Bleach technique atc's and a big thank you!

Yesterday I had intended to get into my studio for the first time in a week and a half and do some creating. I had plans for getting stuck into my "All Things French" page for the Creative Soul Retreat book challenge that I'm taking part in.....but everyone knows the saying about the best laid plans going awry. I was a little worried about getting in there and starting to "think" about the times Joan and I would spend in my studio just playing around with stuff and then it would just spiral into a pity party that I don't have her with me any more. Consequently, it wasn't until about 4pm that I forced myself out there to at least just do some atc's with a technique I love and one that's quick and easy but still looks beautiful.

So here are the two Bleach Technique atc's I made yesterday and I've promised myself to get started on the French page on Saturday morning before I do a class in the afternoon.

I think I explained how to do this technique in my last post about bleach? Not sure, can't be bothered looking so I'll quickly explain it again anyway. Stamp on the smooth side of black cardstock with clear embossing ink, and emboss with clear embossing powder. Note - not all black cardstock will work with bleach, I know Bazzill does! Paint sections of the embossed image (or alternatively, the entire card) with ordinary household laundry bleach, dry with a hairdryer. Notice how much lighter the colour of the card becomes while the embossed bits stay black. Different cardstocks will bleach different colours. Next, colour in your images with Twinkling H2O's and a waterbrush (aquabrush with a reservoir of water), let dry and marvel at the shimmer of the H2O's and the contrast to the black of the embossing and black card (if you've left any!). You can also leave the card just bleached with no added colour. I did this here on "flighty".

Passageway...

Peace...

I've been extremely touched and overwhelmed by the support via comments on this blog, personal emails, cards and phone calls from friends - both real and internet, on the loss of my best friend Joan. Her funeral was last Friday and it was a beautiful service at Pinnaroo which has a lovely natural bush setting with kangaroos and a wonderful backdrop through the huge glass windows at the chapel looking out onto a bush garden. While the service was happening, there were 2 lorikeets playing in a huge gum tree and also 2 white cockatoos bickering over something only a few feet away from the lorikeets.

Any time during the service I found it all getting too much I'd raise my eyes to the birds and concentrate on them skylarking around. I'm sure they were sent to keep me grounded and focussed on supporting Michael, Hayden and Holly. I'll leave you with one more picture of my friend, I'm actually having this one blown up and made into a canvas for Michael and the kids for a Christmas present. I love the colouring of this picture and how serene she looks.

Fun Foam Technique

Promise.....no travel pictures today! I spent the day in my studio putting the finishing touches to my Technique Book #1 that I'll be teaching in July, as well as doing my samples for this Saturday's atc class using Fun Foam. Craft Fun Foam is another daggy product from years ago, remember the little cut-out shapes of all happy things like hands, suns, shoes etc that kids used to stick down in their craft projects, all in lovely primary colours.....yech!!! Like shrink plastic, fun foam can be arty, you just have to know what colours to use (I like black!) and what to do with it. Instructions won't be posted just yet, not until after the class at least, but here are the 3 samples I worked on today. I have another two all organised ready to go but ran out of time, the family must be fed though quite frankly, I can't see anything wrong with a toasted sandwich......made by yourself! lol

First up is "house, etc"...

Next is "Damaged by sea water".... you can't see it but the wording is embossed in black on a piece of mica (all in preparation for an up-coming class on mica....sneaky huh!)...

Lastly is "embracing destiny today"... I so love this colour combination of silver, duck-egg blue and black AND I love my new Stampers Anonymous Tree stamp of Tim's....

Will probably get the remaining couple done on my next day off on Wednesday so check back maybe Thursday if you're pining for some more fun foam....yeah, right, like THAT'S going to happen! (What a sad life if this is true! lol)

Columbia & raffle atc for Faux Tin Types

Our first port of call on our vacation was Cartagena (pron. Cartahaynia) in Columbia. There were dancers and a group of musicians to welcome us on shore.....or rather, our tourist dollars which I'm sure flowed freely! Woo-hoo.....my pics enlarge too!!!

