WEBBING EMBOSS

Many years ago I stumbled across the use of Hemming Web Tape to make amazing embossing textures.  As I come from a sewing background, of course I had this little roll of tape in my sewing stash.  For this class I have purchased the fusible webbing by the metre.  This is the exact same product as Hemming Web Tape but the tape is only around 15mm wide, by the metre it's about 45cm wide!  This can be used on a pre-made background as I have done in samples below, it just adds a little more texture and interest to your background.  I found it best to place a piece of the fusible webbing on the background (it can just be a strip or a larger piece), heat with a heat gun (the low blow one works best!) until it starts to melt and shrivel, then working quickly, add your embossing powder.  Tip off the excess powder and heat.  It should create a lacy texture as the embossing powder melts and the fusible webbing shrivels and makes holes.  Take care not to overheat as you don't want to melt your embossing powder totally into the background!

"Salty but sweet"...

"Medicine & Poison"...

"Reality"...

"Life is short"...

"Dark & Dreadful"...

Finally, the last sample from the shrink plastic class last week.  The cat and dog are from the Stampotique cat & dog cubes so yes they are small to start with and they are even smaller when shrunk!!!

"Today the dog"...

SHRINK & ALCOHOL INKS

Shrink Plastic (or Shrinky Dinks) has been around for many years and every now and again it gets dragged into the spotlight again as a whole new slew of people are amazed at how this product contorts and shrinks to around 1/4 of the original size of whatever stamp you use.  I have used both the clear and the sanded for this class but in both cases have used only alcohol inks to colour.  If using the sanded, one side has a roughened surface to take colour before you shrink and the stamping goes onto the smooth side so you have depth with the stamped image being on the top and the colour showing up underneath.  If colouring before shrinking, you must use very light colours as the colour intensifies dramatically when shrunk.  So for this reason, I like to colour with the alcohol inks after I've shrunk.  Obviously, it depends on what type of stamp you use as to if you can do this.

"Too Human"...

(clear shrink & coloured after shrinking)

"Nature's Graffiti"...

(Clear shrink & coloured after shrinking. The

weeds on the shrink were added after shrinking

to continue the design from the stamp on the background)

"No Imagination"...

(Clear shrink, alcohol ink added before shrinking.

Alcohol ink was spread using rubber puffer to blow

the ink around, can also use canned air or straw.

Mounted on silver foil to bring out design)

"Lazy Rule"...

(Sanded shrink coloured before shrinking - very

light application of colour!)

Finally, this is the last sample from last week's Dot Liner Embellishing class.

"Gene Pool"...

Shrink Plastic Revisited & Faux Wax & a cake!!!

Addition.....scroll right down the bottom for a 5 minute microwave cake recipe.....

I'm revisiting Shrink Plastic for my class tomorrow. I have had a bit more of a play with it since I last taught this class back in early 2009 because I like to do something fresh for the girls who've done previous classes with me. It's also nice to introduce the newer girls who've not been amazed by some of the older products and techniques that have been around for a while.


For this first one I've combined 2 different new techniques that I haven't shown before....I coloured a piece of white shrink with one of the Tattered Angels Glimmer Chalks - of course it won't dry as shrink is a plastic surface but by the time you've heated it, all is good and it dries wonderfully. The second thing I did with this particular piece was no stamping beforehand, just spray with the glimmer chalk, shrink it down and then while it's still hot and soft, stamp into it with a stamp with black stazon. Gives a wonderful textural element as well as a soft matte finish.


"Post-script"...





"Enter"... (this is a terrible scan, it's because there's the shrink plastic door on top of foil tape on chipboard, on top of flyscreen, on top of the background....too much height for the scanner to cope with, sorry)

"Vision"...

"Doors"... (the stamped words are Stazon silver metallic ink on black shrink - you can actually read the wording irl but because of the silver ink, it's throwing the scan off)

...

....

.....

......

.......

WARNING!!!! Naked male backside coming up.....if you don't want to look, scroll and close your eyes....

...

....

.....

"Work in progress"...

Below are the last few Faux Wax atc's from the last class.

"Kiss"... (the background of this one is from the Metallic Cardstock class, technique described in the previous posting)

"Dance"... (the gold sparkles on the background is Jo Sonja Gold Dust. I've described this product before but this is the first photo where you can actually see it!)

"Bloom"...

Dreams"... (this background is from the upcoming Soot class)

"Weird Desire"... (another soot background)

I've also been working on my fabric art doll. This will run over 3 classes of 2-1/2 hours each at Scraptivate and the girls will be making it from scratch - from tracing the pattern, stitching (on a machine) around the body, turning, stamping, colouring, stuffing, beading and embellishing. It will certainly be an exercise in patience for them. The head alone has about 90 small burnt organza flowers on it....yes, FLOWERS (though they are shabby ones). I'm about half done with the embellishing and when it's complete I'll post pictures. The class is in 2 weeks time (4th September is the first class) and I may run it a second time if the numbers warrant it. This is certainly something out of the norm for most of these girls and I hope they enjoy it as much as I think they will.

