Faux Metal Book Cover & Industria!

I'm a bit slow in posting these pics of the cover of the ATC Technique Book #2 that the girls in my atc classes at Scraptivate have just started....but here they are now. I decided to give them an extra by including 2 techniques for this class. It was a push but I think the girls who have done the class already have enjoyed how they turned out. The 2 hours really flies when you are eyes down immersed in your work and I love that they all get into the spirit of creating and the class just hums along.


The basic background is a la Julie van Oosten's Industria style with a Faux Metal atc on the front cover. I also did up some credit card technique backgrounds for the atc for the girls with a wonderful colour combination of Burnt Umber, Fawn & Smoked Pearl (all Jo Sonja paints) as it went really well with the silver/brown of the Industria style. The book has "T 2" on it standing for Technique Book 2, some girls decided to change theirs around slightly by including other letters to spell out "Art Book" or just simply "Art". I love that they feel comfortable in doing this and know that I'm doing my job correctly by giving them the confidence in going their own way.


Cover of ATC Technique Book #2...

Some close-ups of the cover - I used Swiss Dots from Cuttlebug for the embossing on the T2 as well as using some wire that was attached with the ultra-fabulous Mini Fastener from Tim Holtz! I showed the girls how to colour their little staples with a sharpie before loading so they can colour co-ordinate the staples with their work. It's perfect for this book as the stapler works wonderfully through the thickness of the chipboard and has a really strong attachment capability. Love it!!!

I had a bit of fun with the image for this book cover, the T2 not only stands for Technique Book #2, but also I thought the image reminded me of Terminator #2....though I don't think Arnie ever looked this good....he was a bit over-blown for my taste, whereas this man is just PERFECT!!! lol

The raffle atc's for this series of classes were made in the Industria style.

"Family, 1 to 4" (click on the picture to see it enlarged)

Soot technique is coming up next fortnight and I know that the girls who haven't seen this particular technique are going to be blown away by it. Who doesn't love soot technique!

I must thank Audrey for bestowing on me a Friendly Blogger Award, it's much appreciated. ;-)

Faux Metal, Design Team project.....and my Dad

I'll start with the raffle atc that I made for Tuesday night's Faux Metal class at Scraptivate which was won by Svetlana. Love this particular technique though it doesn't make for the flattest of atc's so I usually attach a bit of magnet strip at the back of these so they can go onto a fridge or filing cabinet.

A close-up so you can see the dimension of this piece.


The wording on this atc was made by covering a piece of chipboard with silver adhesive foil tape, then a tracing wheel (from a sewing store) was used to make the little marks along each long edge. I then covered the piece with black paint so it would get into the little holes made by the tracing wheel, then immediately wiped off, then my clear words were added last. Makes for a great grungey-style word embellishment.


At Scraptivate, the girls who work there are all given different products to work on design team projects. I'm a little bit difficult in this department as I'm not into all the flowery, pretty products that arrive in store constantly so I think they were pretty happy to find something from the new Cuttlebug range that would suit me this month.

Here is a little peek at what I've done, can't show the whole thing yet as it has to go into the newsletter that comes out in the middle of the month. It's a 5" x 7" canvas and I used texture paste, glimmer mists, silver foil tape, hand-made paper, stamping, swarovski crystals, paints and you'll have to wait to see the rest of it. My girlfriend saw me making it and thought I was being a bit macabre, she said she realised my Dad was really sick but did I have to do something like that? After I explained it was Design Team work I think she was a little relieved.

I can joke about that sort of thing now though because my Dad is doing SO MUCH BETTER!!!!! He has that breathing tube out of his throat now but is slightly frustrated as he can't talk because of the tracheotomy tube. Between lip-reading and a chart we made up with all the alphabet on it we sort of communicate, albeit VERY slowly. He doesn't have fine motor control of his hands yet so he can't write yet and we have to rely on these other 2 methods. His sense of humour was certainly not excised during the operation.

The first full sentence we got out of him, after about 30 minutes of combined lip-reading and the alpha chart was "Did I look like Hannibal Lecter???" (think he meant "creepy"). So once again, there he was making fun of himself and making us all laugh along with him. He also said he didn't like the flavour of the food they were feeding him - you know, one of those feeding tubes down his nose into his stomach that he can't even taste! I told him that I'd said to the nurse he would only like steak with pepper sauce flavour, followed up by apple pie and ice cream flavour for dessert. He laughed at that!

So here's a picture of myself, Dad and one of his wonderful nurses. He was particularly impressed with this nurse, he told us that she told the Doctors to "bugger off" as they all traipsed in while she was giving him a wash in the morning and didn't they realise that patients have to have their dignity! lol

A HUGE thankyou to all the people who left comments and to the girls who sent personal emails to me wishing my Dad and family the best, it really means a lot to know that others are out there pulling for you. I'm sure that all that "get-well mojo" helped in his recovery. Still a ways to go, more time to be spent in ICU, then on a ward, then off to a rehab hospital to get his muscles working again but we are heading in the right direction. Those nurses don't know what there in for now he's operational again!!!! lol

Blog Give-away, Juneau AND some art!

Let me start by saying this is going to be a mega-post! I'll start off by introducing the wonderful little town of Juneau in Alaska, another port of call on our Alaskan cruise......okay, you can hurt my feelings if you like and just scroll straight to the free art that I'm giving away - I won't know will I!!!


