Alcohol Acetate Smoosh

The technique for this fortnight's class is called Alcohol Acetate Smoosh.   I wanted to use alcohol inks on acetate as I know how wonderful they look when placed against a light coloured background.  Usually you would stamp an image on the un-inked side of the acetate and place the ink down against the card to protect it and the light coloured card stock would show not only the wonderful ink colours, but the stamping as well.   This technique incorporates that technique but also uses the fantastic properties of glossy card stock as it also takes alcohol ink really well!    So we've all done Tim Holtz's Distress Ink Pad smoosh technique on craft sheets but I wanted to do a similar thing but using the acetate on one side and the gloss card on the other.   This way you get two pieces of wonderfully coloured background to work with. 

 

There are several ways to treat the card and acetate once it's coloured.  The first sample below "Horticulture" is the gloss card with Red Pepper, Pitch Black and Silver Alcohol Inks, then stamped with Black Archival Ink.  You can see how wonderfully the silver actually shows up and this would have to be one of the first times when I've seen Pitch Black actually behave as a black.  Sometimes it ends up a weird dark purple colour, depending on what you are doing it on.  The sample below is the acetate piece that was smooshed against the gloss card, then the image was stamped on white card stock and the coloured acetate was layered over the top.  Wonderful!!!

 

"Horticulture"

"Rules"...

 

"Wicked Intention"... (This one has the coloured acetate layered over a stamped image that was

stamped onto a piece of book paper instead of plain card stock.)

"Black Bird"... (This is the gloss card piece of the acetate/gloss card smoosh

from above.  The moon is a small piece of acetate

that has been coloured with alcohol inks

then layered over a piece of foil tape to give it shine. 

This was layered under a hole that was punched in the atc.)

 

"Destiny"... (Alcohol Ink on acetate and then stamped onto the

un-inked side of the acetate, layered over a buff coloured

piece of card stock.)

 

"Like a Star"... (This stamp was stamped onto a piece of white card stock, then

coloured with markers and a coloured piece of acetate layered over the top.)

 

"No Fear"... (Alcohol Ink acetate layered over stamped image on white card stock).

 

 

I know people have some difficulty in working out how to attach acetate to cards.  As you can see from some of the samples above, I stitch the layers together using a sewing machine, you can also run the acetate piece through a Xyron sticker maker machine to add adhesive as it's pretty clear (you can't use JAC paper, it's too milky).  I have also used a very thin double-sided tape around the 4 edges to attach some of them and if the adhesive shows up you can also disguise this with thin German Scrap or similar (as in the sample above called "Destiny").  Of course you can also use brads or even the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher (mini stapler) but just make sure that you have no buckling in either the acetate or the card behind and they both lay nice and flat against each other.

Paper Trapunto

Trapunto is a quilting technique where an area is raised by the addition of stuffing between two layers.  It's actually more complicated than that but this explanation will do for this technique.  I first learnt how to do Trapunto when I was making cloth dolls several years ago before I ventured into the paper-craft world.  I was going to teach my students how to do a trapunto technique using fabric but thought about what's actually required with sewing machines etc and figured there must be an easier way to do it with paper.  Well, there is... and even though you can't see it in these pictures, there is a section on each atc that is raised above the rest and is about 2-3mm higher than the rest.   It needs to be a large enough section of a stamped image to raise and fairly simple in shape.  Cotton wool balls are the secret and the images are coloured using watercolour pencils.  Think this technique is going into my next Technique book that I hope to have ready by about November this year,

just in time for Christmas!

 

"Exhibit A"... (raised area is the pointy brick hat)

"What is art"... (raised area is the body of the urn)

 

"See me"... (raised area is the rectangular body)

 

"Lather"... (raised area is the skirt - this one also incorporates

micro beads from a previous class)

 

 

There will be more samples to follow and I'll try and get a side-on picture so you can see the raised area as it's really not noticeable on these scans....it also doesn't help if you squash down the atc on the scanner bed so you can get a clear picture!!!   ;-)

 

These images below are from previous classes.  The first one is from Faux Brick and the other 3 are from the Micro Beads class.

 

"Lash"... (Faux Brick class)

 

"Mesmerize"... (micro beads class)

 

"Diamonds"... (micro beads class)

"Steampunk"... (micro beads)