I may even have one of these for a give-away on my blog....all things going to plan!

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

4 tablespoons S R flour

4 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 egg

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)

A small splash of vanilla extract

1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe)

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. EAT ! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

Shrink Plastic & Steampunk!

This morning is the final Shrink Plastic atc class at Scraptivate that I'll be teaching in this fortnight's series of classes. So here are the last few SP atc's....for a little while at least. Though SP will show up in future atc's as it's such a great little embellishment for atc's as well as cards!

Here's the raffle atc that was won by Karen Beazley on Tuesday night.

"Double"... (stamp by Teesha Moore - Zettiology - same stamp I used on a previous SP atc)

These next 2 are earlier atc's featuring SP. The first one is stamped onto almond coloured SP, which I find wonderful for any face stamps as the colour is perfect for a light skin tone.

"Love Hate"... (yes, I know the "E" is backwards, first time it was a mistake on the Love but to make you all think I did it on purpose, I just repeated the mistake on Hate! Face stamp from Beeswax)

"Breathe"... (the main image on this piece of SP is not a stamp. I ran the sheet of white SP through my inkjet printer! The ink will never dry though, so you have to very carefully cut it out, then shrink it without getting your fingerprints anywhere near the image and when it's shrunk, the ink is set! Cool huh!!! Make sure the image you print though is extremely light as we all know how much colours intensify on SP!)

Finally, my Steampunk atc on Tissue Paper Background from a previous technique, also including black texture paste (natch!) and some wonderful little metal cogs. There ya go Julie!!! lol

"Steampunk"...

I'm working on something really, REALLY exciting but my lips are sealed for the moment....no, it's not the book. ;-) Stay tuned...

Shrink Plastic Class & Tissue Paper Background...again!

Today I had the first of my 3 Shrink Plastic Classses and I was thrilled to see how many of the ladies had never used this product before. It can be a thoroughly addictive little addition to atc's as quotes and small embellishment stamps created on shrink plastic are the perfect size for your atc's. I tend to use more of the white and frosted (ruff'n'ready) shrink plastic though it is also available in black, brown, clear and almond. Though the almond is tailor-made for any face stamps as the colour is perfect for "skin". Some samples...

"What you see"... (The Vision stamp is Stampers Anonymous, the eye-glasses stamp is one I'm not sure of....may also be Stampers Anonymous???) This shrink piece is mounted onto a piece of coloured gauze, which is in turn mounted onto a piece of foil tape adhered to a chipboard piece. It actually looks very mirror-like, which I thought was appropriate for the quote and stamps used in this piece.

"Live in the moment"... (Quote from one of Tim Holtz unmounted stamp sets - I think it's Nature's Moments)

"No distance"... (Hero Arts Vintage Map stamp - unfortunately discontinued)...PLUS black texture paste around the shrink piece.

"Odd"... (girl stamp on the shrink piece is Teesha Moore Zettiology, staples stamp is Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous) I must also tell you I bought one of Tim's new Tiny Attachers with the mini staples. You can see that I've used them on this piece below to attach the watercolour background to the black surround. I like to colour them to match what I'm doing....I simply break one of the refill staples in half, then colour the whole thing with a coloured sharpie before inserting it into the stapler. Voila.....coloured staples!!!

Below are a couple more from my previous class on Tissue Paper Background, these are the ones that ended up in my book. For each class I make 2 atc's that go into my Technique Book with the instructions on the opposite page, also 1 atc for each of the classes I teach to be given away as a raffle, as well as some other samples. As I tend to do one-off original atc's rather than multiples, this can be rather time-consuming as I also type out the instructions for everyone so they can all make their own book. It means that in 6 months time (or 2 years!!!) they can dig the Technique Book out, flick through and repeat any technique they have learnt from the my classes and they will also have a couple of their own samples in their book.

"The purpose of life"...

"Closely lie"...I do have one more tissue paper background atc to show but I'll save that for my next post. It's entitled "Steampunk" and is basically black, grey and silver......with little cogs!!! My current favourite atc!!!

Time for some shut-eye....alarm is set for 4am to take Jarred & Elice to the airport for their trip back home to Newcastle. I'm sorry to see them go as it has been wonderful to have them here but they will be back for good in a short 6 months. I'm sure it'll seem like a long time to them....5-1/2 years down, 6 months to go....not too shabby an effort I must say for a boy who left home at 18 and will return home at 24, most certainly a man! Do I hear "engagement" sounds in the background for next year?????