We were in Juneau on Mother's Day, the 11th of May and oh my, what a day it was! The highlight of our trip was definitely the helicopter flight we did from Juneau that took us over four glaciers before landing on one and having a 20 minute walk-around - very carefully.....ravines & crevasses all over the place where you could easily fall hundreds of feet to an icy death.....oooooooooo......... The scenery was spectacular, as seen by my paltry little digital snaps below. Thank goodness my memory in my own head has a much better capacity for replicating the awesome sights much more effectively than any camera will do.

First two shots are Grant, myself and Joan as well as a lady from Singapore who was also on our flight - her husband took the picture so with the pilot as well, it made 6 in the helicopter. You can see in the next picture how the mountains come straight down to the sea, yes, that's our ship in front of another ship. These small towns swell in numbers when the cruise ships come to town, a small town of 800 (Juneau has around 32,000) can easily have 10,000 visitors when 5 ships are in port for a day!!! You can see why tourism is their mainstay.

Like I said before, the camera doesn't do it justice, I must've taken at least 100 photo's of the glaciers and surrounds while up in the helicopter.

Joan, Grant and myself in front of our helicopter (figuratively, not literally!!!) on the glacier. Next pic is looking down at the other helicopter that landed with us - they go in groups of 3, we figured for safety reasons.

Check out the colour of this blue!!! This was absolutely amazing, the wonderful blue colour deep down in the crevasses was spectacular. This is me standing as close as I could get to the edge and taking the picture straight down. Next picture is a little stream on the glacier, the crusty looking black stuff on top of the ice is just dirt, it's actually very crusty and crunchy to walk on.

Just another couple of shots of another glacier....ho-hum......NOT!

After the helicopter flight we took a bus to the Mendenhall Glacier where you can actually walk right up to the lake in front of the glacier and there's also a waterfall down one side of the rocks of the mountain. The lake in front had huge ice crystals, they were crystal clear and the whole place was surreal! We even saw a bear up in a tree as well as mountain goats on the mountain.

Here's the Mendenhall Glacier with the visitor centre in the foreground and the view of the glacier across the lake. Just to the right of where this picture was taken is the waterfall that you can walk up to, so you can see how close you can get to the glacier itself!

Ice crystals and bigger chunks of ice in the lake....there's that beautiful blue again!

Awwwww.....how sweet......... and Grant at the waterfall with glacier in the background.

There was more escapades in Juneau (Mount Roberts Tramway & an Irish bar!) but I'll revisit that in another post....onto some art....

Yesterday at Scraptivate I taught Faux Metal using credit cards, here's the raffle atc won by Lisa....who I must say seemed very happy with her win!

Next two are the examples I made with Grant being responsible for naming the second burgundy coloured one. (I named the dark one "Untitled #3....imaginative huh!)

ART GIVE-AWAY

Now for the free art give-away....if you want to leave me a comment on this post to win, I'll do a draw on Monday 7th July and you can choose from either of the pieces below. These 2 pieces are both canvasses, 5" x 7" (13cm x 18cm) and it will come with a little easel to stand on.


Important: please remember to leave an email address in your post so I can contact you and remember to check back on Monday 7th July to see who this goes to.






Hmmm....maybe no-one will leave a post now as these pics are crap!!! The green one says "In all things it is better to hope than to despair" and the orange/gold one says "In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves". Fingers and toes crossed that blogger will let my pictures be clickable so you can enlarge them to see details.


Thank you for persevering with me this far, did I not say it was a mega-post! lol

Credit Card Technique ATC samples & Faux Metal

Thought it was time for a new banner. Thanks again Dawn for making these....you're a legend!

The people who came into the shop and saw the credit card technique pages from my last post couldn't believe how different they look in the flesh, so if you've put off trying this technique, don't wait any longer. You'll be amazed at how quickly you can turn out a fabulous background in such a short amount of time....very soon you'll have a great collection of background papers in all sorts of colours, this is the great thing, you'll come up with some unique colour combinations. My only advice is to remember to write the colours down for each page on the back of the paper as you do it, your brain might go into "excitement overload" and you may forget what colours you've used! lol

First atc sample using my favourite Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold & Dioxazine Purple.

"Classic Mona"...

"Beautiful"...

"Temple".... In my atc classes I ask the girls to try to tell a story with their atc, rather than simply putting images down that have no relationship to one another. It makes it a lot easier to find what you are looking for if you know what direction you are going with something. This of course applies to collage, canvases, altered books, in fact anything really. So this particular atc is a little more of a taste of my dark side....take note of the drippy blood up the top, and the little shrink plastic hearts...make of this one what you will. ;-) or should that be :-/

Here's the last one, the raffle atc for today's class. "Radiant"...

The faux metal part of today's class is using the foil tape (with adhesive on the back), mounted to chipboard, then distressed with either an awl (paper piercer) or Tim's cool wire brush thing, then rub paint into it and immediately wipe the paint off. Looks like little bits of distressed metal. These are on the corners of my "Temple" atc above.

I was going to show them how to make faux metal out of credit cards, but having another play with it this morning, I think I'm going to make that a class in itself...would rather them concentrate on their backgrounds and little metal-foil embellishments today.