Faux Tin Type Technique & last of the Dominoes

I'll start off the with the last of the Domino atc's from the previous class.

"Flagrant Desire"...

"Mother Nature"...

The Faux Tin Type technique is trying to replicate the old tin type photo's using modern materials that most paper-crafters have...foil tape, transparency & a xyron machine. They are notoriously difficult to scan or photograph because of the reflective nature of the foil but you'll get the gist of it.

"Illusion"... (yes, I've used the black texture paste to create the border around this)

"Spectral"... (same image but with a cuttlebug frame made from chipboard)

"Liberation"... (another cuttlebug frame but with foil tape over the chipboard, thanks Ness for the great image, though I feel the word "Liberation" should have a question mark at the end of it! lol)

"Hex"...

"Twilight"...(yeah, I know....can't help it though, I've been a vampire fan since I was a kid with all those Bella Lugosi films & the original Nosferatu. Of course I've read Twilight, then went onto the more adult books of Laurell K Hamilton, the Anita Blake series. I've finished the series, 16 books in total and was reading 3 of them a week, just couldn't put them down! (Thanks Mandy for the loan but I've now ordered my own set). Now I have to wait for #17....darn it, I hate that! I do the same thing with Lee Child, he brings out only 1 book a year in April and I buy it and read it in a few days then have to wait another year for the next one.

More to come after I've done some demo's in my classes.

If you want to see a REALLY, REALLY, cool haunted house, take a look at my friend Julie's blog here. I think from memory she told me it was around two feet tall and she lists all the Collections chipboard products she's used to make this. Gorgeous!!! I told her I wanted to live in it. lol

Time for some Dominoes!

Dominoes are the focus of my next atc technique class.....and focus is the correct terminology for using dominoes on a small area like an atc. It's generally the first thing that hits you when you look at them in real life as they are so dimensional you can't help but be drawn to it, touch it and hopefully, it will marry itself nicely to what your particular story is in the atc. I'm always saying that the girls in my classes, let your atc's tell a story....it doesn't really matter if you are the only one that understands it, still tell it.


So here's my first domino atc, and it's my favourite one. A sheer heaven transfer (thanks Svetlana for the image!) with the beautiful bamboo stamp silver-embossed over the top and the same silver embossing on the domino.


"Delicate"...



This next one is a background made by spraying a perfect pearl/distress re-inker/water mix over canvas paper and then stamping with white embossing powder. I used my old stand-by, the Hero Arts Vintage Map (discontinued). Also had to include the black texture paste around the edge for a finishing touch!


"Escape"...



This is a close-up of a larger domino that I glued a picture onto, then wrapped with gold thread, then coated with Glossy Accents. A little machine stitching with the same gold thread holds the book paper onto card stock sprayed with the perfect pearls/distress re-inker/water mix again - different colours from before obviously!


"Radiate Life"...


Here's the full size atc...

Next is a simple little atc using glossy card stock coloured with alcohol inks, as well as the same colours of the alcohol inks on the domino that has been stamped with a flourish stamp and a key added with silver thread. The domino comes out a slightly different colour from the background, even though I've used the same colours because the gloss card base is white and the domino is cream.

"Dwelling"...

Finally, black on white with a touch of blue....created with Black Stazon on white gloss card and Twinkling H2O Mystic Blue for the eye-colour. The domino is coloured with some blue sharpie & blending solution with a touch of gold metallic mixative thrown in for good measure....and a stamp.

"Serene"...

More to come later...

More Crackle Paint & some Glass Bead Gel!

Continuing from the last post, here are more of the crackle atc's.

"Breathe"... Picket Fence (white) crackle paint with some Weathered Wood Distress Ink rubbed onto it to drop the starkness of the white back a bit. If you enlarge this picture by clicking on it, you'll see I also used Golden Glass Bead Gel over the image. This goes on opaque but when the medium dries, all you can see are the little spheres of glass and it also gives it a wonderfully textural feel! Love it!!!


"Transformation"... The fabulous H.R. Giger images will always work well with Black Soot Distress Crackle!

"Portal"... Scattered Straw Distress Crackle, rubbed with some Peeled Paint Distress Ink and Vintage Photo Distress Ink after the crackle had dried. The little brick stamp in the top right is by Cherry Pie.

"Reliquary"... Gothic silver embossed script in background is from Michelle Ward's Printed Matter rubber plate and the beautiful silver window is from Scraptivate - it's one of the many, MANY, styles of German Scrap that we sell at the store. These window arches also come in black and white. I love the silver as you can wipe paint over it and then wipe it off and it grunges it up nicely! The image has the Helmar Crackle 2 step used on it with Payne's Grey paint added and wiped off after the crackle had dried.

Next up is Dominoes! So over the next few days I'll be slaving away in my studio with these little cream plastic toys, trying to come up with interesting looking atc's! We'll see.....

Crackle Technique & a Canvas

Several years ago I posted about a "poppet" style canvas (a la Claudine Hellmuth style) I had made for a friend's daughter who had lost her Dad to cancer when she was only 4. Her baby sister was born only a couple of weeks after Steve died so she has no memories of her Dad. Little Ava is now 5 so it's time that she had her own canvas with her Dad and her in it. Aisha, her big sister is probably going to be more excited about this when she sees it as it's the same picture of her Dad that I used in her canvas. Here's a link to the previous one for Aisha. These are both 8" x 10" canvases. Not my usual dark & gloomy style but I'm a Gemini and I can chop and change at whim. ;-)

This fortnight's round of classes at Scraptivate is Crackle Technique. We sell several types of crackle including the brand new Rock Candy Distress Crackle. This first atc is the Helmar Crackle which is a 2 step crackle...a base coat, let dry for 20 minutes, then the top coat. As you can see it's a clear crackle so over pictures it's great as you can add some paint when it's dry and wipe it off and the paint settles in the cracks.

"Fragment"...

"Betroth"...this is also using the Helmar Crackle.

Ranger also make the Distress Crackle in 24 colours + some metallic colours.

"Rock and Roll"... (Black Soot Distress Crackle. Yep, yummy Ville Valo, lead singer for HIM....my favourite band!)

"Live it"...also using Distress Crackle in Old Paper colour.

"Angel's Art"... Milled Lavender Distress Crackle.

"Temptation"... Aged Mahogany Distress Crackle.

"Icon"...this is the new Rock Candy Crackle from Ranger. I've put some red paint over the top part of it and used Fired Brick Distress Ink rubbed onto the bottom part. You can see the difference that the paint makes...much more seeps into the cracks. Probably would've been better with a less detailed picture underneath. Live and learn.

"The first rule"... This is the Ranger Crackle Accents. It comes in a bottle like Glossy Accents or Dimensional Magic and goes on the same way... through a small tip that you just squeeze on and spread it around. Very easy!

Guess I'll have some more when I do some samples for the classes over the next week.