We did a tour of a Fort, I'm no good at remembering which hordes they were trying to fight off, my hubby is the one who has the perfect memory for all of that sort of information. I just try to look for good picture opportunities! These people came to greet out boat as we pulled into the shore of the little Island where the fort was in the bay. It costs them $5 each every day to buy water to drink as the Island has none and they support themselves in part by selling hand-strung beads to the tourists that come for the Fort tour.
Here's the fort as we approached it...

This statue below was inside the Fort and had an interesting story attached to it. Apparently it was a giver of miracles and several had been performed and witnessed when people came to pray to it....until someone painted the toenails on the statue....she stopped performing miracles then. I noticed as I was listening to the guide's story about this that she actually has no feet now, obviously they felt if they broke the offending painted toenails off, the miracles would start again....wonder if they did???
Here's a pic of my girlfriend Joan and my husband Grant in front of the ship we were on, Celebrity Cruise's Millennium.....just a little dinghy....90,000 tonne with 2000 passengers and 1000 crew. A nice intimate little vessel!
I taught my Faux Tin Type class today and the girls commented on how much better this looks in real life as several of them had checked out my previous post with the couple of pictures of this particular technique. The flat computer screen does it no justice at all. This atc was the Scraptivate raffle atc won by Maureen, yay Maureen! She's been coming to my classes for 18 months and this is her first win!!!

Simple really, take a sepia or black and white transparency image, run it through a xyron to add adhesive to the back of it, then attach it to a piece of foil tape. Add a frame of some sort, the cuttlebug frames are perfect though you have to complete your frame first - either emboss it or colour it with paint or sharpie and then maybe rub some treasure gold or rub'n'buff over the frame to finish it off. Then add some double-sided tape to the back of the frame, attach to the transparency image, trim away excess transparency and foil tape, peel off the backing of the foil tape exposing the adhesive and attach to your atc or whatever. An excellent Faux Tin Type - perfect for all those old family photo's!

Panama Canal is next.....

Webbing Spray, Crackle & Award

Firstly, let me thank the girls who nominated me for the "You Make My Day" Award, Jenny, Sarah and Linda. Check out the blogs of these extremely talented girls....a visual treat for sure!



The You Make My Day Award is for being an inspirational blog! The rules for the “You Make My Day” award are to re-present it to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blog land. Well, with all the blogs that I have been visiting this little award has popped up numerous times so I'd just be sending it back to the same people again so I'm going to cheat a little here and just say ....go visit my favourite blogs link down the side and take your pick!!! Blogging has bought all types of people together and though we may not all like, or be inspired by what other people do, it's good to know that there's someone out there that you can connect with. How boring and predictable if we all liked the same stuff anyway!


We had a little chat about this last night at my webbing spray atc class. One of the girls had seen Sweeney Todd and was not at all thrilled with the blood and gore aspect of it but one of the other girls said she and her girlfriend just about laughed all the way through! Takes all types in this World and I, for one, am EXTREMELY happy about this!!! lol I have yet to see this but I just know I'm just gonna love it.....are you surprised???


Onto some arty stuff.....as I said, last night's atc class was on webbing spray. We used a couple of different techniques of laying down the first lot of colour for the background before using the webbing spray. First was Tim's "smoosh" method.....distress ink pads "dtcs" (that's direct-to-craft-sheet) on the Ranger craft sheet, spritz with water, lay down cartridge paper, pat down, twist 45 degrees while on craft sheet, then lift....amazing coloured background. One of the girls, Nicola, used Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick.....OMG!!! This looked like a fabulous sunset!!! My favourite colour combo for this technique is Peeled Paint & Weathered Wood but thought I'd step outside my comfort zone and try Vintage Photo and Broken China. Here's the 8" x 11" sheet with that colour, also with the black webbing spray added...

If you still have some of the ink and water left on the craft sheet you can do it a second time using another piece of paper and this will give a completely different effect. This is the result of the remaining ink/water "smoosh"....

The second type of background we did was with the Glimmer Mists , these are new spray colours with a wonderful shimmer that we've had at Scraptivate for a little while. The colours on this one are Latte and Patina. No webbing spray on this one yet...

This is the raffle atc for last night......just a little big of fighting over who was going to go home with Johnny! Do you like the little shrink plastic heart?


