Emboss Resist Technique

The new class for this fortnight is Emboss Resist Technique. Another of those wonderful backgrounds that can also be used as a main focal point if your stamps can tell a story by themselves. These first atc's are like the latter, the stamps can stand alone as the main focus of the atc.

"Twilight"...

"Fear Not"... (yes, I know I've used the same stamps but I wanted to tryout some different colour combinations)

These next ones have the emboss resist as the background.

"Remember"...

"Moan-a"...

"Go confidently"...

"Canvas"...
"Women and cats"... (love this combination of Tim's new distress ink colours - Victorian Velvet & Pumice Stone - which are all available at Scraptivate now!)

I still haven't downloaded the pictures from my camera and I don't yet have any pictures of my son's wedding. Not really an issue if you're only here to look at my arty pursuits!

Webbing Spray ATC's

After a wonderful 2 days spent with Jen Crossley & Dawnie in Ballarat at yes, a previous house of "ill-repute" (pics to follow!), then 4 days at the Creative Soul Retreat at The Country Place in the Dandenong's in Victoria, then a 9 day drive from Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide.....I'm home! I'm having a few modem issues so this blog post is a bit late. I have yet to upload my pics from the camera with previous mentioned massage house in Ballarat as well as pics of the retreat so these may be in the next post....possibly....don't hold me to it.

We have a bit of an exciting day happening this Saturday (10th April) and as we are so close to it, and also as none of my family actually read my blog, I can tell you it's my son's wedding! It's a big surprise, starts out as an engagement party (for only an hour), then the wedding kicks in. Hopefully to the total surprise of everyone attending!

Anyway, back to the reason for this blog post. The technique I'm currently teaching in my atc classes is webbing spray. I like to use webbing spray on all sorts of backgrounds, credit card technique, smoosh technique, resin fresco, in fact any background will benefit from a little spray with the web. If you only have one can of it in a particular colour (it comes in gold, silver, black & white), then if you're quick you can pour embossing powder over the webbing spray immediately after spraying as it stays wet long enough to grab the powder, heat it and you've changed the colour!

Some samples...

For Sale (wording up the top is fun foam stamped into with a word stamp)...

"Steel"...

"Nothing risque"...

"Poe"...

"Length of life"...

Even a simple glimmer mist background looks better with a little webbing spray. Steel and Poe above are both done on plain copy paper with Graphite glimmer mist and then black webbing spray. Length of life, For Sale and Risque are all done with gold webbing spray then coated with Antique Brown (a combo of copper and black powders) embossing powder.

Glad to be home in my own bed and after Saturday my life will settle back down again....phew!

AND THE WINNER IS.....+ some more Metallic Acetate atc's

Today being the 12th, I've done the draw for my Textured Book Covers from the previous post......so without further blabber....the winners are as follows:




1.....Barbara Hagarty - as you were drawn first Barbara and you chose the blue one, that's what you'll get!



2.....Seth - luckily Seth picked another colour - the poo coloured one so that's yours Seth. It doesn't smell like what it looks like...promise! lol



3.....Sandy (Smarcoux) - you didn't choose a favourite Sandy so you'll get the remaining rusty coloured one, hope you like it!



As of 6.10am Monday morning (15th) I'll be winging my way over to Melbourne to attend the Creative Soul Retreat to spend quality creative time with some good art buddies so these covers will only be posted to you three listed above if you can get me your snail mail details by Sunday night. If I don't hear from you by then, I'll check again when I get back on 30th of March, so don't worry....they won't be going in the bin if you get this message late. ;-)

I'm so looking forward to my classes with Jan Harris (standing in for Judy Wise) and Laurie Mika AND I'm also looking forward to teaching my Technique Twinchie class with some students I've never taught before. Though Mary is a previous student of mine so it'll be nice to have one person who's been exposed to my way of teaching before.....see girls, she's survived so I'm sure you will too!!!

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd throw in the remaining Metallic Acetate ATC's that I made for the last technique.

"Pursuit"...




"Yearn"...

"Off-white"... (white texture paste around the image - love that stuff!!!)

