A Little Experimentation Goes a Long Way

As I said in my previous post I was going to play some more and share the results. I have used stains, watercolour pencils and gelatos and I have a fair few things to share. I am sharing them before I turn them into cards. I think I am getting the hang of the gelatos too :) I have made some very light samples but I can always add more colour if I wish (good thing I have been taking notes on the back of the samples lol).

 Let's start with gelatos. My first attempt was to wet the watercolour paper first, then lay down the colour spritz again and blend with my finger . . . it didn't work very well (might be more to do with the colours I used lol) so I tried again with a brush. That's the sample on the bottom left. Colours used for these samples are Black Licorice, Chocolate and Butterscotch.

For the top sample I applied dry and spritzed three puddles of water on my mat. I started at black and worked to lightest blending with a paintbrush. I added a little too much water in some places so I used a wet brush directly to the gelato I needed to fix the problem . I had so much colour left on my mat that I got sick of wasting it and started using the lefovers on leftover scraps of watercolour paper. That's the image on the bottom right.

The next set were all made when I applied gelatos to a wet surface and blended with a paintbrush for the first gen (top pic). These colours seemed to go on very thick and allowed me to make the original plus two more samples. Colours are Blueberry, Boysenberry and Grape. The second gen, to the right, was made swiping the colours straight off the craft mat and third gen I sprizted the leftovers then applied them to the cs for the third gen pale look on the bottom.

The following two were made at the same time. I applied gelato to my ranger craft mat and spritzed with water to make a light wash. These have only one coat but If I had wanted darker colours I could have just made one and dried in between layers to darken the colours. I used the metallics in Melon, Grape and Mint.

Next up we have a couple done with distress stains. I used three colours for each, spritzed with water and blended them with my finger. When I blend using my finger I tend to work from lightest to darkest then flip and work from lightest to darkest to work the colours into each other and smooth them out. The top one uses Peacock Feathers, Evergreen Bough and Bundled Sage and has been flicked with water to get the cool droplet effect. The bottom one uses Aged Mahogany, Fired Brick and Worn Lipstick.

I only have two Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists and for ome reason one of mine looked nowhere near the colour on the back :( It was supposed to be a really pretty pink but instead there was barely any colour there at all lol. The colour was supposed to be pink bubblegum. I added 20 drops of picked raspberry reinker and a spritz of Dylusions in Postbox Red. I ended up with a colour a bit darker than the colour I was supposed to have but very pretty none the less :)

I used a paintbrush dipped in the bottle and started painting each colour on from their respective ends and blended with my finger in the middle. The yellow is Lemon Zest.

Onto Derwent Watercolour pencils. Each sample uses the same set of colours applied directly to dry paper. The colours are 2, 7, 8, 10 and 12. I spritzed the top one with water then used my finger to blend the colours. I could have added more red but liked the washed out effect and decided to lave it as. The bottom one was blended with the Tim Holtz Waterbrush.

The top picture uses the colours 40, 43, 44, 45, 46 and 47. I used a waterbrush and pulled colour directly from the pencils. I really like this technique. The middle pic uses 18, 21, 22, 24 and 25. I coloured right on the paper for this one and blended with a waterbrush. I spilled a  drop of the mist I mixed onto this one so I decided to make the best of it and used  the spray tube from the bottle to add some drips and lines, sprized again and rand some paper towel over the top to get that faded look.

The bottom pic uses 37, 38, 39, 40 and 44 coloured directly yo the paper. Not sure why I added this pic in the bunch because I cannot remember how I did it lmao.

This next pic uses inktense pencils. I used 1200, 1300 and 1400 straight from the pencil with the waterbrush for the top image and for the bottom one I used the pencils coloured right onto a tag and blended with the waterbrush. As you can see it is very streaky compared o others so water colour paper is definitely best.

I realised as I was typing this that i forgot to do a sample using the waterbrush from the gelato then onto the paper but anyways I am sure you get the idea. Hope this helps you in some way.
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Creative Chemistry 101 Day Four Finished Projects

Hiya Only one for this day at the moment. Hey I can only do so much creating you know :P . . .

The butterfly and flowers are from recollections. I added some Hero Arts bling to the butterfly and the flowers to give the card a little lift. The base is marbled cs that almost perfectly matches the tattered rose distress ink. the sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Entered at Simon Says Stamp - anything goes.

