Christmas Canvases

Yesterday was a very full-on day for me. I taught my last atc class before Christmas, which was webbing spray, we also had a mini Christmas party during the class and the girls bought some very yummy treats to share! Who would've thought strawberries & marshmallows on a toothpick could taste so good!!!


Next up was the staff Christmas party at Natalie's house (the owner of the store) for Scraptivate, the most awesome shop where I work and teach here in Perth. We frequently get told by customers that we have the best and most unusual goodies in our store, a different range to all the other scrapbooking/papercraft stores in Perth AND we have the most helpful and friendly staff and teachers! Well, yep, I'd have to agree, we ROCK!!! So it was a delightful gathering of the staff/teachers and we had a Kris Kringle gift exchange. I received a fantastic mask from my pal Viv as well as some wonderful book pages with some "different" images and text that I'll definitely use on my canvases!

EDIT: This is the link here to the mask that Viv made for me...she did a great job photographing it and putting it on her blog so you can see how cool it is!!!


This is the canvas I made for Megan, who was my swap partner. From memory it's around 10" x 7" so it's a bit larger than the other 5 x 7's that I've done before. Still has the texture paste done first, then the Gothic book page added, then painted - Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and a wash of Dioxazine Purple plus some Quinacridone Crimson for some added colour. Add an image, some German scrap, some stamping (Gothic large script from Michelle Ward's Printed Matter rubber plate), then finally some gold embossing on the small Gothic script from the same rubber plate as well as on the word "sanctuary".

After the staff Christmas party we headed off at 8pm to Elice's 21st party at a restaurant, Elice is my son Jarred's girlfriend. He and Elice are over here in Perth for a month as Jarred is in the air-force and lives on the other side of the country, he's based at Williamtown near Newcastle, New South Wales. Actually, on Wednesday nights on SBS at 8pm there is a new series called Top Gun Pilots (I think?) and there is a lot of filming done at Williamtown so don't know if I'll actually get to see Jarred in it but he did tell me they filmed them doing the stuff that aircraft technicians do - yep, he's what they call a "black-hander"....wonder why??? lol It's a 6 part series and last Wednesday (12th Dec) was the first episode. Check it out if you're interested...we obviously are!

This brings us to today....Sunday....I have another Christmas engagement in the form of a lunch at a restaurant with the girls from the atc/abc clubs (art tarts club and altered book club). We are also doing a Kris Kringle exchange and I'm going to risk putting this next canvas up here as I'm hoping my recipient won't read my blog before she goes to the lunch today! It's a smaller canvas, 4" x 4" and I used the wonderful Tim's Shimmer - well this is what I call it anyway. It's the potion that he posted recently on his blog during his 12 tags of Christmas instructions. The recipe is: one dropper full of distress re-inker (I used brushed corduroy), 1 portion of Perfect Pearls - the end of a pop-stick is used for measuring this (I used Gold P/P), 3/4's fill one of the Ranger Mini Mister bottles with water after first adding the re-inker & P/P...then shake and spray.....delightful......Tim's Shimmer.....definitely will be doing this in a class! This canvas also makes use of the inchies and has texture paste that the inchies sit into.

Long-winded post today, if you've got this far and actually read what I've written, gold star for perseverence! If you've skimmed and just checked out the pics, well that's fine too! ;-)

Where in the World & webbing spray

I thought I'd take this opportunity to join an easy Crusade on Michelle Ward's Street Team this month.....entitled Where in the World? As vast as this big old planet is, the internet has certainly drawn like-minded souls together and for a visual art form, it couldn't be more perfect, well, maybe except for when they do that hologram 3-d thing eventually!!!

So I'm an Aussie, born in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Perth is the most isolated capital city in the World, which I think personally is a good thing! We have mild winters, no snow over on this side of Australia as we have no mountains, just hills. But our summers can get pretty hot - several days in a row of 40+ Centigrade is common each summer, but at least it is a dry heat - not much humidity though that is changing as the years go by....thank you global warming!!! NOT!!! Christmas is our hot time of the year so pictures of snowmen & people all rugged up makes us break out into a sweat, sorry...perspire, forgot for a moment that ladies perspire, they don't sweat...yeah, right!

I've always lived in Perth but spent one year living in Wittenoom with my family when I was 7. Yes, THE Wittenoom, town of the great asbestos debacle. The 2 room school I went to had asbestos strewn around the playground and we were always picking up chunks of asbestos rocks and peeling back the fibres, it was also throughout our gardens..... shameful huh! I have also spent some months hitch-hiking (which you wouldn't do now) around up North of Western Australia when I was a teenager too - you know, that period when you are around 18/19 and you are trying to "find" yourself??? Don't think I did, but I had a good time!

