Infusions Mini-Album–Working on the Tags

The second of two posts for today.

I actually managed to do some art today – for the first time for goodness knows how long. I managed to extricate myself from the kittens and spent a couple of hours in the studio, working on the tags for the Infusions mini-album.

I began with the title tag for the “Various Effects” section, listing the three techniques on the front of the tag.

The background was created using Black Knight and Are You Cerise Infusions from Set 1, sprinkling on the Infusions and then spritzing with water, and I repeated this for the reverse of the tag.

It was so long since I’d done any of this project that I’d forgotten that I was going to use Distress Inks and a minimum of Infusions on the tags! Having done it, I didn’t want to waste the tag, so proceeded with it, using the white Uniball Signo pen for the text, which matches the tag holder.

The next one was for “Drips,” on the front of the tag.

I inked the background for both sides using Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry and Victorian Velvet Distress Inks, applied with Inkylicious Ink Dusters. I sprinkled on a small quantity of Are You Cerise and Black Knight Infusions (both from Set 1) and spritzed it with water, and then dried the tag with the heat gun. I spattered this with water and blotted it off for a bit of texture, and dried the tag before adding the text with my white Uniball Signo marker pen. As I am doing for all the tags, I distressed the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink, using a home-made ink blending tool (just visible on the far left of the above picture).

The “Kissing” tag. This was done on the reverse of the “Drips” one.

I chose colours of Distress Inks to match as far as possible the two “kissing” pages. These were Tumbled Glass, Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans, all blue Distress Inks, and then Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint and Forest Moss in green, and finally a little Fossilised Amber. The Infusions I used were Royal Blood and Golden Sands from Set 1. I wrote the text using a black permanent archival pen and the white Uniball pen.

The “Infusions with Glimmer Mists” tag was made by inking Scattered Straw Distress Ink over the entire surface of both sides of the tag, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster. On the front, I sprinkled some Lemoncello Infusions from Set 1, sparingly, on two of the corners and dried it with my heat gun, and repeated the process on the back, using a bit more Infusions to cover the surface.

I spritzed both sides with my DIY Glimmer Mist made from Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink re-inker in water, with some Perfect Pearls added. The blue of the Glimmer Mist mixed nicely with the yellow of the Scattered Straw Distress Ink to create bits of green. Those little spray bottles don’t give a really fine spray, unfortunately, so I think in future I need to use my mini-misters instead. The text was done with a black archival pen.

These are the little mop-up pieces so far – for each tag I am creating a new one of these, to clean up the non-stick craft sheet and provide a resource for future projects. Each one is edged with Black Soot Distress Ink.

I’ve finished the “Miscellaneous Techniques” section and the next section to be done will be the “Painting” section.

Emboss Resist Shapes with Dylusions

THE BIG REVEAL, PART 7.

This is the first of two posts today.

Many of my regular visitors have been justifiably very frustrated and impatient with me lately because I’ve been working hard on several secret projects that I wasn’t at liberty to reveal until now. With her permission, I can now reveal that I have been making stuff for Shaz. As many of you will know, she is about to undergo major surgery and has been through so much over the past year. She and her lovely hubby share the same birthday and I have made cards for them both, a get well card for her (still under wraps) and a selection of bits and pieces for her to play with once she feels up to being creative again. She opened the parcel on her birthday (14th Aug.) and now that she has received them I can share the making of them with you. Until now, I didn’t want to spoil her surprise as she visits my blog regularly. Throughout my own cancer journey, this wonderful friend has been such an encouragement and support to me, and this is one way I can thank her, and show my own appreciation and support. I know that she would love a visit from you to wish her well for her surgery on 2nd Sept.

I shall be uploading a couple of posts each day over the next few days until all is revealed. Please scroll down for earlier posts.

Emboss Resist Shapes with Dylusions

I have made some shapes with emboss resist and inking. These were used as labels to go in some of the packs of goodies I sent to Shaz. I have deliberately made them like this so that they can be used as embellishments once they have served their purpose as labels! I didn’t use them all, and packed the blank ones separately.

I began by cutting two sheets of A5 card, and spritzed them well with water. I sprayed Dylusions inks onto one of them and spritzed again, and held it up so that the inks ran down the sheet. I used the second sheet to blot it off and then smooshed this a little on the non-stick craft sheet which had quite a bit of ink on it, so I ended up with two sheets for the price of one, but different in style. The sheet further away is the one that I originally inked, and the one at the front is the one created by blotting off, which also has water spatters on it which were blotted off with kitchen paper, leaving the paler design.

These are the stamps that I used. It is my new set from Chocolate Baroque, called Harlequin Fragments – it’s a fabulous set and brilliant for mixed media backgrounds. I used the stamp without an acrylic block, using Versamark, and then heat-embossed with clear embossing powder.

