A recycled boat. TUTORIAL.

Hello everyone!
Here with you Elena Arts again with my new project.
I love to recycle and give a new life to objects that have already exhausted their function. So, I want to show you what you can do with a boat of milk powder for baby. My daughter is now 4 years old and since I finished giving her milk, have passed some years :) I have reserved this pot for "just in case" and finally the time has come to take advantage of that container for other purposes.
I have made a container to save my art tools such as brushes, scissors, cutters, etc

 To start, I covered the recipe with white gesso.

 Then I glued using Finnabair Art Basics: Soft Gloss Gel some fabric, a bit of lace, chipboard and I wrapped around the boat a little of cord. 

 Then I played with the beatiful colors of  Prima Color Bloom Spray Mist: 573829 Worn Leather, Prima Color Bloom Spray Mist: 573737 Cotton Candy and Prima Color Bloom Spray Mist:573898 Colbalt 

 I added some accent with the acrilic gold paint.

and painted some parts with Finnabair Art Extravagance: Gold CrackleTexture Paste and Finnabair Art Ingredients Glass Glitter - Gold Rush. It is a very very nice effect!!!

To finish I applied some short touches of white gesso. This allows highlight the textures and it always  looks good in our Mixed Media works. Also I added some freehand stamping,  made the flower composition and used  Finnabair Vintage Mechanicals: 961121 Plate & Label

All materials you can get them right now here in the store and below you can see more photos with some details.

 I hope it was useful for creating your projects and you have been inspired for  recicling :))
Thank you for your attention ;)
Bye, see you later,
xxx

Extreme Faux Bleaching!

Hello!
I'm not calling this an 'old school' technique, as I've only really been doing this since Distress Inks came out. Not *that* long ago??! Still, this is a technique we all do from time to time, so why not just take it to the next level? Faux Bleaching, or, if you would rather....flicking water droplets at stuff!
 Here is my finished project...

Bright Bright colour, with spots, splashes and drips where the ink colour has been removed.
My card was coloured with 4 different colours of Distress ink, Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, Mustard Seed and Festive Berries to be precise. As we have the primary colours in there in varying forms, we get a little colour mixing going on in places, greens oranges and purples emerge where the colours meet. The first layer of 'faux bleaching' takes off quite a few spots of colour..

As you all know already, big drips of water give big areas of 'bleach', spraying water will give tiny spots! Instead of stopping at the point though, add a little more inks to the dried background. I have kept the colours the same, i;e adding more yellow over the yellow areas. It would be easy to muddy the colours if you tried adding blue over a pink bit! This has the effect of toning down those first 'bleached' out areas, the shapes are still there, just not as 'white' as before. Keep repeating the water, drying, ink technique until you have a more layered look, with the drop marks varying in hue...

The only downside to this technique is that your card will have a tendency to curl because of all the water and heating you've done to it. You can see my background is a little warped in the pic above! This is easily rectified, simply stick (or sew!) the card to another bit of heavy cardstock to keep it flat.
I sewed my background to a bit of black card...

I added a few black splats of paint, and even had a go at 'bleach printing'... the semi circles you can see are the edges of a bottle top dipped in water that has been pressed onto the piece.
Very simple stamping to set off all that colour...

Of course, you could go as wild as you want with the design, for some reason I felt that less is more with this piece!
See you soon,
Trish xxx

'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

Old School 2: Shaving Foam Backgrounds

Hello!

Part 2 of my ''Old School techniques revisited" series!

Today..... Shaving Foam Backgrounds!

Yes, we've all played about with this technique in the past, I think it's about time we tried it again!

This is my finished piece....

Just LOVE the swirly colourfulness going on!

Right...refresher time..here's how you do it!

Firstly, squirt some shaving foam onto a paper plate...

Paper plates are brilliant because you can just bin the whole messy lot when you're done. If you want a bigger print though, you'll need to find something bigger! You really need the cheapest shaving foam you can find, nothing posh with fancy bits added, no need for them. This can was 26p from Tescos!

Next, smooth it out so you have a flat-ish surface...

At this point you need to restrain yourself from going all 'slapstick clown' and shoving the resulting pie into someones face. Unless that's just me.......

Next, drip on some inks. I've used a combination of Bombay inks and Daler Rowney inks, but I'm sure any drippy ink would work. Experiment!

Using a skewer, drag the inks into each other. I've just used a simple design first..

Take a bit of card (I've found the thicker the better, and NOT coated!), and place it on top of the inky mess. Gently press down so all the surface touches the inks..

Peel it off....

Now we need to remove all the excess foam! You will get the best results if you scrape it off all in one go, so try and use something a little wider than your card. I have used a bone folder here, but things like long rulers work just as well.

Scrape the foam off in one movement, dragging your chosen implement in one direction across the card.

Then admire your design!

You can also go back to the foamy mess and do a little more pattern making...

This time I have created swirls and circles with the skewer on top of the lines already made. The result from this looks like so....

You can also take multiple prints without messing about with the design in between...

With these three prints, the one on the left was the first 'pull' from the foam. I went straight back in with more card to produce the middle print, then the print on the right is the design created when going in for a third time. As you can see, the inks get less the more prints you pull, but the designs are fab!

I chose to use the middle print from the three above in my final project.

The ink swirls are great, with no mixing or muddying of colours..

You can add stamping over the top of the design...

I used a bit of another print for the dress of my Stampotique figure...

I must warn you though....once you start you can't stop. I now have a big stack of prints all ready for use!

The other thing you need to know is that it's messy...very messy! Make sure you have a lot of paper towels on hand to wipe up after yourself!

Have fun,

Trish xxxxx

Dip Marbling- An Inky Technique Tutorial!

Hello!
Thought I'd share some old school, back in the day type ink techniques for my next few posts.... get out stash and tools you already have and create some funky new art!
Today I want to share the dip marbling technique. This is a technique I shared in Craft Stamper magazine a couple of years ago, and as people liked it then, I hope you like it now!
This is the finished piece....

All you'll need are some alcohol inks, (metallic mixatives are fab not not essential!), a container deep enough to have a piece of card dipped into it, and some water.
Fill the container with water....

Drip in some inks. Alcohol inks work because they sit on the surface of the water for a while, something other inks don't do! Adding metallic mixative ink will give you a bit of texture as well as shine! This is an odd picture...looking down onto the surface of the water after I have dripped the ink onto it...

Once the inks are sitting on the surface, dip  a bit of cardstock into the water. Some cards work better than others, thicker is better as it can take more water! Dip the card straight down.....

The card breaks the surface of the water, dragging the inks on the surface down onto the cardstock. Bring the cardstock straight back up through the water. This needs to be done quickly, so the cardstock doesn't take on too much water!

You're now dealing with a very drippy wet bit of card!

Dry it off straight away before it goes all mushy...

The inks give the colour, all be it a little paler than the shade in the bottle! The metal part of the mixatives clump up on the surface, giving a flaky, textured area to your marbling. The mixative that is dissolved in the water gives a sheen to the background, difficult to see in pictures but noticeable in real life!
As both sides of the cardstock  entered the water, you will create a double sided background! This is fab for things like book pages, otherwise it's a difficult decision as to which side to use. This one:

or this one:

I went with the pinker side!

The inks blend together wonderfully....

You can see the flaky bits of metal, some dull and some shiny.
I added to the shine by melting some grains of silver UTEE...

My Stampotique figure is watching over the marbling...

Why not have a go, it's good old messy fun!
Trish xxxxx