Leftovers

Well, long time, long time and all that. I have just checked and it is almost 12 months since I last posted anything on this blog. It was always intended as a place to record projects I made just because.... clearly there has not been a lot of that going on in my studio! So, time to make some changes, and here is a journal page I made in my A4 journal simply because I had a leftover photo and some lettering from the title of a 12x12 layout I had been working on for a workshop.

The background was created with lots of very thin layers of Distress Paint in Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door, Fired Brick, Seedless Preserves and Black Soot scraped on with an old plastic room key. Once the paint was dry the colours were a little too bright for me so I used a baby wipe to work in some Black Soot paint, wiping almost all of it away dulled the colours but still allowed them to show through. I then used BoBunny The Written Word stamp set to add random patches of stamping in Onyx Black Versafine with black texture paste through Tim Holtz Stripes Layering Stencil. A few lines stamped with the edge of the plastic card with Antique Bronze Distress Paint and a few splatters of the same, watered down a little, and it was time to add some Sizzix Die cuts, also Tim Holtz, and highlighted all the texture with Treasure Gold in Rose Quartz.

The letters were leftovers from a layout title I had die cut so I simply glued them to a couple of leftover strips of black cardstock.

I had only allowed myself an hour to play and I was quite pleased with the end result. I am going to try really hard to make an hour every week to make something, anything, just because.....

I hope you will join me x

 

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Tweet, tweet!

Well this post has certainly been a long time coming, mainly down to no time to create anything that isn't for a workshop, a make & take or a display board. Finally, last week as I was chopping up cardboard boxes for the compactor I had a smidge of an idea for a project using JOFY15 stamps.

 

I peeled some of the layers of the cardboard flap to reveal all the ridgy bits and covered the whole surface in gesso - this gave me a bit of a key and kept the colours true when I swiped a random assortment of Distress Paints onto the surface working it into the ridges witha baby wipe - what did we ever do without those!

 

I stamped out the birdhouses and birdies onto some scraps of white card, coloured them with a water brush and Distress Markers and cut them out. I then stamped Hero Arts S5601 Newspaper Backround onto more scrap card and over stamped it with the leaves from the JOFY plate. I coloured these in as before, cut them out and shaped them a bit too.

 

Then it was simply stamping the branches from the same plate onto my base, again coloured with Distress Markers and arranging all the bits I had cut out. I had a couple of empy spaces so I stamped and inked the 'tweet,tweet from the stamp set and filled the gaps. Some googly eyes, garden twine and a bit of spare black mountboard late and I was done.

 

I was surprised how much I enjoyed myself and how quickly this little project came together from scraps. Very satisfying to my mean Scottish blood!

 

Will try not to leave it so long next time xx 

Experiments with Distress Paints Part 2

Hello, back again as promised with a different technique with the scrummy new Distress Paints from Ranger.

Here's what I used on each sample ......

 

.....Distress Paints in Bundled Sage, Victorian Velvet, Antique Linen, Weathered Wood & Broken China, Treasure Gold in White Fire and a credit card style hotel room key.

 

I have just started (another) journal, this time a smaller A5 size so I can take it on holiday - no immediate plans but a girl can dream can't she! It has thinner paper than either of my current A4 journals so I was a bit worried about paint seeping through from one page to the next so I thought I'd try scraping the paint onto the page really thinly (with the hotel room card of course) to avoid this and two things happened.....

 

 

Firstly, the paint dried almost instantly and one of the features of DP is that once it's dry it is permanent, and secondly, the paint was so transluscent you could clearly see all the colours I used in the layers underneath. Oh my I liked that and found it was true on the texture paste bits through a Prima stencil too..

 

 

...and here's the finished journal pages

 

 

...with stamps from JOFY's Spring Collection from PaperArtsy stamped in Tsukineko's Versafine in Onyx Black and some detail picked out with an Inkessential's White Pen.

 

It set me thinking about what would happen if I added the paint slightly more thickly...

 

 

.....still transluscent but slightly less so.

 

 

I finished with texture paste again through a stencil from Prima, stamped with a fabulous image from Chocolate Baroque's new Punky Flowers plate and WOW's Platinum Detail Embossing Powder with a touch of Treasure Gold. Nice effect.

 

Finally my 'what if's' led me to applying the paint more thickly still but then it didn't dry so quickly and....

 

 

...I loved this effect.

 

Still some transparent bits showing off the layers below, but solidly opaque in other areas with the wetter layers scraped back off in parts so texture colour and layers. Heaven. I finished off with the same stamp, stencil etc as the earlier experiment and turned it into a really clean & simple card.

 

So, I learned Distress Paints .......

 

don't have to be grungy - you can keep all the layers pastel,

don't have to be opaque - you can scrape it on thinly and have transluscent layers,

don't have to be used with water - not a drop used here,

don't have to be applied with a brush - just add the paint directly to an old plastic card,

don't have to be dried between layers - semi dry doesn't mix to create mud and does give texture! 

 

That's all for now, be back Saturday with Part 3 of my Distress Paint Experiments - so many products to play with research, so little time.

 

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed xx 

 

 

 

 

 

Experiments with Distress Paints Part 1

Firstly, apologies for being MIA for way too long but sometimes life just gets in the way - I'm sure it's the same for everyone at some point.

A few weeks back I was having a little play carrying out important research for Snazzys with some new products which had found their way to my desk and I thought I'd share the results here ....

 

This is simply a 7" x 5" canvas board which I covered with Ranger's Antique Linen Distress Paint and whilst that was still wet, added DP in Walnut Stain, Broken China and more Antique Linen, one at a time at the top of the board, spritzed with water and allowed to run, drying between layers.

 

I then added some texture paste through a Prima Crackle Stencil, dried it, and with the stencil replaced, inked with Broken China Distress Ink at the top and Walnut Stain at the bottom. background complete in less than 10 minutes - result! 

 

The stamps are from Dylusions Monster Mash and I made a cover for the bell jar from Studio 490 Clearly for Art, heated and curved around a coffee cup to add dimension. The eyeballs were triple layer embossed in the centre using a Versamark Pen as was the monster's tongue, again to add a bit of dimension and contrast. The quote is also from Dylusions, this time the Christmas Words plate - you just never know when your Christmas stamps will come in handy lol!

 

Now, I had intended to stamp the tree from Dylusions other new release, Mischevious Malcolm to hang the bell jar of escaping eyeballs from but, having stuck the monster down with good old Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue (therefore never to be unstuck), I hadn't left enough space. Change of plan and a few copper jump rings and matching chain had to do.

 

I so wanted not to like these paints but they are fantastic and allow you to create background effects, very simply, in a way which would not be possible with other acrylic paints I have used. Addicted then lol!

 

I will be back on Thursday with Part 2 of my Experiments with Distress Paint and Part 3 will follow on Saturday.

 

Thanks for looking xx