Anyone For a Cup of Tea

Hi everybody! It's Toni here and it's my turn to put together another one of our Inspirational Posts. Rather than showcasing a particular product or technique, I've decided to show you how I went about altering this cup and saucer. It also fits in rather well, with our current 'Spring is In The Air' challenge. So grab a cuppa' and I'll get started.....
I've got a few china cups and saucers that are very pretty but in our household, pretty useless, as we are all confirmed mug users. I thought it was time to experiment, this is my cup and saucer before I set to......

I've not altered any glazed china before, but my crafting instincts told me to firstly give it a coat of matte medium. Once this was dry, I collaged the surface of both the cup and saucer with torn up sheet music paper using more matte medium ......

I then painted over the surface with  Antique Linen Distress Paint, not too thickly, as I wanted the music to show through.... no photo as this is the stage where I started to get engrossed !

Whilst the cup and saucer were drying, I stamped out some images on tissue, using black Versa Mark Ink. Most of the stamps I used are from an Indigo Blu set called Live, Laugh, Love. I think these are amongst my most inked stamps. I used the same set for my project for our current challenge.

I also stenciled this group of words with Wendy Vecchi's Gold Embossing Paste, onto a piece of deli paper. This embossing paste is wonderfully gold when dry, you wouldn't realise it when you see it in the jar, but it dries to a really shiny finish. I cut around several of the images and tried out a few placements, working on the saucer first. Once I'd got an idea of what I wanted I used matte medium to attach the tissue images to the surface. Carefully smoothing the tissue using a dabbing motion with soft brush .... quite a sticky process hence the lack of photos! I applied the cut out words in the way. Once every thing was dry, I did a little light tinting of the images with Wendy Vecchi Archival inks.I also painted the handle of the cup using a gold leaf pen.

I then gave everything a  coat of Deco Art Ultra Matte Varnish in order to seal the surface before applying Deco Art Crackle Glaze. To enhance the crackles I used black Antiquing fluid and buffed the surface with a soft cloth.

I used the gold leaf pen to highlight the rim of the cup and saucer.

As you can see, lots of lovely little crackles !My finishing touch was to construct the nest and make the little eggs. A trip into the garden supplied me with some dead grasses and leaves which I swirled together. I used more matte medium to hold the nest together. The faux moss is something I bought a while ago from Hobby Craft.

I made the eggs with Silk Clay and painted them with Distress Paints. I added a little word token to the edge to complete my alteration. I know I always say this, but this was a lot of fun to do and I'm really pleased with my 'Spring Is In the Air'  altered cup and saucer. I hope this may inspire you to have a go at altering some crockery, I'd love to see it if you do ....and don't forget our 'Spring Is In The Air' challenge is open and awaiting your project ! x