KO...OK?: January 2013

Monday, January 28, 2013

Faux Dominoes

The second technique for Book Number 9 is Faux Dominoes. I have used both the large and smaller sized real dominoes on atc's before but I've found they are harder to get hold of these days so I wanted to do a similar look but with products that are easily available. So these are made from plain white cardstock, stamps, some form of colouring (distress ink pads, distress stains, distress markers... seeing a theme here???), then covered with clear embossing powder for a beautiful glossy finish. Raising the pieces on foam tape also adds to the illusion of depth, which is why the backgrounds are not as clear as the raised areas. As you can see I've used different backgrounds from my various techniques that I've taught over the years and they are mostly covered up but I still like to use handmade backgrounds over a purchased piece of scrapbook paper, unless of course you do something to said scrapbook paper....stamp, ink, emboss, paint etc.

"Certified Freak"... (painted canvas background)

"Eternal Oblivion"... (corrugated card background)

"Art"... (credit card technique background)

"waiting"... (painted canvas background)

This one below is actually a 4" x 6" card rather than an atc so the domino pieces are made larger. I occasionally make a card to show my students that you can incorporate the techniques they learn in my classes into cards, not just make atc's with them. As you can see, this is a perfect example of a particular technique that lends itself wonderfully to a card.

More samples to follow after my classes.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Antique Faux Metal Embellishments - New Cover!

So begins a new year, which means for my students... a new book cover for our Technique Books. This class the technique is called Antique Faux Metal Embellishments and it works on chipboard pieces or those laser-cut shapes equally as well. It's a spin-off from the soot technique but with another couple of steps thrown in and the pieces end up very glossy (that's the Dimensional Magic or Glossy Accents that gives that look) but very antiqued, like old metal jewellery. The important thing with this technique is you need the pieces of chipboard to be large enough to actually show the wrinkles that the Gilding Wax or Treasure Gold (or Rub'n'buff) highlights. So no little squiggly flourishes, you want solid pieces.

This is the book cover in it's mid-way stage, it's not finished as I'll continue to work on it at each class over the next fortnight to show my students how each step is done. Some people are much more visual than others and the demo is, as far as I'm concerned, a very important part of teaching. You can tell by the size of the wings and chipboard corner piece on this cover that it wouldn't work on little skinny pieces of chipboard embellishments. This cover is 6" high by 8" wide (or 15cm x 20cm). The background is a piece of the Glimmer Mist Wrinkle from the previous class.

I took a picture of the cover with my scanner as well as my phone, the colouring is closer to the one on the scanner (the top one) but the detail shows up better in the phone picture. Just thought I'd include both....amazing how different it looks! The Book 9 wording is a Cuttlebug letter die-cut set and it's the aluminium foil tape stuck to chipboard, then cut out and a bit of black acrylic paint applied and wiped off randomly to dirty the shiny silver look of the letters. After I stuck them down with Matte Accents I used a charcoal pencil and a cotton bud to smudge around the edges to give them depth. The heart in the centre is not done with this particular technique that we're doing in this class, it's simply a chipboard heart painted black, bashed with Tim's texture hammer (not too much though) and then Gilding Waxes rubbed lightly over the surface.

Book cover... taken with scanner