Thank you to the girls who commented, who knows....maybe next time I should just make about 50 of these things so everyone could win one!!! Back in a couple of weeks.......

Textured Book Cover Giveaway and Metalllic Acetate ATC's

The repeat class of the Texture Paste Cover & sample atc's was well received by the girls. I first did this class around 18 months ago and have had a small band of women who've been nagging to do a repeat as they missed it first time around. If you nag, I respond!!! Wait....no I don't!!! Whatever, sometimes I respond and sometimes I don't.


So this means I have 3 textured book covers to give away on my blog. The dimensions are approximately 8" wide x 6" high (or 20.5cm x 15cm if you're that way inclined). It is created on chipboard and is easy to punch a hole through if that's what you want to do to make it into a book cover.
The draw will be on Friday the 12th of March.

All of my pictures are "clickable"...click on them to supersize.


#1 - Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold & Dioxazine Purple (both Golden paints), then White Fire Treasure Gold rubbed lightly over the top to show the highlights.

#2 - Turquois Phthalo & Quinacridone Magenta then dry-brushed lightly with Interference Silver to pick up the highlights (these are all Golden paints again).

#3 - Titan Buff, Burnt Umber Light and Burnt Umber then dry-brushed with Iridescent Bronze Fine & a little Interference Gold Fine (once again, Golden paints). This one definitely looks better in the flesh, more like shimmery brown goodness, less like smeared dog poo.

So if you want to win one of these three covers, simply leave me a comment at the end of this post and let me know what you might do with it if you do win and which one you would like. I'm giving all three away so there will be three winners (obviously!). I'll contact you via email (or I'll just "reply" from the comment you send) and then you've got 7 days to get in contact with me for postage details.

The atc below is a sample one from the same Texture Paste Class. I used the beautiful Black Texture Paste in a tube and "piped" the tree freehand. It also has some Frayed Burlap Distress Stickles and is on a painted background of Texture Paste that has been tapped with my finger to gain the texture.

"Organic earth"...

Okay, my next atc class coming up for this fortnight was going to be KISS technique, unfortunately my style of stamps that I use doesn't really lend itself to this technique very well. It's more suited to solid simple shapes like flowers, pears etc.....I don't have a lot (ANY!!!) of those so I had to come up with something else quick smart. Thinking, thinking, thinking.....what do I love.....paint - yep!...backgrounds - yep!....foolproof & easy - yep! So Metallic Acetate it is!!! This is another of those backgrounds that must be seen to be appreciated. A note to the girls who see them in the shop, please leave a comment and tell everyone else how amazing this background is in real life! Please! Begging is not pretty!!!

"Technicolour Voodoo"...

"Night Flight"...

"The Pain Passes"...

"Autobiographical"...

"Breath"...(black texture paste and a little mica over the picture)

"Silvery Wings"...

A little side note..I've added a new blog roll list above my normal one on the right hand side called "Scrapbook Friends". Notice I didn't say "Scrapbooking Friends", because I don't scrapbook, but I do have friends who do! If you are that way inclined, please drop by and say howdy to these girls who also happen to be my workmates. (Scraptivate is not a person....just thought I'd clear that up! lol)

More Microscope Slides & another giveaway coming!

Following on from my last post, here are some more microscope slide atc's. All of these slides have been wrapped with the cheap version of the foil tape that was mentioned in my previous post.

"Talented"... (microbeads are the wriggly embellishment on this atc)

"Compassion"...

"Mauve"... (I used one of the border cuttlebug embossing folders to make the pattern down the left hand side of this one, sanded it after embossing and inked in Milled Lavender and Dusty Concord Distress Inks)

"Superb Cast"... (This one's for Mel, she loved the picture, hope she likes it!)

"Twirl"...

"Exorcised"... (Another cuttlebug border embossing folder on the left that's been embossed with bronze embossing powder)

Within the next week or so I'll be having another giveaway on my blog. I'll be running another Texture Paste Book Cover class this Saturday so I'll have some samples that will need to go to a good home. ;-) If you want to win one, wait until I post that it's giveaway time, then leave a comment on that particular post to go in the running to win one. Here are some samples of the previous ones I've done so the colouring of the new ones may be different. Thought you should see what they will look like though. The size is around 8" wide x 6" high and it's just the cover that you'll win so you can do what you like with it.