After this I revealed the embossing with the addition of distress inks, using Inkylicious ink dusters which blend beautifully. This is Sheet 1.

Sheet 2.

The completed Sheet 1.

The completed Sheet 2.

I wasn’t too bothered about creating a coherent design on the sheets because I knew that they would but cut up.

Punching the ovals and circles from Sheet 1.

From the remaining card, not wanting to waste anything, I used a couple of smaller punches to punch out some circles which I retained, to be used to embellish projects in the future.

From Sheet 2, I cut a series of rectangles, two of which were ATC-sized.

The shapes cut from Sheet 1, including the small circles which I kept, and didn’t add to the parcel.

The shapes from Sheet 2.

Because the backs were so messy from all the inks on my craft sheet, I backed each piece onto another piece of white card, using Crafter’s Companion Stick & Stay spray adhesive, making sure I’d got good adhesion by using my brayer.

Trimming off the pieces.

I inked the backs using distress inks.

After this I spattered them with water and blotted them off after moving them around to encourage the droplets to run a bit. I really like this effect. After I had dried them, I distressed the edges using Black Soot distress ink and a home-made ink blender.

The completed backs.

Detail of two of the backs.

Somewhere along the line I lost my small oval piece! I think I might have inadvertently thrown it away so I shall have to have a rummage in my waste bin. (Found it! It was in the bin!! Duh.)

I used some of these to make the labels for the small packages of fun stuff to play with. I made more than enough of these shapes, so I selected a few to write on. In a later post, you can see some more that I made, using my Chocolate Baroque Lace Fragments stamp set, using a cooler, blue colour scheme.

These shapes could be used to make small tags, or as motifs on a card, or to embellish a box or album page. I do not have very many punches, but other shapes could be made as well, such as simple flowers, hearts or polygons.

Background with Gesso and Dylusions

THE BIG REVEAL, PART 5.

This is the first of two posts today.

Many of my regular visitors have been justifiably very frustrated and impatient with me lately because I’ve been working hard on several secret projects that I wasn’t at liberty to reveal until now. With her permission, I can now reveal that I have been making stuff for Shaz. As many of you will know, she is about to undergo major surgery and has been through so much over the past year. She and her lovely hubby share the same birthday and I have made cards for them both, a get well card for her (still under wraps) and a selection of bits and pieces for her to play with once she feels up to being creative again. She opened the parcel on her birthday (14th Aug.) and now that she has received them I can share the making of them with you. Until now, I didn’t want to spoil her surprise as she visits my blog regularly. Throughout my own cancer journey, this wonderful friend has been such an encouragement and support to me, and this is one way I can thank her, and show my own appreciation and support. I know that she would love a visit from you to wish her well for her surgery on 2nd Sept.

I shall be uploading a couple of posts each day over the next few days until all is revealed. Please scroll down for earlier posts.

Background with Gesso and Dylusions

One of a series of backgrounds or small masterboards (A4 in size) which I have made to cheer up Shaz, who is going through the mill at the moment.

I saw a couple of videos on Youtube recently giving details of this mixed media technique which I thought I would adapt to my own use.

These are the materials I used to create this background.

You could use any black cardstock (glossy is best) but I painted a sheet of plain white card with black gesso.

To add anything with a sponge, it really helps if you hold the sponge like this, as it avoids any obvious lines being formed.

I added white gesso through a piece of punchinella (sequin waste), moving it around randomly and not covering the whole surface, leaving some of the black gesso exposed.

I sprayed a little of each of the four colours I eventually chose from the Dylusions spray inks collection – Bubblegum Pink, Postbox Red, Squeezed Orange and Pure Sunshine– onto my non-stick craft sheet.

I picked up these colours on my brayer. I would have done better to spray two at a time, and closer together, because the strip was wider than my brayer, and the colours ended up getting more mixed than I’d hoped. This is the first time I’ve tried this, so one lives and learns!

I applied the colours to the background sheet with the brayer, reloading it when necessary.

The finished background.

There was quite a bit of ink left on my craft sheet after this, so I spritzed it well with water, and took another sheet of white cardstock and smooshed it in the ink to pick it up. I ran the brayer over it a few times to distribute the ink, spritzing it well with more water.

I sprinkled the whole surface with coarse sea salt and spritzed it again, and left it for a while.

When it was getting dry, I dried it further with my heat gun and removed the salt.

It was rather buckled with all the water so I left it overnight with heavy books on top of it to flatten it out a bit.

The completed background.

I love the effect of the sea salt. It’s very organic, and quite unpredictable so no two pieces are ever the same. I think this one looks a bit like octopus skin!