Mega ATC Post!!!

I've been going a little ballistic with the atc's in my studio over the last week or so. Some of these are also being sent to some friends (& new friends) as "surprises", they'll just have to see what they get! When I teach my atc classes I also end up with half finished atc's from doing the demo of the particular technique for that class. So feeling particularly inspired to create of late, here are a slew of atc's....I wonder if there is a particular word for a grouping of atc's....maybe an "attack of atc's"??? My favourite would be "a murder of crows", wonder why I like that one??? lol

These first 3 are the Faux Tin Type technique with the wonderful borders made with the cuttlebug embossing folders. Love using this with the foil tape, looks fabulous in real life and unfortunately because of the reflective nature of this tape, you can't really get the full effect of how this really looks like a Tin Type picture unless you see it with your own eyes. One cool technique!!!

"Solitude"...

"Madam Lash"...

"Repose"...

This one below is from the Peeled Paper Technique background class. Another cool product I used on this particular atc (that you also can't see!) is the Ranger Antiquities Frosted Crystal embossing powder. I used it to completely cover the image , it makes the image appear like it is behind frosted glass, also with a similar knubbly (???) feel to it. Nice stuff! I just used an clear embossing pen to colour the image and then dumped the embossing powder over the top.

"Reflection"...

This is another of the Webbing Spray Resist atc's from the last Saturday class. I also used the NEW METALLIC BROWN GERMAN SCRAP that we sell at Scraptivate..... this stuff is a beautiful colour and I've lightly rubbed Patina Rub'n'buff over the top to co-ordinate with the beautiful blue of the background colour. (I also used the metallic brown German scrap on the atc above too but rubbed a little renaissance gold rub'n'buff on that one!) Gotta love that shrink plastic too - the quote is on shrink plastic.

"Inside"...

Resin Fresco technique, "Prettiest"... (more shrink plastic - the quote again)

Last Tuesday night was Watercolour Crayons & Watercolour Tube Paints atc class. Here are some samples of that class. The first one "Soul Seeker" was the raffle atc which was won by Charmaine. Charmaine commented that she never used to do dark-style art before she came to my classes.....hehehehe, another convert!!! lol What??? More shrink plastic??? The heart!!!

"Create"...

"Weird odd art"... (no shrink plastic on this one below, just fun foam)

Last couple coming up...this next one is one of the atc's that's gone postal today, hope she likes it and I hope she doesn't think I'M weird!

"Voyeur"...

Finally, a foil tape background atc for a special friend. I used Jo Sonja black texture paste in the tube to go around the edge of the image and then a little silver rub'n'buff on it to highlight the texture, I was happy with the effect and will definitely be doing that again. Of course I've used black texture paste plenty of times in the past but never to just go around an image - I like it! Also, fun foam heartagram (HIM) with silver rub'n'buff.

"Love hex"...

The End!

Shrink Plastic atc class, soot class

The shrink plastic atc class that I taught a couple of months back was so popular I decided to do a "shrink plastic re-visited" class as there are other techniques that can be done with this product. Here's the raffle atc from the last Saturday atc class...

The shrink plastic portion of this atc is in the upper left hand corner. It's a piece of white shrink plastic that I cut out using deckle decorative scissors, then lightly scribbled some coloured sharpie marker on it, then blended the colouring with the Blending Solution that is used for Ranger alcohol inks. Before heating it with a heat gun, I inked up a postage-mark stamp with brown Stazon and left that aside for the moment. Then the shrink plastic piece was heated with a heat gun to shrink, when it has shrunk to it's fullest, while it is still hot, I stamped into it with the postage-mark stamp and pressed down. I waited for about 5 seconds for it to cool then lifted up the stamp and the shrink plastic piece comes off the stamp cleanly, leaving an impression in the shrink plastic piece so it is much more textural than a normal piece of stamped shrink plastic. I then mounted it onto a piece of torn dark brown shimmer paper and attached to the atc.

Another way of using shrink plastic is to do multiple stampings on a piece of shrink plastic of a reasonable size - say 6" x 5". Stamp like you would for a collage piece, the piece can be coloured first with sharpies or alcohol inks or you can sand first (if you're using white or almond), then stamp, then colour the images if you like. You can then cut sections out using decorative scissors (or normal scissors) or use a large punch so you get portions of different stamps on each piece, then shrink and use how you want!

I taught another soot class on Tuesday night last week and the girls all loved how they turned out using Glimmer Mists underneath the soot for added colour & shimmer. I have used alcohol inks before under the soot before, but the Glimmer Mists are so fabulous as there's a huge colour range - from blues, greens, reds, yellows as well as metallic silvers, bronzes and golds. I didn't take a picture of the raffle atc before I gave it away but the base colour in Glimmer Mist for the raffle one was called Patina....a beautiful blue shimmery colour. This one below is another sample I did for the class using the colour Wheatfields, a lovely olive green colour with a green pearly shimmer.

