I had so much messy fun doing these cards!  I was searching online for some ideas for decorating beermats for my brother’s birthday card and I came across Laura Kimber’s blog with Faux bronze wall plaques.  Thank you for sharing your creations Laura.  I just had to have a go at this technique and although I managed some of it ok I thought that the paper flowers I used were just too flimsy so maybe thicker ones would give more definition.  I added a tiny amount of colour to the flowers and butterfly with rub-on wax just to make them stand out a little more.

First of all I glued a plain napkin to a beermat and made sure there were a few wrinkles in it to give texture.  Then I glued on the other materials (string, fluffy fibre, micro beads, oyster shell grit, paper flowers, butterfly and gems) – that was the messy bit.  After it all dried I painted over the entire surface with black acrylic paint and when that was dry I went over it with gold acrylic paint trying to get most of it on the raised areas.  That was pretty tricky to keep some of the black showing in order to make the texture really stand out.  I went over it again with gold but this time some Perfect pearls to make it glisten a little.  To add more definition a rubbed on some wax and added some little bronze charms and a tiny amount of gold stickles.  The trees beermat is matted onto black card then onto pale gold card and is embellished with tiny bronze coloured brads.  The flowers beermat is matted onto black card with a mixture of copper and brass embossing powder on it then onto dark gold card.   So Chris and Lizzie, I hope you like your birthday cards.