, approximately one centremetre from either side. I will be using recycled jewellery chain to join my plaques together.

For a bit of extra sparkle I add a few speckles of silver leaf. This is applied by painting a tiny amount of PVA where I want the leaf to adhere, gently pressing the leaf on to the glue and then after a minute - brushing the excess off with a paint brush.

The chains are added to join my pieces together. These are purely for embellishment as I will be sticking both plaques to the wall. I take my wall hanging out to the carport to give it a coat of Helmars Crystal Kote Gloss Varnish. This will help seal the colour and silver leaf, making it easier to dust and giving it a nice gloss finish.

Now for finishing touches - I use the 450 Quick Dry again to stick down the words "Ocean Life" printed by my label maker, and a few small glass pebbles.

Here is the top plaque.........

.........and the bottom plaque.

There is a process video available on the making of my wall hanging here:

I had so much fun making this and hope you will give it a go, especially if, like me, you have a gazillion shells hanging around in boxes gathering dust!
Happy crafting and take care - Nat xxx