'Old School' 3 -Salt!

Hello!
Another old favourite inky technique today, although this time I've only used bits of the background created on my final piece! My finished creation is this page...

The bright red poppy heads are the product of todays spotlight technique: Salt backgrounds!
Adding rock salt to wet ink is a great way to create fab texture and interest, and it's really simple too!
Step1: Prepare! The is messy, so put your card down on a wipe clean surface.

Step 2: Spray! (or drip...) Any drippy ink will work for this, acrylic inks, ink sprays, stains, you name it. I knew I was going to use the result for a poppy head, so I sprayed in just the one colour. You can go as bonkers with the colours as you want!

Step 3: Reactivate the inks with a little more water so the surface is nice and wet...

Step 4: Add on the rock salt...

Step 5: Spray with a little more water to make sure the salt has a nice wet bond with the surface..

Step 6: Now you can go one of two ways. Leave it to dry by itself, or blast with a heat gun. Drying naturally gives nice results...but for the impatient.....Blast with the heat gun!

Step 7: Once ALL the ink is dry, wait until the cardstock and salt is cool. It's really quite surprising how hot salt gets! Once cold, rub off the salt...

Step 8: Admire the fab textures and design the salt creates!

I then cut circles from my salty background, and added seed beads to the centres to give me my poppies.

I typed straight onto an old book page to give me my title...

Which was very apt, because I wanted to doodle my way around the rest of the piece, no stamps at all. I was a bit hesitant about letting go and creating the stems and leaves of my poppies, so really needed to believe in myself!

I *think* it worked, but need a lot more playing about until I'm confident!
Have a go with the salt, its a really nice technique!

See you soon,
Trish xxxxx

Midnight in Paris tag!

Good morning, Gez here sharing a tag I made for my daughter.. we are in the process of deciding whether to visit Paris or Florence.. I think we might just have to do both!!

I started with a plain {black tag} size No.8, stamped and inked the background word stamp from the {Papillon} Tim Holtz Rubber Stamp set onto the tag. I didn't mind the little white speckles as I thought they look like tiny stars and I wanted a shabby finish to the tag..

Next I stamped the Effel Tower stamp onto black Glitz Design Color Me Happy {Chalkboard} cardstock which has a nice chalky old fashioned blackboard appeal to it (I can see many uses for that paper!)

To finish off the tag I used a butterfly stamp from the {Papillon} set and stamped it onto Claudine Hellmuth's white {Sticky-Back Canvas} using {Jet Black} Archival ink pad and coloured the butterfly randomly with {Distress Stains} I also added tiny dots of Ranger Liquid Pearls in a line down the centre of the butterfly to create a body and added a flick of {Funky Fuchsia} Dylusions ink spray to add to the grunge effect!

The heart and words 'someday' were cut from Glitz Design Color Me Happy {cardstock}

Thank you for calling, I hope you like my tag ♥

The Mad Feeling....

Hello!
I have a painty messy project to share today...in step by step format so brace yourselves for a few *cough* pictures! Here is the finished piece....

Let me take you through the 'manufacturing process' !!!
Firstly, cover a Tando Chipboard sheet with Ranger Tissue wrap. Crumple the tissue first, and make sure it stays creased when you glue it down. We want the texture!

The texture is the main reason we've used this tissue, but the music will still hopefully show through in places as well! Base colour next, just smeared on with a sponge..

I've used Seedless Preserves Distress paint for the next colour. I've found dabbing the colour onto your craft sheet, then picking it up with a sponge to apply gives you more control over the coverage than if you use it straight from the bottle using the dabber top...

Next step is printing using junk! I've used the lime paint to give continuity...

I used sequin waste in two sizes as a stencil. Seedless Preserves paint again...

The next step was to stamp various background stamps using black ink...

The messy bit comes now! Scrape black gesso through a stencil (Prima)...

I edged the panel with black too....

At this point, the background was supposed to be done, but I thought it was missing something.... More colour?

That's better!
Lots of texture with the paint highlighting the wrinkled tissue....

I broke the habit of a lifetime and coloured my image...all of her, even the skin! (pass the smelling salts!)

A fab Stampotique lady, as you can see!

She was coloured with Distress Stains mostly, with a dash of turquoise paint and Promarkers for the skin.
My words are from my little box of cut up Mills and Boon books!

So a nice painty mess to finish up this months projects from me....

Next month I'm going to be concentrating on jewellery, so stay tuned for something completely different!
Trish xxxxxxxx

Canvas Atc's.. by Gez

For sooooooo long....... I have wanted to try out the Sticky-Back Canvas Atc's by Claudine Hellmuth and I am excited to share my results with you! I wanted to throw lots of different products at these to see how they reacted.

I used the white sticky back canvas atc's and cut some plain white card for the reverse sides.. slightly smaller than the canvas.. stuck one to the other and set about fraying the edges!

 I used Distress Ink pads on the first atc and applied them with a piece of Cut n Dry foam for the background. Adding some flicks from a bottle of Paradise Pink, Tattered Angels, Glimmer Glaze (it comes with it's own brush!)

The main image is a Resist Canvas Bird by Prima.. coloured with Distress Stains in Dusty Concord & Broken China.. gotta LOVE those colours together!

This little birdie is merrily singing soooo he just had to stand on a scrap of music paper!! The word is computer generated and I think you can just see on the photograph in the background some silver acrylic circles using the paint and the lid from a bottle of Ranger's metallic paint dabber. The gorgeous little gems are by Prima (505506) Say It In Crystals

Success! I love how this Atc turned out!

