Thursday, May 13, 2010

Transfers & hand-beading atc's, wedding pics!

Now my computer is feeling much better and I've had a chance to scan my Sheer Heaven Transfers & Hand-Beading atc's I can post them! This is my next series of classes at Scraptivate commencing this Saturday. I'm even giving the girls an extra half hour as I just KNOW that hand beading sucks the time up and before you know it, hours have passed! I know some of these were in the previous post but I think they will expand larger if you click on them so you can see the beading in more detail.

"Life"...

"Remember"...


"Cherish"... (my grandparents)

"Seduce them"...

"Mystery"...

"Flattery"...
"Enchant"...



Finally I have some wedding pics too from my son's wedding on the 10th of April, the disc just arrived yesterday so these are hot off the press!!!










Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Transfers onto Fabric & hand-beading atc's!!!

Woo-hoo!!! Just noticed this is my 200th post....and do I have a way to celebrate! My next upcoming atc technique class is transfers onto fabric and hand-beading. Hand-beading is just so relaxing and something that even a real needle-phobe can do. You only need to stitch a few beads on in a simple style or you can be as elaborate as you want with fringing, peyote (not the ingestible kind!!!....how do I even KNOW about that???) and my favourite - picot beading! So as not to freak my students out too much, we'll be sticking to fairly simple beading for this class but if they've done it before, they can just go to town if they like - I won't stop them...I'll be cheering them on!

Now as my stupid computer decided to blow a gasket and has to be hospitalised for a few days, I'm without a means of showing you the pictures of the beaded atc's...but Natalie has kindly allowed me to use the pics that she took of them for the advertising of the class at Scraptivate.


"Life"...

"Passion"...

"Cherish"...

"Enchant"... (yes, I know it's pinky/apricoty and pretty, but remember I'm a Gemini so I can swing both ways! lol)

When my computer gets better I'll upload the rest of the pictures.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Fold-out ATC Class

Next up in my atc technique book series is Fold-out ATC's. There are several ways of making these atc's and for those of you who look for more room to add either extra images, wording or stamping to your atc's, these are for you!


"Rules"... (closed)
"Rules"...(open)

"Mavis & Sue"...(closed)
"Mavis & Sue"...(open)


"Serene"...(closed)
"Serene"...(open)



I do have more fold-out atc's but need to scan them...check back in the next post for more!
The following atc's are from the last class I did on Emboss Resist.
"Be still"... (yep, same picture as above, look how versatile it is!)

"Annie Marble"...

"In the heart"...

"Ancient Tragedy"...

"Insufficient Funds"...(a personal favourite! lol)


Finally, a late webbing spray atc.
"Blood night"...(notice how well Tim's film strip works on this one. I thought it was fitting seeing how the image is from Twilight, the film - which of course you'd know unless you've been living under a rock these last couple of years!)
I'd fallen behind a bit in making sample atc's for in my own book but have now caught up and surprise, surprise....I'm even ahead now!!! I've made 7 atc's today that have fabric transfers and beading on them. That's the next class coming up. The girls will need to bring their good glasses to be able to see the beading needle and little beads!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

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!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

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!

Friday, March 12, 2010

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.......

Monday, March 1, 2010

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)