Less than 3 short weeks to go before I go over to Melbourne for the Creative Soul Retreat where I'll be learning some cool stuff from a couple of American tutors and I'll also be teaching my Technique Twinchie class as well! So looking forward to catching up with the girls again and getting to meet some new arty compatriots!

Microscope Slide ATC's & final Bleach ATC's

Who would've thought a simple piece of medical equipment could look so arty! Microscope slides have been around for a long time in art use and they never fail to impress on an atc or a card. There is the usual way of wrapping them in the metal foil tapes in the various colours and styles, then there is my way......the budget foil adhesive tape that we sell at Scraptivate for $1 per metre (I don't think it's listed in the items for sale but I might speak to Natalie to see if we can include it). You can even cut one edge with decorative scissors for a different look and it also takes the alcohol inks perfectly! Of course, I still use the normal foil tapes, especially when I want gold or copper but if you are happy to settle for silver coloured with alcohol inks, silver adhesive foil tape looks wonderful!

These first two are the ones that are going into my technique book so they sit side by side and look like a set. The 2nd one with the woman you'll notice has a bow on it.....I'll let you in on a secret, it's only because I burnished a little too hard with the bone folder and the slide snapped in half! Can't possibly throw something out that can be repaired so hence the necessity for the bow. It still suits the style though so I was happy enough to do it. Of course, had it have been a skull I obviously wouldn't use a bow! :-) The bow throws off the scanner, sorry for the blurry image.

"Youth"... (Silver foil tape edging and Willow alchol ink for colour)

"Age"... (Silver foil tape edging with a couple of shades of blue alcohol ink)

"People living deeply"... (Gold foil tape edging with mushroom alcohol ink to colour)

"Modesty"... (This slide is edged with the foil tape cut with decorative scissors and I've embossed a stamped image over the top of the slide)

Now for the final Bleach & Twinkling H2O atc's from the last technique.

"Hairstyle"... (Stampotique stamp - Prom Queen. This atc is for the Paperarts Yahoo Group monthly lotto, otherwise known as the WTA - Winner Takes All. Lather Rinse Repeat is from the fantastic 7 Gypsies "Disclaimer" stamp sheet done on shrink plastic)

"Whom do you fear"... (Stampotique stamp - Relaxin')

"Warranty"... (Stampotique stamp - Relaxin')

"In Progress"... (Stampotique stamp - Prom Queen)

That's it for the moment, still working on more microscope slide atc's for the raffles so will update when I get them finished.

Bleach & Twinkling H2O's

I've been waiting for the fantastic Twinkling H2O's to come back into stock at Scraptivate and they finally arrived! So the technique for this fortnight's ATC Technique Book is Bleach & Twinkling H2O's. The old method for using bleach was to use a fairly simple design of a stamp, dip it into some bleach on a plate then stamp onto card stock, causing a bleached image of the stamp to appear.

I prefer to do it my way.....clear emboss a stamped image on card stock (usually black but some other colours do work), then taking an aqua pen (water pen) filled with bleach, colour in the sections of the stamped image that you want to lighten. Dry with a heat gun then using the Twinkling H2O's, colour in the lightened areas. It gives you much more control where the bleach goes and allows you to colour in only the areas that you want. Of course you can colour over even dark coloured card stock with the H2O's, so I've done this on the background in a few of the samples.

"Fluttering Bird"... (Tim Holtz bird & flower stamps)

"Hover"... (Same stamps as above - I've coloured in the background on this one as well with the H2O's)

"Zombie"... (Stampotique stamp - Gooseneck)

"Renewal"... (Stampa Rosa stamp)

"Journey"... (Green Papper Press stamp plate)

"Transformation"... (Stampotique stamp - Glimmering Hope)

Finally, another fun foam atc from the last class.

"Heart"...