Crackle Technique & a Canvas

Several years ago I posted about a "poppet" style canvas (a la Claudine Hellmuth style) I had made for a friend's daughter who had lost her Dad to cancer when she was only 4. Her baby sister was born only a couple of weeks after Steve died so she has no memories of her Dad. Little Ava is now 5 so it's time that she had her own canvas with her Dad and her in it. Aisha, her big sister is probably going to be more excited about this when she sees it as it's the same picture of her Dad that I used in her canvas. Here's a link to the previous one for Aisha. These are both 8" x 10" canvases. Not my usual dark & gloomy style but I'm a Gemini and I can chop and change at whim. ;-)

This fortnight's round of classes at Scraptivate is Crackle Technique. We sell several types of crackle including the brand new Rock Candy Distress Crackle. This first atc is the Helmar Crackle which is a 2 step crackle...a base coat, let dry for 20 minutes, then the top coat. As you can see it's a clear crackle so over pictures it's great as you can add some paint when it's dry and wipe it off and the paint settles in the cracks.

"Fragment"...

"Betroth"...this is also using the Helmar Crackle.

Ranger also make the Distress Crackle in 24 colours + some metallic colours.

"Rock and Roll"... (Black Soot Distress Crackle. Yep, yummy Ville Valo, lead singer for HIM....my favourite band!)

"Live it"...also using Distress Crackle in Old Paper colour.

"Angel's Art"... Milled Lavender Distress Crackle.

"Temptation"... Aged Mahogany Distress Crackle.

"Icon"...this is the new Rock Candy Crackle from Ranger. I've put some red paint over the top part of it and used Fired Brick Distress Ink rubbed onto the bottom part. You can see the difference that the paint makes...much more seeps into the cracks. Probably would've been better with a less detailed picture underneath. Live and learn.

"The first rule"... This is the Ranger Crackle Accents. It comes in a bottle like Glossy Accents or Dimensional Magic and goes on the same way... through a small tip that you just squeeze on and spread it around. Very easy!

Guess I'll have some more when I do some samples for the classes over the next week.

...and the winner is.....plus Coloured Gloss Card atc's.......AND a canvas

It seems like there are quite a few of you out there who don't have a very pretty doormat and would like one of these instead, though a couple of you have said you'll use it as a journal cover.....whatever floats your boat! Using random.org the winners have been chosen for the giveaway from the last post.

The three names are.....(in no particular order) Lady Di, Sherry Goodloe and Katie Scarlett. I decided I might as well give away all 3 of them as I really don't need more than one. So the first of you to email me gets to choose which one you want. I do have your email addresses but what fun would that be if I just emailed you and said....
"you won" ....how boring!!! Hope you enjoy them and I hope you get the colour you want. ;-)





Tomorrow is the first of my Coloured Gloss Card technique atc classes and I've been busy today making extra samples and the raffle atc's for the 3 classes (dates up the top, to the right). It's surprising what colour you end up with when layering different colours of distress inks onto the gloss card, some are very unexpectedly beautiful, others not so (though you won't see any of THOSE here.....if in doubt, use Spiced Marmalade over the top and it fixes everything!!!) Because Stazon works so beautifully on gloss card, the stamping is what it's all about, besides the background colour of course!


"Servitude"...

"Eternal quest"...

"Will I love her"...

and a close-up of the wonderful black texture paste (again!) around the image of "Will I love her", which has then been rubbed with a little silver Rub'n'buff and mounted onto torn black metallic card...

"Sunshine and birdsong"...

"Collector"...

Two of my Uncles had their 60th birthday last weekend and for one of them I made an 8" x 10" canvas using a picture from the newspaper of his son taken when he was 8 years old. Paulie (my cousin) died tragically young when he was only in his 20's and it is still very hard for Paul (my uncle) to look at pictures of him....very emotional! I hoped that seeing Paulie's beaming smile in this canvas would show him in his true light, a fun-loving little boy who loved his skating and how cool to be in the newspaper when you're only 8! Yes, if you click on it it'll be bigger. I'm so glad I worked out how to do this, it used to really p*ss me off when it wouldn't work.

French book page, Family canvas & a sock monkey!!!

The theme for this month's Creative Soul Retreat book challenge is "All things French". Of course Eiffel towers are the first thing that pops into my mind when thinking of France, or rather, Paris, but I wanted to do something a little more .....well, just a little "more". So here is my page and I'm debating whether to add some word, or rather just one word....REVOLUTION! I like the softer colours of this page and doing a little collage for a change is refreshing. There is mica over the face of Louis XVI in the little metal frame and some embossing in a beautiful pale pearl blue, as well as some swarovski crystals and a metal embellishment under Marie Antoinette. It wouldn't be complete without the hordes in the streets and the guillotine!