I'm a Perth-ite through-and-through, love this city on the Swan River with it's magnificent beaches (that I used to go to when younger - can't stand the sand now.....what a "girl", lol), the proximity to the fabulous wine country down south and the overall relaxed mode of the people here. Think the population of Perth is just over 1 million now, considering we have around 21 million in the whole of Australia, we are isolated.....and loving it! If you want more info on Perth and a couple of cool pics, click here or here.

Now onto the final webbing spray atc for this coming Saturday's class, actually MAYBE the final one as I may yet do more???

Just goes to show you that you don't have to use lots of webbing spray to get a good look! This is a little bit of black onto a pre-prepared background using glued down old torn papers (that you can't see) and texture paste that has been cut into and smooshed around with an old credit card, dried, then painted with the FolkArt Metallic Paint in Pearl White.

I'm also doing a few bits & pieces for Xmas for various girls, so hopefully I'll get them scanned or photographed before giving them away.....back to the studio!

Webbing Spray & a couple more colourwash atc's

I ordered a new stamp and absolutely LOVE how it turned out on this colourwash background! It's from Stampotique and is called "glimmering hope" (type the name in the search box on their website to find it)....cool name for a creepy cool stamp, or, as I prefer spooky cute! It's on a background of matte white card stock with some lettuce & butterscotch colours of the Ranger Colourwashes. Main thing to remember about these is WEAR GLOVES!!! Unless you don't mind multi-hued hands for several days that is.



I was really impressed with how fantastic the white embossing powder just jumps out from the background. The words Strange Reality have been stamped on white shrink plastic and shrunk (obviously!). You have to stamp her out on a larger piece of card to see her full beauty as she's a little large for an atc, she's 5" high.









Similar colouring in the next one, I'm not generally a green person unless it's an olive/khaki sort of colour but the combo of lettuce & butterscotch is just too gorgeous to ignore. The green I don't really like is more a lawn-coloured green. Maybe I like my lawn to be dying off in parts - hence the butterscotch! lol Once again, the wording (Life's Journey) has been stamped on white shrink plastic that has been coloured with those magic coloured sharpies then blended with blending solution.



The next atc class on Saturday is using webbing sprays. We have white, black, gold and silver in store and they are really easy to use. I do my spraying into a large spray box - actually a large shoe box with an attached lid, it's also where I do my colourwash sprays as well....keeps it all nice and contained and not all over your table.

Here are a couple that I've made for Saturday, one more is being finished today and I'll put that one up when I post next.

Next one is a little hard to see the white webbing spray on the dark gray background as the image in the frame is a transparency and I've mounted it onto foam tape so it has a fair amount of depth, which the scanner struggles with!

Off to work.......

More Colourwash,Resin Fresco & Beading too!

I spent today playing in my studio after waking at 4am and then laying there for a couple of hours going through some ideas in my head. Actually, the dog woke me.....old age being what it is she can't hold her "water" all night....something I don't have a problem with fortunately!

So this is the raffle atc for Saturday's atc class which is the Colourwash Technique.

I have another couple that I'm working on for Saturday and will post them later in the week. The bird, branch and hand holding the egg is from Michelle Ward's range of stamps, though they are from one of her clear sheets which, from memory, is sold through Stampington. The background chicken wire is a Lost Coast atc background stamp.



Next up is the raffle atc for next Tuesday night's atc class, Resin Fresco Technique using UTEE (ultra-thick embossing enamel for the uninitiated), gesso and paint. Love the lumpy bumpy texture that this creates! The brown colour down the sides is actually bronze paint (Golden's), don't you hate how the computer just flattens anything that is shiny or metallic!!! I've used Helmar 2 part crackle on the image in the centre.

This is another sample for that same class.....love this turquoise colour! Yep, used Michelle's large gothic script stamp for the background here, it's from her Printed Matter plate at Green Pepper Press. A girl can NEVER have enough gothic script stamps in my opinion or enough German Scrap available at Scraptivate (I used the white Baroque German Scrap and painted it with Aquarmarine FolkArt Metallic Paint).

This is an atc I sent over to Ruth, a girl on a yahoo group I belong to as a RAK....which I hardly ever do any more as my atc's these days are either made as samples or raffles. It's the tissue paper background from the last Saturday atc class. More German Scrap and some gorgeous Ranger Antiquities embossing powder in Rust.





Now for a throw-back to a previous hobby.....beading! I used to love spending hours doing beading, it's so therapeutic...you don't realise how long you spend absorbed in the little tiny beads, co-ordinating colours and creating whatever shapes you like. This is a beaded brooch that I made using the most glorious golds and browns. I'm a fan of free-style beading, no such thing as a mistake as you just go where you want with it. It's more more forgiving than some of the more structured styles, though I have done that as well and do enjoy it, free-style is still my favourite!

Colourwash Background Technique & help!!!

