Distressed Duck!

I'd like to enter this card into the Craft Room Ink-It challenge Where to begin on a card for a man who I don't know very well.  I know he has a good sense of humour so Sheena's Duck stamp seemed a good beginning.  I've been having a ball playing with distress inks lately so decided to do a wrinkle free distress background and stamp over the top with walnut stain distress ink.  I tore the edges after stamping and then blended in some colours around the edges. I love texture so used a woodgrain embossing folder to create the background and topped that with a piece of hessian. 

For the insert I distressed a piece of paper using a blending tool and then spritzed it with a fine mist of water.

More Frantage and new Chemistry.

I'vee been loving the whole distressed embossing the 'Frantage' way and wanted to do some on my tag journal previous version).

The problem I had was that Fran does most of her heating from underneath because the embossing powders etc aren't adhered with any inks.  So I got to thinking.  I know many embossing inks are glycerine based and I have sucessfully glued embossing powders with glycerine daubed with a sponge before.  But I wanted a more random splattered effect. 

I took a mini mister which had about 1/2" of water in it and topped it up with glycerine.  I spritzed the journal with this mixture and then sprinkled on the powders.  Heating from above now worked!  Most of the powders stuck to the glycerine, the mica flakes being heavier moved a bit but while the embossing was still hot I was able to sprinkle on a few more and reheat to set them in place.



Swap tags

I've taken techniques learned in the past few weeks to make 3 tags for a swap.  I'd also like to enter these into the WOW embossing powder nature or vintage inspired April challenge and the Craft Room Ink- it Challenge

I do hope the recipients see this as part of my learning curve but it was fun trying.  The pictures don't really tell the whole story as there is a lot of touchy feely going on here too thanks to Fran Seiford of Stampendous for demonstrating 'Frantage' on TV recently.

The left hand tag used a marbled distress background, I stamped swirls in black archival and the butterfly in perfect medium before sprinkling random drops of assorted WOW embossing powders and mica flakes over the image and heating from below.  The middle tag used a resist embossing technique, I used salt mixed with the embossing powder to get the resist.  The third tag has a distress stained background and I've stamped with picket fence distress stain and black archival, the stamps are from Clarity..  I went over one of the swirls with a versamark pen before sprinkling with embossing powders etc as above.

Alcohol ink birdcage with hand made stamp

Hi All

Spurred on to do more creative chemistry I wanted to try more with the alcohol ink agates technique but I'm a bit limited when it comes to solid stamps, soo I decided to make on using an alterations die.  Providing you have a big shot or similar these are really easy to do, and the only limitation is your imagination and the number of bigz dies you have.  I'd not advise this with anything but bigz dies, or maybe one of the electronic cutters (ie Cricut), please let me know if you have tried and succeeded safely using any of the thinner dies in other machines.

The materials needed are few, some 3d foam 1mm is fine, I used stix2, some craft or funky foam, the sort you cut shapes from for embellishments, a block of wood to mount it on, (I used an old block from an inexpensive stamp I have removed and keep in a folder), and finally your die and cutting machine.

To make the stamp cut foam sheets to size, remove one side of the paper from the stix2 foam sheet and adhere the funky foam to it.  Now make your usual sandwich and run the die and foam through your die cutting machine.  Take out your cut out piece remembering to push out all little holes and fiddly bits.  Remove the paper from the other side of the stix2 foam and carefully adhere to your block.  Voila you have a hand made stamp, well in my case two. I disregarded the little piece of wing for this by the way.   Note I have only used archival ink on mine so far, the first time it takes a lot of ink but then it is primed and can be used as usual.  The ink does not dry so fast on this foam so be wary of touching it or letting it come into contact with anything you don't want to stamp. 

I stamped the bird first and marked on the cage block where the bird was positioned so I got them lined up where I wanted them.

Enjoy

Creative Chemistry finale

I've really enjoyed my journey into creative chemistry and wanted to make something that would serve as a reference source while including all of the techniques I've learned along the way so I'm creating an art journal in the form of a pocket book to hold all of the tags.

 As usual the picture isn't telling the whole story.  The flower is die cut from fine calico using a bigz flower die, the fabric was stamped with paints then distressed with stains.  To give it some stability I sprayed it liberally with hairspray.  The corner pieces were cut from some of the die cut hardware I distressed earlier.  The die cut birdcage also had the rusted enamel effect and the bird was done with rock candy however I found it wasnt vibrant enough to make the bird stand out so I added some mosaic pieces.

The inside of the book will take me longer to complete but I've put up a couple of pictures of the work in progress.