I've also made a canvas for my mother-in-law for Christmas, using a picture of my husband's family when he was a small boy, including the dog Smithy! I made the frame by using foil tape adhered to chipboard and then running it through the Textile plate of the cuttlebug, rubbed it over with Burnt Umber paint and then wiped most of it off immediately. I do love how the distressed look contrasts nicely with the foil tape for this technique. The picture itself is my faux tin-type style. There's also some white German Scrap, some texture paste, glimmer mist (sand dune and dew-drop colours), a metal key and the words are the Olivia font (cuttlebug). Gwen doesn't "do" computers so there's no chance of her seeing this before Christmas so I'm safe posting it here.

Last night was our staff Christmas party at Natalie's house. We did a secret santa gift swap and I received a wonderful Pandora jigsaw piece charm for my bracelet(s) from my partner Jenny. It went straight onto my bracelet and I love how wonderfully full my bracelet(s) - yes, I have 2 - are looking. My secret santa partner to buy/make for was the delightful Mel. She is such a joy to work with as she's always so happy and skips about and is a good pal to boot! I bought her a little angel rubber duck (she collects rubber ducks), one of the new speckle brushes that Tim Holtz has been using on his 12 tags of Christmas, some bird stencils from coffee break designs and I also made her a sock monkey!!! I know she loves quirky and boy did she become attached to the sock monkey! It was carried around all night with her, draped over her shoulder or sitting on her lap. I was really pleased that she loved it and it was secretly nice to do a little bit of sewing and stuffing again....don't tell anyone though!!!

Christmas greetings to everyone and for some of us, 2009 can only get better!

Multitude of Mixed Media & Skagway!

This post has, as the title suggests, a multitude of mixed media.....

First up is my book challenge page for the Creative Soul Retreat. The theme this month was "A few of my favourite things". Of course, I couldn't get out of my head the Gary Larson cartoon where (from memory) there is a couple of detectives in a guys house, he's dead on the floor, on shelving in the room there is "bright copper kettles, warm woollen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with string" and one detective is saying to the other... "These must be a few of his favourite things!"...... So what I did was to think about some of my favourite things (techniques) and I came up with this page.

Each square has a couple of my favourite things on it.

(top row, left to right)...

Old Germanic text and Micaceous Iron Oxide (a Golden paint - gorgeous!),

Gothic transparency image over foil tape,

Textured fabric with metallic thread wrapping,

(middle row, left to right)...

Canvas Paper with Rinse Aid Resist background & Metal wings,

Texture Paste and Silver Rub'n'buff,

Shrink Plastic with HIM stamp, Swarovski crystals and German Scrap,

(bottom row, left to right)...

Black Corrugated cardboard with black onyx mica glitter & embossed cuttlebug shape,

Foil tape and my tracing wheel to make the little track marks,

Webbing spray in both white and black and metal cogs.

Hmmmm.....the book page above looks suspiciously like the new inchie canvas class that I'm teaching in December at Scraptivate! Even though they may look similar, they are obviously different (to the trained art-eye!!!). lol The girls in this 4" x 4" inchie canvas class have a choice of doing either a Crimson/Black/Silver one, or a Blue/Cream/Burnt Umber canvas. Here's the blue one...

...and the crimson/black/silver...

While I was on an arty roll over the last couple of days, I also made a card for the Inkurable Stampers Challenge. This time the we had to use both a bottle cap as well as some beads in our project AND it was a Christmas theme. Well, you just KNOW that I have loads of Christmas themed stamps with reindeer, Christmas trees, Kris Kringle and the like.....NOT!

This was a bit of a challenge for me, but heck, that's what challenges are supposed to be dummy! (me dummy, not you dummy). Last month I was lucky enough to win a gift voucher from Barb at the Stamping Queen and I promptly chose one of the fabulous Stampotique stamps - Prom Queen. I already have Glimmering Hope and Girl with a Lunchbox so now I have a sister to join the other 2! Here she is in all her glory......warning....please don't take offence at the quote on the inside....it's something I have NO control over. I blame my Dad and my brother for my warped sense of humour. Definitely not my fault!

(see how keen I was to get this photographed? the glue under the crystal is not dry!!!)