The instructions for doing the soot technique is here.

This weekend I have also worked on a canvas though I can't show any pictures yet as it's supposed to be going into a scrapbooking magazine (stop laughing.....I CAN do things that may appeal to scrapbookers too!!! lol) When it's published I'll be able to post the pics as well as which magazine it is - I don't remember if it is Scrapbook Creations, Scrapbooking Memories or something similar sounding???

Less than 3 weeks to the big trip, biggest decisions are how many pair of shoes to take and whether to take day cream & night cream, or just wing it with one to cut down on weight!!! lol

Birdhouse, Cards & Scraptivate shop & 6 things

I hope you're all ready for lots of photo's in this post!

I thought I'd start off by showing you the wonderful store where I work and teach, Scraptivate here in Perth, Western Australia.

This is what greets you as you walk in the door, our display table, full of wonderful Collections samples, as well as some other bits & pieces.....mostly chipboard goodies that have been decorated to the hilt!

Here's the Collections products stand....as you can see, lots of lovely chipboard for altering...these are available online at Scraptivate and yes, we ship worldwide!!! If you've seen the lovely houses that Linda has had on her blog, they are part of the fabulous Collections range of products.....oooooh, don't I sound like an advertisement for Julie....she's a lovely girl (the designer of the Collections stuff and better still - a local!!!!).

Here's where we display all the upcoming classes.

Next is all the lovely German Scrap that we have for sale.

Anyone for a bit of patterned paper???

The tools and paint stand with a view into the classroom.

The ink/mists stand, rubber stamps are on the other side of this. This is not all of the shop, just a few of the stands, we have lots more!!!

We recently received some wooden birdhouses in the store for sale and we were asked if we wanted to take one home to decorate. I think there is about 6 of us who have them to alter and I've finished mine so thought I'd put the pics up.
The things that went into this are:

• texture paste
• gesso
• Pearl White metallic paint
• Dove Grey Stazon
• Patina Glimmer Mists
• Graphite Glimmer Mists
• stamping on tissue paper
• gauze
  shrink plastic (whoops, lost my bullet point on this one???)
• metallic paper
• antique pewter embossing powder
• mica
• brads
• mouse cage wire
• chipboard
• sharpies & treasure gold
• my clear words
• a fuse
• my own poem
• and finally, clay wings.

Shrink Plastic Stampotique stamp...

The eye is stamped on mica...



The fuse and more shrink plastic (heart)...

The clay wings on the top of the house with my clear words, texture paste is on every 2nd square on the roof...





Front & left side view...

Front and right side view...

The fuse...with the backward "E". Sometimes you do things that you don't mean to do, but they turn out okay....I've had this "E" issue before!!! lol



A final close-up of the front panel...

So that's it for the birdhouse, now onto some cards that I have coming up in the March issue of Australian Stamping & Papercraft. I've had some atc's published 3 times before in this mag but I was asked to take part in a stampers challenge using a Stampers Anonymous stamp of a maple leaf with text. I know that Debbi is also doing this challenge so I can't wait for the issue to come out as Deb always does outstanding work! These are my 3 cards.

Spotlight technique using twinkling h2o's to colour sections of the leaf.

For this one I've alcohol inked the background gloss card, then done the soot technique on top.

Last one is shrink plastic tiles. I coloured the shrink plastic tiles first with alcohol inks, then stamped, then shrunk them.



So I'm not a card maker (can you tell??? lol), but I wanted to do something that incorporated some of the things that I teach in my atc classes. Now I can say I'm "published", not that it is a huge deal to me but for teaching purposes, every bit helps. ~grin~

Apologies if I've worn out your eyes with all these pics, also sorry if you're dealing with dial-up speed - been there, done that....what a pain! I know for some people, they have no choice....better slow speed than NO speed!

Finally, Sam tagged me to tell 6 non-important/quirky things about myself. I've done this before but it was 7 and I think I spilt my guts a little too much in that one....so here's some banal info about me...
1. I'm not a fake flower lover!
2. I used to tap-dance, do modern jazz as well as acrobats, AND I have the trophies to prove it!
3. I have 1 tattoo, got it when I was 15.
4. I love sharpies!
5. I have all my internal organs, except my gall bladder.
6. I am old, older than you think! (You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely!)

I know I'm supposed to tag 6 people but I did this before so won't do it again....okay....now close your eyes.....sleeeeeeep.......sleeeeeeep.......sleeeeeeeep......