Creative Chemistry 101 Day Nine

Second last day... Getting there :) Perfect pearls!

Anyone who knows me knows I love all things shiny. I have both pearl ex and perfect pearls lol and bling out the wazoo...

My spray mists are not made with reinker tsk tsk as I love using my colour wash for mists and tend to make up bigger batches, usually around 50ml as I use mists a lot.

I love this technique. How pretty it is :)

So I had to do it twice ;) lol

2nd generation

First Gen

Second Gen

It's really a balancing act between too much and not enough water. I completely washed one out with too much lol

But the result is so pretty I did two. . .

I would make the whole world sparkly if I could! just give me a giant glitter shaker and some wings!!! Hahaha. I will definitely be using these techniques again that's for sure :) There was one I hadn't tried before and now I have I likes it!! :)

Only one more day to upload. I finished that one just before writing up this post to post later lol...
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Papermania Midnight Fairytale Card

I recently saw these fairy stamps and fell in instant love with them! They are so pretty and great for colouring in with my Faber Castell Markers. they are Papermania Midnight Fairytale clear acrylic stamps.

I first stamped my image with Timber Brown Stazon. I chose brown as it softens into the image more, it's a  less harsh look in my opinion.

I then coloured the image with both Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens and Big Brush Markers. I used a couple of techniques. First I straight coloured my image. For some reason I always start with the skin. I used the artist pen for this. I found that if I did a small section then pulled/blended the colour down I ended up with less streaks.

Once I coloured all the skin and it was dry I then went back with the same colour and added shadows with the same marker.i used my finger to again pull the colour and blend it in. I worked in very small sections so the colour was still very wet when I blended. Her face is a little dark because I went over it two times. But it was late and this was my umpteenth go at colouring her in.

Because the dress is a large area I used a big brush marker for this section to minimise streaking, again blending as I went. I added shadows and the flower details with the same maker.

The rest is done with the pitt artist pens as most is fine detail work and my hands are just not steady enough to
colour these with the big brush markers.

The technique I used on her wings was to go over the stamped lines with my chosen colour one line at a time, then pull the colour down into the wings. This gives a nice translucent effect. After I fussy cut my fairy out I used home made glimmer glaze over the wings ( Reeves Iridescent medium, spritz of water, multi-medium gloss, spun sugar reinker).

On a white cs base I added polka dot paper from the KaiserCarft 6" Candly Lane stack. I then used a lovely floral stripe paper from the Authentique uncommon 6" stack that I had cut with my Lifestyle Crafts largest nesting frames die. I used foam tape to add my fairy onto this.

I then grabbed some I Am Roses flowers and coloured them with the two main shades of Faber castell markers I had used. I worked quickly, one flower at a time, to colour the edges and then mist with home made pearl mist (pearl ex on macro pearl, micro pearl and pearl white, water and a few drops of glossy accents).

I added my flowers to the card with glossy accents. I used the stems from some of the flowers to make twizzles to finish off the card.

Hope you like my card. thanks for looking :)
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

12 Cards of Christmas T!m Holtz Style Card 11

Wow another challenging one. When I decided to pack the colour in I didn't realise how hard it would be to still get the Christmas feel across lol. Hopefully I succeeded in making something both different and bright and colourful that still conveys "I'm a Christmas card!"  Please let me know if I succeeded! As ever here is the inspiration behind my 11th card, T!m's tag...

Card 11


Yay last post I need to write up :) I had fun using my new pencils for this technique!

My first step was too grab an A4 sheet of cardstock and randomly colour small areas of colour with my new  Derwent Inktense pencils. The first time I tried to be random in size and colour and it didn't work very well with small stamps. So then I started again and coloured random sized rectangles/squares.

I then used my aqua painter to make the colours more water colour like.

I used various stamps from Inkadinkado and Stampin' up til I found an image I liked. I went with one from Stampin' Up. I used perfect medium on the stamp and stamped the image onto my pretty paper. I covered this with black embossing powder and heat set from the underside of the cs. I then cut around my images.

At this point I have to say I started with the leaves like T!m did but I just wasn't feeling it lol. And I scrapped it and put the leaves aside for another project. The pencils inspired this idea.