I had intended to include some of my remaining mega-trip photo's but there just seems to be too much other stuff here...what the heck, it is my blog after all and if I choose to bore you with some pics, so be it! Skagway here we come.....

We had the 2nd big highlight of our trip in Skagway, a journey on the White Pass Scenic Railway, if you go to Skagway this is a wonderful train trip. It's also the only time I've ever actually been snowed on....and they DO look like individual little lacy things when the snowflakes land on you!!!! On the flats, not much snow....

a "bit" more snow....

Here we are at the end of the rail journey, ready to start the bus trip back. Beautiful scenery, yes, it was cold! From left to right, Mum, me, Ev, Pete and Joan, Grant was the photographer.

There was a fabulous building in Skagway that's being constantly repaired with driftwood, the way it was originally done. Wonderful! Do the 3 little pigs come to mind????

...and just in case you forgot how we got around on our mega-trip....

Beeswax atc's, Canvas & Card

Tonight's atc class is a favourite of most people who try this technique...beeswax! You can use either a Ranger Melt Pot, just a heat gun or my favourite - the Clover Mini Iron with the little triangular shaped head. I use beeswax that is unbleached, it comes straight from the honey supplier so it smells so wonderful when heated and is a beautiful honey colour. I also use wax crayons to add a little colour to my beeswax work too!

Here are 2 samples for tonight's class , the first one is the raffle atc.

"Dream"...

The next one started out as a transfer of a girl over some script paper, then I applied the beeswax and crayons over that as well as one of the Collections frames. It's a little more work when you are applying something a little thicker to a beeswax work, like the chipboard frame below. You just have to apply enough beeswax to form up around the edges to hold it in place and also some beeswax over the top too. If you apply too much it is easy to scrape back and smooth over again either with the heat gun or with the Clover Mini Iron.

"Silent and withdrawn"...

A while ago I was asked by Cardmaking, Stamping & Papercraft magazine (an Aussie publication) to take part in their stampers challenge. The stamps were from Rachel Grieg's Darkroom Door Series and it was the Doors set that I was sent for the challenge. Here is a card that I made and also a 4" x 4" canvas. These stamps are beautiful on gloss card as they are photo stamps so they come up really well on the smooth surface. I also used black onyx mica glitter on this card too, unfortunately it just doesn't show up how much it sparkles!

This is the 4 x 4 canvas, note how the bolt looks so realistic and 3d! The darker image mid-left is the same door stamp from above but it has been stamped on shrink plastic and shrunk.

These should be appearing in the next issue.

Brushless Watercolour atc's & a Canvas

On Saturday I'm teaching my Technique Book #2 again so it won't be an atc class as per normal. My next atc class is on Saturday the 29th of November and I thought I'd get a jump start on this one - Brushless Watercolour. I use 2 methods for this, both Lyra watercolour crayons (LOVE THEM!!!) and Ranger Distress Ink Pads. They give a slightly different look but are both as easy as each other.



Firstly, let me say that I just googled "Reseda Odorata" and I know these plants look nothing like the image on this atc below. I just used the wording because it said yellow, orange and green flowers and it worked with the image. Please don't put the "plant police" onto me. ;-)

"Reseda Odorata"...

Now a couple using one of my favourite Stampers Anonymous stamps. The first one is a diptych - 2 separate atc's, with some micro beads and mica for extra dimension. The mica is over the wording on the right hand side, it's why it looks a little grey.

"Dragonfly #1 & #2"...

and another, "winged"...

I have been asked quite a few times by the girls in my class about this next stamp. It's called Girl with a Purse and is by A Stamp In The Hand but it is discontinued. Good luck finding it if you like it....try ebay!

"Polite"...

Last Saturday I was a student in a class at Scraptivate instead of the teacher!!! I took a class with the lovely, bubbly Mel. It was her Starlight Fairy Canvas and I loved it, colour washes, lyra crayons, Jo Sonja Gold Dust, a beautiful image....what's not to like! The girls all did different colours but as I'm a sucker for Golden Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold, that's what I used for the sky and then Burnt Umber for the ground.

Yep, only those two colours, apart from the shading with the lyra crayons in black and dark brown. Doesn't the stamping around the edges make it look like a theatre set, it does to me anyway! What you can't see is the Jo Sonja Gold Dust. This is a gel medium that has big flakes of gold/orange glitter suspended in it that dries to a matte finish so it is much more subtle than say sprinkling glitter over a gel medium. Because the glitter flakes are coated by the matte medium, it tones down the sparkle effect. This is an 8" x 10" canvas (or 20cm x 25cm if you prefer).