GLUE EMBOSSING

The technique this fortnight once again uses our trusty glue gun with clear glue only this time.  It's simply a matter of drawing your design onto watercolour paper with your glue gun, allowing it to dry, re-heating with a heat gun (taking care not to ruin your design!) and while still hot, dump your embossing powder on.  Tap off the excess embossing powder and heat again to melt the embossing powder.  Let it cool, spritz the card with water and apply Twinkling H2O's onto the wet card so the colours blend together and voila, a cool and dimensional background that you can add pictures to or if your design can stand alone, a little embellishment and some words and you can call it done!

 

Of course the computer screen doesn't show how dimensional this glue is nor how wonderfully shimmery the Twinkling H2O's are.... you'll just have to try this technique out for yourself and see.

 

"Trapped"...

 

 "Despair"...

 

"Royale"... (thanks for the crowns Amie!)

 

"Essence"...

 

"Ascend"...

 

 

More to come....

Chalkboard ATC's

The Chalkboard style of stamping has been around for a little while now and it really suits a more focal image style of stamp as well as a great opportunity to use some quote or word stamps.  I love the simplicity of embossing with white powder and using white pigment ink to create the shadow effect around the stamp and then making your chalkboard dirty by sponging on more of the white pigment ink.  A white pencil adds some more detail or alternatively, you can use a little coloured pencil, either watercolour or normal pencils work equally as well!  A few samples for this last class for my Technique Book for this year.  Classes start again in January 2014.

 

"Rubber gloves"... (I've wanted to use

this quote for a while now!  lol)

 

"No Prince Charming"...

 

"Last Embrace"...  (this stamp is a little busier

than the previous two, I think I like a little

more chalkboard showing.)

 

Here's the last three samples from my previous class, Bleach & Faux Bleach.

 

"Sarcasm"...

 

"Medicated"... (Love these Stampotique girls!!!)

 

"Decompose"... (this is Faux Bleach using the paint

and you can see how much more the

Twinkling H2O's show up with

the paint acting as a base on the fish.)

 

I'll have more Chalkboard ATC's to post pictures of before Christmas.  Can't wait to see what the girls do with this particular technique!!!

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"...

Soot Technique ATC's

Soot technique is an old favourite of many stampers. It's quick, simple but gives spectacular results. The original technique simply used white gloss card stock but I wondered how they'd look with some colour put onto the gloss card first so I have coloured some of the gloss card with alcohol inks or glimmer mists. How to make a great technique even more wonderful.....add some colour first!

All of the following atc's have colour added to them. To find more on soot (including non-colour ones) on my blog, simply type in "soot" in the search box on the right. Handy little widget that one!!!

These first 2 are the samples in my atc technique book that the girls in my classes are making. Of course, they are doing their own style to put into their books.

"Black Bird Fly"... (stamps by Cherry Pie and yes, that's a bit of flyscreen down the bottom!)

"Fragile"... (Tim Holtz tree stamp, Green Pepper Press fragile stamp. Fragile stamp embossed with Ranger Queen's Gold embossing powder, a beautiful colour.)

Samples for the classes:

"Damaged"... (Zetti face stamp, circle stamps by ??? - an old cheapie I've had for years!)

"Line"... (Green Pepper Press building stamp)

"Fear Not"... (Zetti main stamp, splotch by ??? and Fear Not by Cherry Pie. Love the colour of the embossing powder too, it's Liquid Platinum by Ranger!)

"Odonata"... (Dragonfly stamp by Stampers Anonymous with some Antique Linen Distress Stickles down the left and Golden brand Bronze paint splattered over the surface)

I recently took part in a yahoo group atc swap using Twinkling H2O's so I made some bleach & H2O atc's and posted them off. As I had made one extra, I included this in a monthly WTA (Winner Takes All) on another yahoo group. This is about the most trading/swapping I've done for ages! The stamp is a discontinued Hero Arts Vintage Map stamp, pity they don't make this any more....I could've sold heaps of them!!!

"Traverse"...

I do have more soot ones in various stages of production in my studio and will post them when they are done.

Bleach atc's, a canvas and Birds....and to close

I sat at my computer for several minutes wondering how to start this post. Do I just jump right in showing my next atc technique for my class, maybe show the canvas that I made while Dad was in hospital that a friend thought was a reflection of my mind-set at the time? No......I finish off the chapter of these previous few posts by saying what a (insert - sitting at my computer again staring at the screen)....I want to say "wonderful" but it sounds funny....... funny strange not funny haha, funeral we had for my Dad. So many people from early days in his life as well as many, many friends he and Mum made over the years as well as our large family. Over 300 people attended and about half of these came back to my house for the celebration of his life. A few tears but mainly very funny stories of times spent with Eric.

"Thankyou" doesn't seem to be a big enough word to convey how much I appreciate those of you who have left comments and sent personal emails (& cards) expressing their feelings and warm thoughts to myself and my family. Each day is a new one and I'm sure that one day I'll be able to remember my Dad with something other than the tears that still well up in my eyes. Okay, enough now...... Dad would NOT see the funny side of a keyboard getting soaked with tears and making little splish splash noises......he did love his technology!

