I think it's time...

...you were introduced to Andy Pearson.

Andy & his family own and run Pinnacle Crafts which is located within the Barleylands Craft Village in Essex. This is Andy...

 ...demonstrating a technique that formed part of yesterday's "Snap, Crackle & Pop" workshop.

Andy holds a number of Saturday, all day workshops throughout the year and they are always fun and a great place to try new techniques or have a play with ones you may not have used for a while. Andy also does a number of Demo Days each year where he will take some crafting items and show you how to think outside the box so that you get even more use from your products - the next demo day is on 28 Feb 2015 and will be showing how to get the most out of your WeRMemory Keepers Punch & Score boards.

Andy was on the design team for Cuttlebug but is now a member of the DT for Creative Expressions and you can see his work over on their blog every Wednesday. A day they keep for the boys on their DT (some other Creative Expressions names you may be familiar with...John Lockwood,Sue Wilson, Phill Martin). Andy has a blog linked to the shop and a crafting Facebook page - details can be found on the Pinnacles site here.

So now you have met Andy, this is what we did yesterday (lots of photos so you might want to grab a cuppa)...

Starting off with some 4x4 squares of greyboard...

 ...these were to be our practice pieces...

...the first square was given a coat of black acrylic paint and dried off with a heat gun...

 ...the square was then given a good coat of PVA glue (we used Cosmic Shimmer but any brand would give the same results). This coat was given a quick blast with the heat gun just to create a 'skin' before a coat of white acrylic Chalk paint was brushed carefully over the top...

 ...this was dried with the heat gun and as you can see - lots of lovely cracks and texture.
Creative Expressions gilding wax in Graceful blue and Graceful Mustard was applied...

 ...and buffed to a sheen before some Stazon in Azure...

 ...was swiped over the top. We were then left to play experiment...

 ...different coloured paints. Gilding wax colours applied in different orders...

 ...mixtures of Stazon colours...

 ...all created some very...

 ...different looks...

 ...even though the base coat had been black.
I then tried some pieces where the base was white...

 ...and also wanted to try some metallic acrylic paints...

...the top coat on these was silver...

 ...and as you can see. Instead of 'crackle' this is where the 'pop' came into things. The panels bubbled and created a fabulous texture.
This square was white base with Sea Spray (light mint green) as a top coat...

 ...it cracked beautifully but wasn't easily noticeable...

 ...so I tried the same top colour over a black base - much more dramatic.
Once the silver painted panels had cooled...

...one was waxed with Gleam Patina Blue and Creative Expressions Graceful Mint before being swiped with Teal Stazon. The other panel...

...was waxed with Gleam Cerise and Rich Copper. I used two colours of Stazon on this one...

...Black and Cherry Red.
These are all the panels photographed together once I got them home...

...I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these. I may make a canvas display to show them off or I might use them as backgrounds for some mini hangings. Something I need to give some thought to.

That was all the experimenting but if you pop back tomorrow, I'll show you what I did with the techniques.........................................................