This next atc is for the Crackle Technique class that's just over a week away. We'll be using the Helmar 2 step crackle over images and the Distress Crackle Paint as well as the Crackle Accents.

GOSSIP: Who's the well-known "arty" girl who's going scrapbooky??? ~insert sing-song voice~......I'll never tell, I'll never tell..... No, I don't take bribes....you're secret is safe with me Ms "X"!!! hahahahahaha

Credit Card Technique ATC samples & Faux Metal

Thought it was time for a new banner. Thanks again Dawn for making these....you're a legend!

The people who came into the shop and saw the credit card technique pages from my last post couldn't believe how different they look in the flesh, so if you've put off trying this technique, don't wait any longer. You'll be amazed at how quickly you can turn out a fabulous background in such a short amount of time....very soon you'll have a great collection of background papers in all sorts of colours, this is the great thing, you'll come up with some unique colour combinations. My only advice is to remember to write the colours down for each page on the back of the paper as you do it, your brain might go into "excitement overload" and you may forget what colours you've used! lol

First atc sample using my favourite Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold & Dioxazine Purple.

"Classic Mona"...

"Beautiful"...

"Temple".... In my atc classes I ask the girls to try to tell a story with their atc, rather than simply putting images down that have no relationship to one another. It makes it a lot easier to find what you are looking for if you know what direction you are going with something. This of course applies to collage, canvases, altered books, in fact anything really. So this particular atc is a little more of a taste of my dark side....take note of the drippy blood up the top, and the little shrink plastic hearts...make of this one what you will. ;-) or should that be :-/

Here's the last one, the raffle atc for today's class. "Radiant"...

The faux metal part of today's class is using the foil tape (with adhesive on the back), mounted to chipboard, then distressed with either an awl (paper piercer) or Tim's cool wire brush thing, then rub paint into it and immediately wipe the paint off. Looks like little bits of distressed metal. These are on the corners of my "Temple" atc above.

I was going to show them how to make faux metal out of credit cards, but having another play with it this morning, I think I'm going to make that a class in itself...would rather them concentrate on their backgrounds and little metal-foil embellishments today.

Credit Card Technique Backgrounds

I think Credit Card Technique backgrounds would have to be the easiest and most spectacular of all the different backgrounds that can be made! A big statement I know...but if you haven't tried it grab yourself a piece of sketch paper or cartridge paper, some paint, a water spritz bottle and a credit card - take a tip...don't use your current Visa card, swipe machines don't like paint gumming up their works! lol

Here's my samples for next week's atc class, including what colours I used to make each one. The colours are listed in order of application, one over the other. Water spritzing is done right at the end and no, you don't wait until it's all dry, just keep working constantly. No atc samples yet, just the backgrounds - these are all A4 size (approx 8-1/2" x 11").

First, my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE!!! Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold & Dioxazine Purple (both Golden Paints)...

next...Trans Magenta & Prussian Blue (both Jo Sonja)

next...Jo Sonja Aqua, Micaceous Iron Oxide (Golden), Jo Sonja Warm White

next...Monte Marte (brand) Veridian Green, Folk Art Metallic Antique Copper...

next... Jo Sonja Carbon Black, Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold (Golden), Jo Sonja Warm White...

next... Sapphire & Burnt Umber, both Jo Sonja...

next... Cobalt Teal, then Cadmium Red Light, then Iridescent Silver Fine - all Golden...

....are you sick of them yet????.....

next... Paynes Grey (Golden) then Jo Sonja Warm White...

last one....Jenkins Green, Iridescent Copper Fine (Golden)...

I think I forgot to mention how much I love this technique....as you can tell by the samples here!!! This is one to give it a go, great for covers of altered books and chunkies as well as backgrounds for cards or atc's.

Simple instructions:

1 A4 piece of cartridge/sketch paper (a little thicker than ordinary copy paper)

paints - your choice of colours

water spritz bottle

old credit card

1. Squeeze on a line of paint up the top of the A4 (Quarto sized) piece of paper.

2. Using the credit card at a 45 degree angle drag it down the paper from top to bottom, scraping the paint along as you go....make it thin - you want coverage of the paper but not big clumps of paint.

3. Do the same thing with your second colour, thin line of paint up the top, drag it down...don't wait for any of it to dry, just keep working.