Silk Clay, and Some More Friendly Plastic Embellishments

Friendly Plastic

I have made quite a few more Friendly Plastic embellishments from the pair of wings with a heart mould, and also a couple of faces from my Sculpy face mould which I have had for quite a while but not yet used.

I shall use these faces for my angel project. All the wings have now been painted with black gesso and will be finished with gold gilding wax and red acrylic paint as before.

On the left in the photo are some Friendly Plastic embellishments which have been coloured with silver and gold gilding wax. Most of these are from my existing stash. I am currently putting together a small collection of embellishments, die-cuts, paper flowers, backgrounds etc. etc. as a gift for someone who needs a bit of cheering up, and these Friendly Plastic pieces will go in that parcel. On the right you can see the faces mould and the pair of wings with a heart mould.

Silk Clay

The silk clay I ordered has arrived in the post. I ordered a small tub (40g) to try, but because it is so light, there’s plenty in the tub to make quite a few pieces and to experiment. If this is successful, a larger tub is available. Silk clay is a type of self-hardening (air drying) polymer modelling clay which cures to a rubbery, flexible consistency. It can be painted with a variety of media, both water and alcohol based.

There are lots of available colours, but I bought white because I thought it would be more versatile and useful.

From the next picture you can see the consistency of the clay. It is like very soft marshmallow, quite foamy and easily mouldable, and it has a slightly strange, but not unpleasant odour.

After experimenting a bit to find the best way to press this into the mould, I ended up by rolling out a piece quite thin, and then rolling it onto the mould, not worrying about it going over the edges of these very shallow moulds.

I made these moulds from Amazing Mould Putty, a two-part silicone rubber which you mix together and which cures to a flexible rubber after a few minutes. These particular moulds were made from very thin metal angel wings, and have presented me with a problem because the moulds are so shallow, and it is hard to get enough strength without brittleness from the various media I have tried with them. The best results so far have been from Friendly Plastic pellets – a low-melting point plastic, which resulted in quite strong pieces with enough flexibility not to break.

Here is the piece removed from the mould. In order to avoid stretching it, I turned the whole thing over, and gently peeled the mould back from the piece, leaving it on the craft sheet.

It was a simple matter to trim the excess away with scissors. You have to be careful when doing this because if you allow any part of the object to touch another part, it will stick, and when you try and pull it apart, it stretches, ruining the piece and necessitating starting again. The cut away pieces will also stick, so care needs to be taken.

The completed piece.

Several other pieces drying. The drying time varies according to temperature and humidity, I think – I have left them overnight, and in the morning I shall see how flexible they are.

These pieces are very thin, and may not be strong enough to be used alone. I have an idea that the definition of the moulded texture has diminished slightly since being removed from the mould. If they are not strong enough, my plan is to stick them onto a card backing, which I may emboss first for interest.

Watch this space for progress! I am grateful to Diana of Velvet Moth Studio for mentioning this product, which I had not heard of before; this stuff is interesting to work with, and very easy to handle, and I think I may end up adding it to my creative smorgasbord.

Mould Making and Stamp Mounting

I had my fourth chemo on Friday and although I felt awful for the rest of Friday, yesterday and today I am feeling quite a bit better and have managed to do a few things. The worst part has been raging peripheral neuropathy in my hands and feet and the only thing to do is to keep them as warm as possible – not easy doing things with 2 pairs of gloves on!! Last time I had a good weekend but then crashed for the rest of the first week, so I am hoping this won’t happen again. Things were much better in the second and third week though, so I think the reduced dose is helping.

Yesterday I spent some time working on editing images for one of the secret projects I am working on, and this morning I decided to make some moulds from the new metal embellishments and gearwheels I got on Ebay last week. For one of the projects I am working on, I wanted to use a particular rubber stamp from a set I bought ages ago but hadn’t yet used, and I hadn’t realised that I had never got around to mounting them, so I did that today, too.

Mould Making

In addition to the gearwheels, I also got a couple of metal pairs of wings and hearts from Ebay. All these metal embellishments are quite heavy for use on cards, and are better on albums and other projects, so I decided to make moulds from them – that way you can use the originals with impunity, but still have an endless supply! I make them up in Friendly Plastic or UTEE or polymer clay, or even Polyfilla One Fill (Joint Compound) – whatever takes my fancy.

I finished the EasyMold Silicone Putty (the purple sort) and then started the Amazing Mold Putty (yellow) to finish this project. Need to order some more of this!

The putty comes in two pots, one coloured and one white. You take equal quantities of each, and mix them together until you can no longer see any streaking, and then you press the object into it. It cures really quickly so you need to work fast – the large mould in the picture (the pair of wings and the heart) was starting to go off while I made the impression because I didn’t mix up enough to start with, so I am not sure how well that one will work. I can always make it again if it’s not a success.

