Sunday, February 28, 2010

Color Wash Spray Covers for Sketchbook

I decided to make a sketchbook using the color wash spray papers I made yesterday for the swap on ccswaps. Used the Colorwash Batik papers for the outside covers. Attached a large Fantasy Film Butterfly I made last fall. (Finally had the right project to use it on.) Added an art related quote on vellum over white embossed paper.
For the inside covers, used the Colorwash sprayed embossed papers, cutting them in half and placing the reverse embossed images next to each other. Again, added an art related quote on vellum and another fantasy film butterfly.
And something similar on the inside back cover.
Decided to leave the outside back cover unadorned. There's lots of glimmer when moving it around in the light.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Colorwash Batik

More play with colorwashes. Sprayed Shimmering mist on to water color paper and let dry.
Stamped flourishes with VersaMark, covered with clear embossing powder and heat set.
Made a darker tone of the same spray, by mixing the Shimmering Mist with a darker blue dye ink and spraying it over the water color paper.
Lightly dabbed with a paper towel to dry.
Stamped more flourishes with VersaMark ink, covered with clear embossing powder, heat set. Then Sprayed a couple of darker blue colorwash sprays over all and let dry.
Placed plain paper over the paper and ironed off the embossing powder with a hot iron. Here they are:
Now to think what to make with them....

Colorwash Spray Play

I'm thinking of signing up for a swap using Colorwash sprays, so had a play with some today. First I embossed some non coated card stock in a Cuttlebug embossing folder, with one sheet the reverse of the other. I inked the raised areas with VersaMark ink and heat set. Read somewhere, to keep the card stock in the embossing folder when inking the raised areas.
Sprayed the embossed paper with watered down Shimmering Mist and let dry.
Then sprayed on two darker blue sprays (one's I'd made earlier).
Used a baby wipe, to wipe of the raised areas. The VersaMark ink does not give a complete resist of the sprays, but does keep those areas lighter. A shabby chic look.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Book Study: Northern Lights

Continuing with the book study of Julia Andrus' "Paper Transformed" on NGS group. This week is the Northern Lights Technique. First step is to spray Perfect Ink Refresher on to black or dark paper and rub into the surface gently with a paper towel. I used glossy card stock, which i discovered doesn't create the same look.
Next, mix each Perfect Pearl color with water to form a creamy paint and paint randomly in wavy stripes on the paper. I choose Turquoise, Violet, Kiwi and Bronze.
Then spray with water and tilt the paper to get the colors to move. Let air dry or speed drying with a heat tool.
I liked my glimmery background, but it didn't have the Northern Light look that Julia achieved.
I thought maybe it needed more perfect pearls, but still didn't achieve the Northern Lights look, still looks cool, though.
Then I realized the glossy paper was causing too much movement of the perfect pearls. So I used non coated black paper with the same colors and achieved the Northern Lights look! Fun background.
Also tried this technique with a mixture of Turquoise, Interference Blue, Violet, Interference Violet, Plum and Gold. Love it!
Julia states that the Perfect Ink Refresher acts as a barrier to the paper to give the paints time to mix and run before soaking into the paper. She says glycerin or a clear embossing ink might work in this way also.

Comfort Quilts

Suzanne donated some lovely fabrics to our Comfort Quilters group. She knows I love bright fabrics, so she gave me some wonderful bright fabric panels and other fabrics. I just needed a few from my stash. Here's what I came up with:









Thursday, February 25, 2010

B is for Brayered Impressions

This is another easy background technique. First emboss a sheet of card stock, I used a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder.
Next, ink a brayer with dye ink and roll it over the raised emboss area, immediately roll the same brayer over another sheet of card stock. You'll be transferring the negative image of the raised image from your brayer to this sheet. Cool! Kind of a shabby chic look.
Here's another one:

B is for Brushed Ink Backgrounds

This is a fun and easy background technique. Squirt some dye reinkers on a craft sheet or wax paper. Pick up the color of one of the dye ink with a 1" brush.
Brush the ink on glossy card stock, working quickly.
With a clean brush, pick up the second color, and brush on the same card stock in a different direction. Let dry.
Next one, used blue, green, yellow and orange dye inks, brushing in a variety of directions.
As above, adding in a little pink with the orange.
I like how the original colors show through the other layers. Lots of possible combinations with this technique.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Rhonda's Mini Memory

Rhonda choose the theme of Children/Childhood and the color scheme of white/cream/gold for her Mini Memory over on the DreamCreateInspire group. Started by stippling on wet Perfect Pearls on to a 4"x4" canvas and let dry.
Stamped flourish design on to the canvas with gold Lumiere paint and let dry.
Made a frame overlay, first ran a 1/2 sheet of vellum through a xyron sticker machine, then ran it through a Cuttlebug embossing folder and cut out a 1-1/2" square in the center.
Made a mini collage. Layered a vintage image of a young girl on to a left over piece of faux parchment and a small piece of dictionary page sprayed with gold.
Placed collage in middle of the canvas, covered with a piece of memory glass, and laid the embossed vellum over it all. Still needs something....
Made an embossed frame similar to the moon embellishment, only this time I did 4 layers of gold UTEE on a die cut mini frame, while hot pressed in the same flourish stamp used on the canvas (after inking it with clear embossing ink). When it cooled, ran dark brown StazOn ink over the surface to give this mini frame an aged look. To make the frame even a bit thicker, took a same sized die cut frame and colored the sides with gold metallic pen and adhered to the underside of the UTEE frame.
Adhered the UTEE frame to the center of the canvas and added two strips of mini metal chain stickers.
Hope Rhonda likes it.

B is for Brayered Mesh

Remembered another brayer technique I wanted to try. Mesh wrapped over the brayer and rolled in ink. A friend let me use her magic mesh, it has a sticky side and adheres nicely to the brayer.
Rolled the brayer in a rainbow dye ink pad and ran it over glossy card stock in two directions. This was fine mesh, so it made a fine pattern.
Instead of trying different inks on light card stock, I pulled out a piece of black glossy card stock and ran the mesh covered brayer in VersaMark ink and then over the card.
Then brushed interference blue Perfect Pearls over the surface. Nice glimmer.

Friday, February 19, 2010

I won!!!

I visited most of the blogs participating in the One World One Heart blog event, but only entered some of the giveaways. Didn't want to be too greedy.
I won a fabulous large glass bead from Shirley Cook at Jumping Jack Glass. And today it arrived in the mail.
I love it, so gorgeous. Thanks Shirley!!!