4. Take your spritz bottle and spray about 5 or 6 pumps over the page, trying for some larger splotches of water by putting your top "pump" finger over the hole a bit so it sprays out unevenly.

5. Count to 10, then take your credit card again and drag it down the paper, wiping the excess water and paint off.

6. Marvel at your creation!!!

Faux Leather & Soot Technique

My next atc class is on a Faux Leather background. We'll be using masking tape to get the basic look and then acrylic paint over the top. Best to stick to only a couple of colours as any more than 3 will make a lovely mud colour! I've just finished the background samples so I thought I'd put them up without any images or anything else on them so you can see them in all their glory.

The colours used on this first one are Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide & then Raw Umber (I have used all Golden paints but you can use what you have).

Next colours are Yellow Ochre then Quinacridone Burnt Orange...

Finally, Cobalt Turquoise and Burnt Sienna and then I wiped some of the colour off with a baby wipe...

There were plenty of oooohs and aaaaahs at last Saturday's atc class on the Soot Technique. As promised, I changed things around and discovered a new way of adding colour. The normal method of doing soot technique is to take a piece of white gloss card stock, hold it by the edges and shiny side down, then move it backwards and forwards....actually I do side-to-side, in a candle flame. My hand motion is actually quite fast, don't do it too slowly as it'll catch on fire! It needs to be low enough in the flame so you see black smoke coming up, if there is no black smoke it's not in the flame enough but if you hold it too close to the wick, you'll end up with scrape marks across it. Might take a couple of practices to work out the correct distance to hold it. Clean your stamp off thoroughly with a baby wipe after each stamping.

Check it regularly to make sure you are not making it too black, you want a coating of soot so that it's between a light grey and a dark grey...not black! Once done, place it soot side up, taking care not to touch it unless you want to do a "forensics" one with your fingerprints on it. Then take a clean rubber stamp (no ink) and stamp...prepare to be amazed as when you lift your stamp you'll see a wonderful stamped image on it. You can do several stamps to tell a story if you like but you can't mask anything so think about your placement. When you've finished stamping, then you need to seal it with either a fixative or a sealer. I've heard people have used hairspray with success too. I have a matte sealer so that's what I use.

You can also then use your Stazon ink to do more stamping if you like, the soot is set so there's no worries about masking if you want to do this now.

The last time I taught soot last year I decided I wanted some colour on it so I used alcohol ink on the gloss card first and then sooted and continued in the same way.....can you say GORGEOUS!!! So now I've come up with something else to add colour but unfortunately I can't say what it is yet as it's up for possible publication....if I can be bothered getting off my butt to write & submit!

These are 2 of the latest soot ones with the new colouring. "Art"...

"Yearning"...

Soot technique & 1 more transparency transfer

As I have new people that are becoming regulars in my atc classes at Scraptivate, I have decided to revisit some of the earlier techniques from when I started teaching the classes. For those of you in Perth who might be interested in learning some techniques, I teach every 2nd Saturday and every 2nd Tuesday night. The Tuesday night class is a repeat of the Saturday, one but runs about 3 lessons behind.

I often get asked, why atc's? For me it's the technique that is first and fore-most. The reason I use atc's to teach it is this.... the girls will learn a technique and actually get it "down" onto a format that will look complete, 99% of most people get at least 1 atc completed and many get 3 done. I get card-makers and scrapbookers in the classes as well as atc girls as they are all techniques that can be applied to many different artforms. Some of the girls have even started their own little technique book using an atc that was made in the class, then writing up the notes in their own words and putting it all into one book! Great idea!!! My memory is shocking for lots of things but I don't seem to have any trouble at all remembering all the different techniques that I've learnt over the years!

On to the next atc class....Soot re-visited!!! I won't be listing the technique yet until after the Saturday class so they don't set fire to themselves or their houses!

"Follow your own star"...

"Portrait"...

"Delusional"...

(the stripey looking thing on either side of this one is the small corrugated black cardstock with a bit of Silver Treasure rubbed over it, looks like stripes but it's actually very bumpy and raised)

The next one is an atc made using the Inkjet Transparency Film and gel medium (Golden soft gel in semi-gloss). It's the blue gravestone image that is the transfer...