I'll let you in on a little secret that I've discovered - art is therapeutic!!! I'm sure no-one else has worked this out but now it's out there.....spread the word!!!!! lol My next class on Saturday is Bleach atc's. I know there is the normal way, stamp into bleach that has been soaked in paper towels on a little plate then stamping onto your card stock. I'm going to be doing the other method - painting in bleach. Mainly because I don't have many (read - any!!!) large open-type, simple design stamps. Here are the samples - note, not all card stock will bleach! Trial and error is the key to this technique.

"a dress form" - tan coloured card stock, image bleached out and re-coloured with Twinkling H2O's. "collector" - bleach painted onto tan card stock, image stamped then re-coloured with chalks.

"vision" - red card stock, stamped then parts bleached out and recoloured with Twinkling H2O's. (Not my favourite colours but I wanted to show that you could do something bright if you like!)

"insectology" - black card stock, parts of the stamped image bleached out and recoloured with Twinkling H2O's.


"flighty" - black card stock, stamped image bleached out and no other colour added - this is always a surprise as to what colour the card stock will turn with the bleach!

In March next year I'm attending a retreat in Melbourne, Creative Soul Retreat (you can click here to go to the book challenge). An event I'm REALLY looking forward to, I'm booked to have classes with Bernie Berlin and DJ Pettit and I'll get to meet up with some of the girls I've gotten to know through this little box on my table. Gotta say, I love the Internet!!! Some of us are taking part in a monthly challenge, you are given a theme and then you make a page for a book that you'll put together yourself. It's not for swapping, it's for keeping!!! Bonus!!! We take the book along to the retreat so we can drool all over everyone else's creations one night, between sips of wine and bites of cheese of course! Here's my page, "every year".

I used white paper that had been sprayed with Glimmer Mists in Turquoise and Graphite, then sprayed with some black webbing spray. Stamps are from Michelle Ward's clear stamp sheet called Bird Sanctuary and have been stamped with Stazon. The blue/green bird in the front has been stamped onto a piece of white gloss paper that was first coloured with Pine Needles Distress Ink, then cut out and mounted on mounting foam for dimension. The white in the feathers were added with a white gel pen, black german scrap down the bottom with some Patina Rub'n'buff and finally a quote printed on vellum and attached to a bit of the same Pine Needles coloured gloss card stock. 3 brads up the top right complete the piece.

Several weeks ago I was given the RIP cuttlebug die & folder as part of my design team project at Scraptivate. The timing was not intentional (with Dad ill), it was just that it was a fairly new release and I'm the first person that Natalie thought of to do something with this, I'm SOOOO not the person to give anything flowery to from the shop! Here's the canvas which is soon to be a class at Scraptivate in December (if you're in Perth and you're interested!).

Arty Shrink Plastic???

Can Shrink Plastic (Shrinky Dinks) be arty? Or is it merely an old-fashioned stamping product that has had it's day? Nay I Say!!!!! Shrink Plastic CAN be arty and I intend to prove this to the girls in my atc class next Saturday when we tackle the still "oooooohhhhh and aaaaaaaahhhhh" inspiring humble plastic. Yep, grown women are still just as amazed as kids, when they watch their stamped piece shrivel and shrink and curl up on itself, only to flatten out miraculously and reveal a fantastic little rendition of the larger former item.

A little experiment I tried was running some white shrink plastic through my printer (Epson with Durabrite inks). It printed out okay...if a little blurry in spots because I didn't bother to sand the shrink plastic first (like you should if you are applying colour). Just thought I'd "wing it"! You need to be really careful not to touch the colour as it doesn't dry until it's heated so cut out carefully!!! Go on...ask me how I know!!! lol One thing though, you really need to have a PALE image because as you know, the colour really intensifies as it shrinks down. Enough blabber.....on with the samples...

This one, "Relique", is one of the inkjet printer ones. It's Michelangelo's pointing hands that are the printed image and the little bits of embossing powder in the top right & left hand corner cover a smudgy finger-print from touching the print while still wet. Aren't you glad I ALWAYS tell you my mistakes! ;-)

The next atc is a stamped image that has been coloured with.....********.....no, not a typo....I can't tell you because it's a surprise for the Saturday atc girls. All will be revealed after Saturday's class. I'm doing this because I KNOW they read my blog and I can't give all my surprises away before the class. Some of them have been known to practice before the class! hahahaha The background is canvas paper that has been coloured with twinkling H2O's, very subtle colouring, and stamped with Stazon Timber Brown and a script stamp. Plus the ubiquitous German Scrap available from here. This one is "Francia".

Next up is another stamped image. It's the absolutely fabulous famous face of Lina Cavalieri, she's used on many, many stamps because quite frankly, she is just gorgeous! The two images were stamped on almond coloured shrink plastic that I sanded first, then I added colour with the glimmer chalks, (also available at Scraptivate) then stamped two sections of the stamp in black Stazon. The size of the shrink plastic before it was shrunk was the same size as an atc - 2-1/2" x 3-1/2", so this gives you some idea of how much shrinkage there really is! ERROR ALERT!!! ERROR ALERT!!! The "E" is backwards because I made a mistake...but kinda liked the look of it anyway so I did it again on the "HATE". No mistake is a mistake if you do it twice....right??? This one is called "Love/Hate"...sort of like all kinds of relationships...no?

I still have another couple of shrink plastic atc's but they will have to wait until my next post, I need to photograph them and one is at work. Will take my camera tomorrow to work and put them up soon.