I then grabbed a snowflake from the same set and stamped a lot of them in small spaces left from where I had cut things out. Embossed them in black and used Lifestyle Crafts circle and scallop circle dies to cut around them. I used florist masking tape (my 3m tape was Mia after the other card I used it on lol) to keep the dies in position and ran them through my Cuttlebug.

I grabbed  some shrink plastic. I have have both Poly Shrink and Shrinkies and these both work in the eCraft. I used repostional tape on the piece of plastic and stuck it to my stabiliser. I then opened SCAL 3 and used the three free snowflake images that came with the software. I enlarged them to around 4"/10cm and cut with my eCraft.

I then covered the three snowflakes with Perfect Medium and  UTEE and shrank them with my heat tool.

I moved  them to the side of my craft sheet and reheated them. I used tweezers to flatten the sides and try to straighten them up a little and left them to dry.

I  then made my own glimmer glaze. I used a small amount of Reeves Iridescent medium spritzed with water once or twice and mixed. I then added Multi-Medium Gloss and did some more mixing. Finally I added a  couple of drops ofTumbled Glass Distress Reinker. I started at one and built up to 3 or 4 as I made a full pot. This is now my preferred method for making my glaze. It's a nice subtle sheen. Both Glossy Accents and Triple Thick give a more glossy finish. I like them as well but this is my fave :) I made a divine dried Marigold one the other day.

I painted the back of a piece of semi-gloss cs with my glaze because it's nice and sturdy and thanks to my sister I have tonnes! She got from a recycle place (not quite A4, there is a slice missing from the long edge) and we went halvies :) Very hard to get a decent pic so you will see after the next step :)

I took my Evergreen Bough and distressed around the edges. Sorry this is still not a good photo.. It's coming I promise lol. You will get to see the sparkle and shine!

I grabbed my Pearl Mixative alcohol ink and covered the backs of my snowflakes.

I then decided they needed more and added rock candy Stickles... It didn't give the pop I was after so I added some frosted lace over that.

So I have the background done and as I have a lot of elements I laid them all out til I got the kind of look I was after. I do this quite often when I have a lot to put on a page or a card. I then took a photo. I forget where I wanted things when there are many so a pic helps me remember Just where I want all the little things when I start assembling. Especially If I am working in layers. It also allows me to see where I may want to or need to add dimension.

See that sparkle and shine?!!!! Scrummy lol. As you can see I added the words "On Earth" to go with peace in the pic. I used a scrap of my shimmery cs leftover from the background and I used a recollections double alpha for this and embossed in black again. I also added a white cs background to the large stamped image and distressed the edge with evergreen bough.

I decided to pop out the word Earth with dimensional foam squares and also used some small spots to raise the lower edge of the middle snowflake so it was flush with the stamped image.

I used double sided tape on the small snowflakes and multi-medium matte on the snowflakes with lil dots of foam tape under the middle one as well.

And card is done! Yay. So much colour on a christmas card! It's not what I originally set out to make but it is sooo much better. I am not used to seeing such a bright card lol but I love it. All that sparkle and colour just makes it something special to me...

So this is the last blog I needed to play catch up writing. My 12 cards are all done and dusted, all uploaded to T!m's blog.  I think I did pretty well to get all 12 Cards  done in my first attempt lol. Hope you like this card :)
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

12 Days of Tagmas T!m Style

So this isn't a crafty creation in the traditional sense.

I reworked the 12 Days of Christmas a la Tim Holtz...

12 Days of Tagmas

On the Twelfth day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
12 feet of Tissue Wrap

On the eleventh day of Tagmas T!m Gave to me
11 stampers stamping

On the tenth day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
10 Grungeboard pages

On the ninth day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
Nine Perfect Pearl pots

On the eighth day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
Eight Edge Distressers

On the seventh day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
Seven white Fractured Dolls

On the sixth day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
Six Distress Ink pads

On the fifth day of tagmas T!m gave to me
Five Sizzix dies

On the fourth day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
Four Distresss Reinkers

On the third day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
Three Pearl Mists

On the second day of Tagmas T!m gave to
Two Distress Stains

On the first day of Tagmas T!m gave to me
An Idea as inpirational as can be

Hope you like my crafty reworking of an old fave :)
Merry Christmas
Purple