"Two graves"...

Lastly, an atc using Helmar 2 step crackle medium for a crackle class that I have coming up soon using various crackling mediums. Our Altered Book Club chunky swap that is on-going had a Gods & Goddesses theme recently and I chose to do "Anubis, god of mummification"....yep, sounds like me doesn't it! lol So I had a spare pic of Anubis left over which I made into an atc using the crackle medium on the image.

...more Transparency Transfers, Shrink Plastic atc's

Below are some more Transparency Transfers...first one is onto another plain type of background, paper that has been coloured using the "smoosh" technique of Ranger distress inks onto the Ranger craft sheet dtp (direct to paper...or dts...direct to sheet!), spritz with water, lay your paper down onto the spritzed sheet, press gently and then twist 45 degrees and lift....result is a beautiful watercoloured background. The colours on this is my favourite combo of Peeled Paint and Weathered Wood. Then an inkjet transparency/rubbing alcohol transfer on top and another quote from Dorothy Parker.


Some more transparency transfers..."Temptress"

..."Arise"....




Now a couple of atc's using shrink plastic as I have another class on this tonight at Scraptivate....this first one is a terrible scan, sorry 'bout that....you just about need sunglasses to look at it in the flesh and yes, it's not my usual colours once again...can you say BRIGHT!!! The image down the bottom left is the shrink plastic stamped image and then coloured with chalks, boy do they intensify when it's shrunk!!!

Don't send the spelling police after me.....I forgot to change the spelling of "color" from the US spelling to the Aussie version - "colour" on the quote....

Another shrink plastic atc, this time the image was printed onto the shrink plastic (white) with my inkjet printer, then shrunk...you just have to keep your fingers off the ink as it'll smudge until it's shrunk. "Awaken...breathe"...


Lastly, this is an atc made for a swap leaving here shortly (promise!!!) to someone over East. It's a watercolour tube paint fresco technique with one of my favourite zetti stamps.

Transparency transfers

While I love new technology, sometimes in the art world it can be a pain in the a**! Particularly when you find that a product that you used to use is becoming redundant because of newer technology. Case in point - inkjet transparency film. This was used for overhead projection units and is a dying product because of Powerpoint presentations on computers. A particular brand of transparency film that I've always used was the Apollo Inkjet Transparency Film for Inkjet Printers. I've since found out that it's being phased out. You can still buy the transparency film but they seem to have changed formulation which means that the film that's on the side that you print on is much thicker....meaning it's more difficult to get it to release when you want to do an inkjet transparency transfer using rubbing alcohol!

These newer ones will still work with gel medium as the transfer medium, but I particularly like the ease with which rubbing alcohol spritzed onto the printed image and then burnished onto a page will work. The 3M brand of inkjet transparency film is also supposed to be as good as the previously readily available Apollo....I have yet to track it down but will try to do so before my Apollo stocks run out!

These atc's are made using the alcohol and transparency transfer technique... (I coloured the silver German Scrap using "Bottle" alcohol ink....lovely!)

Also, you don't always have to do transfers onto printed or patterned paper. These next 2 are done straight onto plain coloured cardstock. Though the first one I did attach a dictionary quote onto the cardstock first, then did the transfer over the top of it...worked a treat! "Menopause Mauve" is not a usual colour for me to use, but it suited this pic of ol' Liz!

warning: a bit of vintage nudity in this next one.... love the distressed look that you can get with transfers...without even trying!!!!

I thought I had some using the gel medium/transparency method of transfers but I think they are half-done. I'll get them finished and up for viewing, though you won't really be able to tell the difference on the computer screen. It's something that you can see more clearly irl (in real life). The gel medium I use is Golden Soft Gel in matte or Golden Soft Gel in semi-gloss.

On another note, my son, his girlfriend and their puppy leave us tonight to fly back to the East Coast for another year, he has 2 more years in the air-force but is going to try to get posted back here before then. AND we only had one testosterone-fuelled argument between my two grown "boys" in the 4 weeks he's been here!!! Bargain!!! (Jarred, the one who's leaving is 22 and my other son Cort is 19 - still 'boys' to me though!)