Once they are set, you can pull the object out, but you shouldn’t use the moulds until they are fully cured. I usually leave them overnight to be sure.

Stamp Mounting

My last attempt at stamp mounting using EZ Mount Foam was a bit different! Usually this is a horrendously sticky and unpleasant job, and even with Tim Holtz’ wonderful non-stick scissors with their micro-serrated blades, they get coated with sticky gunk and have to be cleaned off, and it gets all over your hands… So last time I decided to use my hot knife, after seeing a Youtube video on this, and while it worked really well, it made the most humungous smell which took a long time to get rid of!

This time, therefore, I decided on the Talc Method. I always keep a jar of unperfumed talk on my work desk as it has all sorts of uses. This time I sprinkled some on the craft mat and rubbed some on the blades of the scissors and cut out the stamps which I had already stuck onto the ultra-sticky surface. I put the clippings into the talc and kept adding more to my fingers and to the scissors, and the result was pretty good!

Clean-up was easy afterwards – all the bits went in the rubbish bin and didn’t stick to my hands. I wiped off as much talc as I could from the surface of the stamps, and put them back on their packaging. The scissors had a bit of glue on them (minimal) and I used a quick spray of Stick Away from Crafters’ Companion (an essential part of my kit).

Nice job, eh?

More later, on how I use these things.

Faux Leather Masterboard Part 2

When the two sheets of faux leather were dry, I was able to start painting them.

You only need a fairly limited colour palette – a darker and a lighter brown are all that are required, but when I did this the first time, I felt that the addition of a little yellow ochre lightened it a bit and gave it a little more interest.

I worked on my non-stick craft mat as this is so easy to clean up, even when the acrylic paint has dried on it. Starting to paint the first layer of burnt umber, I used quite a large brush and added a touch of water. It is best to use a combination of stippling and short, multi-directional brush strokes in order to push the paint into all the creases in the faux leather. I went fairly carefully with the first coat, as I did not want to break up the surface of the paper, which although much stronger now it was dry, was still vulnerable if wet.

The first coat of burnt umber complete. You can see that the cover is inadequate, and some of the whiteness of the card is showing through the paint layer.

At least two coats are required, depending on the coverage and the quality of the paint; I think three coats is best. Here is the faux leather after the application of the second coat. You can see that the coverage is a lot more even now.

The third and final coat complete. It now has a good, overall coverage in a rich, dark brown.

It could have been left like this – it now had the look of leather, but the finish was a little flat, and with some highlights it would appear much more like the real thing. You can see that the paint leaves a slight sheen – in the above photo the paint is still a bit wet, and it dries slightly less shiny.

To finish the piece, some lighter brown (in this case, burnt sienna) and then some yellow ochre, were dry-brushed on. The minimum of paint was applied; it is much easier to add more than to remove too much! It requires a very light touch, just enough for the paint to touch the tops of the creases.

The burnt sienna being applied.

The piece with the burnt sienna dry brushing laid over the original piece to compare. Unfortunately the photos don’t really pick up the difference very well.

The burnt sienna dry brushing complete. I think you can see that it now has a reddish tinge.

Dry brushing with yellow ochre. Again, the piece being worked on is laid on top of the piece with just the burnt sienna dry brushing, to compare.

Once both sheets were dry, I applied the finishes. I decided that with the piece I was going to retain as a photographic background, it would be better if it had a matte finish so that I wouldn’t be troubled by reflections. This is where I made my mistake. I thought that if I painted on some soft matte gel medium with a foam brush, this would dry crystal clear (as the glass bead gel medium does) and that I would just get a nice matte finish, but the wretched stuff dried quite milky, and it’s not a success! You live and learn… I would have done better to use a matte spray varnish.

For the other piece, which is going to be used as a masterboard and cut up for different projects, I used one single liberal coat of acrylic wax, again applied with a foam brush. I have had success with this before on faux leather.

It has a lovely sheen, and brings out the colours and texture well.

Here are the two finishes compared. I may still be able to use the matte one but it hasn’t come out as intended! I am very pleased with the other one, though.

The pieces are quite floppy and flexible and have the feel of real leather.

The finished masterboard.

I have deliberately left this masterboard unembellished. When cut up, I can emboss the pieces if I want, or add some gold highlights with gilding wax, or whatever else is required for the individual project. Leaving it in its original state makes it more versatile.

Faux leather can be used for cards, covering boxes, making book covers… its uses are endless, and limited only by your own imagination. The colour can be anything you like, and if the surface is further plasticised with the addition of wax or varnish to seal it, it is actually quite durable. It is very useful for making man cards as it has a nice masculine look! Watch this space to see what I do with my faux leather masterboard.