First off, I have a favour to ask, if any of you know the company that makes the stamp on this first atc, please let me know. Even better, if you have one and you want to sell it, let me know that too! I have a girl in my atc class who is desperate to own it....she'll probably sell you (or at least loan) her first-born she is that enamoured by it! It's a wood mounted one, it's called "Girl with a purse" but it doesn't have a company on the wood so I couldn't tell her where I got it from!

The background on it is the next technique that's coming up in about 9 days time - Colourwash Background Technique. Not saying too much more about it at the moment as you know my girls....they like to practice BEFORE the class and that is simply not allowed! lol I have stamped the image onto gloss and coloured it with Twinkling H2O's before cutting out and attaching to the background. Yeah....I know.....kinda bright for me but as I've said before, I'm a Gemini so I'm allowed to be changeable!

Next one is the same technique....

Now for another Tissue Paper background one from last Saturday's atc class, love the colours in this one!

Last one...this is the raffle atc from Tuesday's class - Canvas Paper Rinse Aid Resist.

Comments are always welcome, even from my friends who I see!!!! hint...hint...hint....lol

more Tissue Paper Background

Here is another of the Tissue Paper Background atc's for today's atc class, black tissue paper again with silver embossing powder. It has more embossing powder on it as I pushed the black tissue paper down too flat, not really incorrect, just more embossing powder on it than I wanted so the next one I did I pressed the tissue paper down more softly. That picture is in the previous post below. Thanks must go to the awesome Michelle Ward for sending me the HIM stamp in a previous package I received from her! I stamped it with white Stazon onto transparency and cut a section out of the tissue paper and stuck the transparency behind so you could see the plain black background of the black mat board my atc's are always mounted on. The heart is stamped onto white shrink plastic, then shrunk and attached, Ruby Treasure Jewels are rubbed around the edge to give the crimson (blood!) colour.

I decided instead of doing more tissue paper atc's, I should be finishing off my 27 atc's for a technique book swap that's due next week. There are 27 of us are taking part in this, so we'll all end up with a fantastic book of atc's, each showcasing a wonderful technique with instructions listed at the back of the book.

I had taken part in another technique book through Stampgropers (a local Western Australian stamp group) and absolutely loved it! This particular technique book lives at Scraptivate where I work and every customer who looks at it just falls in love with it......AND wants to know when I'm teaching the class so they can make their own! Well, if you have a spare couple of MONTHS!!! lol

Anyway....back to the 27 technique atc's.....I did finish them off, they just needed a word on them. I coloured a piece of chipboard with a brown sharpie and then punched the letters with a metal alphabet punch into the chipboard. Then rubbed Classic Gold Treasure Gold lightly over the top followed by Silver Treasure Gold to give it a metallic look. My technique is Gel Medium Transfer, using Golden Soft Gel (matte) onto book pages.

Tissue Paper Background Technique

Tissue paper background has been around for a while....it has various permutations but these are the ones I'll be showing the girls on Saturday at the next atc class. We'll be using black tissue paper, dress-making tissue paper and plain ol' white tissue paper. Three different ways of attaching it too.... Xyron 250, glue-stick and jac paper. The idea behind having a great background is to show it off...so don't cover it all up too much, you still want to see what all the effort was for!

First up, "Certified", this is dress-making tissue with the oh so fabulous colour, Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold (Golden Paints of course).




Next up is "Ray". This is black tissue paper with Gold embossing powder. The sun up the top is a piece of mat board that has had 4 layers of Gold embossing powder melted onto it, one layer after the other, before adding the final layer, ink up a stamp with embossing ink and quickly before the final layer of embossing cools, stamp into it to get a great embossed image!






Okay, this next one had me stumped for a while, I used a combination of a yellow and a yellow/green paint onto plain white tissue and realised this is just SO not my colour combo!!! So I had to add some interference green and some Jenkins Green to darken it slightly before I was happy with it. I've used the scratches stamp from Stampers Anonymous (a Tim Holtz one....great stamp!) and embossed this with Patina Gold embossing powder...a gorgeous combination of black and gold embossing powders mixed together for a great antique look. Go ahead! Try mixing your own embossing powders to get some fantastic combinations like this one! I used this same embossing powder on the remaining exposed double sided tape above the words that I attached to a piece of chipboard. Does that make sense?



I do have another one finished and another one almost finished, so I will endeavour to post pics tomorrow.

Oh, almost forgot! In the last post I made a cryptic note about what I used to colour some of the shrink plastic, it looked like this ********! Give up? None of the girls in the atc class guessed what I used....though they should have, I use these ALL the time! SHARPIES!!! Scribble some sharpies on to the shrink plastic, coloured ones of course, you don't have to completely cover it as too much will make it too dark. Then take some blending solution (Ranger - from the alcohol ink line) on your felt pad and blend it like you would alcohol inks.....FABULOUS colour!!! Stamp, then shrink and if you want, coat with Dimensional Magic, Papier Glass or Diamond Glaze - all are a similar type of dimensional coating.