    ~♥♥~

The background for the 2nd atc was created using Dylusions Ink Sprays straight from the bottle onto the canvas.. with more blobs of the Paradise Pink Glimmer Glaze.. and silver acrylic circles..

More music paper used for the flower, and gems along with another computer generated word.. I wanted all my Atc's to tie in together as a set.. same but different.. if you know what I mean!!

 ~♥♥~

I think I saved my favourite atc until the last to show you.. I had a mini brainwave amidst the chaos going on in my head! What if... I could decant some of my lovely Dr Ph Martin's Bombay Indian Inks into some of the little Mini Mister bottles with some water.... YES! It worked lovely for the background!!

Before I misted the background.. I stamped a text stamp using gel medium onto the canvas... and QUICKLY, cleaned the stamp!

I have to admit to being a little impatient waiting for the gel medium to dry & used the heat gun! Becareful, if you don't any bubbling, let it dry naturally!

    

 Time for some spraying.. (and inky fingers!)

                    

More flicking with the Glimmer Glaze! Gems & stamped circles using Jet Black Archival Ink

The heart was cut from some plain white cardstock and covered with Washi Tape and mounted onto 3D foam pads.

PHEW! Hope you are all still awake!!!

Thanks for calling today. Gez oxox

 ~♥~

Fly

Hello again!
So, second project in a row from me with no paint on it.....what's going on?!!
he he he.....its nice to force yourself into different styles sometimes!!
Here is my mini layout (or panel? is it a layout if it has no photo???!) for today... 'Fly'..

Lots of different textures and substrates used here, starting off with a square of Kraft card. I did very little to this base, just a squirt or two of Peacock Feathers Distress reinker mixed with water, and some splats of both that colour ink and Vintage Photo. I edged the square with the Vintage photo too. Teeny bit of stamping, again using those two colours...

The flower top left is cut from sticky backed canvas, dyed using Peacock Feathers Distress stain, and edged with Vintage Photo...

The other large flower is created from Kraft Glassine paper. Crumpled up, inked (Peacock Feathers again!) sprayed with water and then sprinkled with Perfect Pearls. The water mixing with the Perfect Pearls forms a thin, paint like shimmery wash. Cut out, and assembled into the flower shape...

I also used Glassine for the two flourishes on my panel.
The focal image is a card from the gorgeous Jenni Bowlin Vintage deck (this image is in the silhouette 2 pack). I just inked lightly round the edges, and placed it centrally in my design...

The four blue flowers are very easy to make rolled 'roses'. Simply cut a spiral shape from card, then roll up to form the rose shape. Glue the end underneath the flower to secure, and you're done! I've coated the flowers with Glue N Seal, the covered them with Rock Candy Dry Stickles.

I glued all the elements down, then added in the final touches. Two small junkyard findings light bulbs, to be precise! I removed the words that were originally on the bulbs simply by scraping them off!

Now, I'm not normally a gem kind of girl, but these particular colours are just perfect for this project! These are Prima Say It In Crystal Rounds.

The last thing I did was to give the whole thing a spritz and splatter with gold drawing ink. I covered up the main image so that would stay pristine, but gave the rest a thorough splatting! This also helps 'tone down' the gems a little, a bit of distressing does no harm!
So there you have it!

See you soon,
Love Trish x

Dotty canvas!

Or rather..."look no paint"!!!
Just goes to show, I CAN create something without using shed loads of paint!

I wanted to use the sticky backed canvas that I received in my design kit for this month, love this stuff lots! Instead of just using it to create on, I thought I would make something with the canvas to use as an embellishment. Which then turned into focal points rather than embellishments, but never mind!!!
I saw a tutorial in Scrap365 magazine by Katy Fox, in which she turned regular canvas sheets into resist canvas by clear embossing a design onto the canvas. This is exactly what I have done with the canvas circles..... embossed some dots using clear powder, then coloured them using Distress Stains. As you can see, the dots show up wonderfully where they have resisted the ink!

I used Seedless Preserves (the more pinky purple colour), Dusty Concord and Peeled Paint stains to colour the canvas. I also used these three colours to create the background. A simple "stain on craft sheet, spritz with water, wipe card through the mess, dry, repeat until done" job!!!

I did a little black ink stamping around the edges with some dots and a flourish just to give a little detail.
The circles were mounted on top of each other (easy peasy, they're sticky backed!), after I had doodled around them, and I added a punched shape (a snowflake 'officially' , but I think it doubles up as stamens beautifully!).
Chit Chat word stickers to finish....

I hope you like it, I'm really enamoured by this colour combo now, and can see me using it lots more!
love Trish xxx

Recycled birdie!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for everyone's lovely comments last week when I shared my 2nd creation.

I seriously recommend you following the blog if you aren't doing so already, goodness there is lots of  fabulous inspiration from the Design Team.. 

This week I have a small decorated canvas to share with you.. with lots of recyling going on!

The background was created using a piece of kitchen roll I had used whilst mopping up ink sprays.. I can't bare to throw them away.. some of them are just too pretty.

The gorgeous bird is from Prima you can find it in the shop {HERE} I coloured the bird using blue and purple Distress Stains.. see {HERE} then overstamped onto her with a text stamp using black archival ink.. see {HERE}.

The word sentiment on the canvas is from my craftbox.. I actually borrowed it from the front of one of my old craft journals it seemed just perfect!

I think this little birdie must be a magpie (just like me)... I recycled some wire for her to stand on along with the most gorgeous embellishment ever!!! My first time using one of the fabulous {Prima Junkyard Findings}.. just PERFECT!

I painted a full moon onto the canvas using a silver acrylic {Paint Dabber}

Thank you for calling today and leaving a comment if you get the chance.. 

  Happy creating, Gez oxox