Tag It at PanPastel UK and Reverse Masking

Its been an extremely busy weekend post wise with two yesterday and again two today, I would love you to take a look at the previous ones if you have time. My vintage cabinet card album and tutorial, shabby chic configuration style box and tag card.

So Welcome to my second post today which is for PanPastel UK and the theme for the challenge this week is ‘Tag It’. I have made two tags and a tutorial for you (I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s one) which demonstrates one way of using PanPastels to create a reverse image when using a mask.

My tags started off brilliantly for this theme, but half way through I was thwarted at every turn. Let me explain.

I made 2 tags to show how you can create the positive and negative images using a mask with PanPastels (See video tutorial below for the explanation to get to this point.) Because I had used pans through the dotty mask I needed to seal it so I could continue working on it. The only problem was I had also stamped with black archival ink and look what happened.

The ink bled. The tin doesn’t tell me what is in it (it is soooo old) but there must be some acetone or similar to do this. So the question was do I start again or do I try to retrieve the situation. Always a problem solver I set about making changes to the tags by first giving a light wash of gesso. But this wasn’t strong enough so I coated the text areas with white acrylic paint. The writing still showed through so I then decided to add picket fence crackle paint, Guess what?

Yep all the crackle flaked and fell off. Still not to be outdone, I gave those areas three coats of acrylic paint (learnt this in Andy’s class) and covered it again with the crackle paint.

Ah that’s better, most of it stayed on this time. So I set about adding the elements to finish them off and actually I am quite pleased with the outcomes. Not what I had expected, but then I never finish with what was in my head originally lol.

Here is the tutorial if you would like to try the reverse masking technique I have devised. Have fun.

I believe you learn from your mistakes as well as your successes, so I hope you have learnt something from my experiments. I certainly did.

Supplies -
PanPastels, Gesso and masks from Your Creativity Store who are our regular sponsor
Sizzix vintage mini telephone and typewriter dies.
Ideaology and tissue tape.
Tim Holtz crackle paint
Fixative

Well it's been a busy week getting four posts ready for this weekend but I hope you have enjoyed some of them. Thanks for taking the time to join me. I will be off in about an hour to the Craft Barn again and Lucy (True Colours) is coming with me. It was lovely to meet up with Julia (Julia's Stuff) and Alison (CraftyTrog) on Friday and I hopefully will see them again today. I also had a lady called Glennis introduce herself to me who is one of my followers who has come all the way over from New Zealand, that was an amazing experience, I might see her again today too. And then there was the lovely Gio all the way from Italy. She is demoing so I will definitely stop by her table.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend whatever you have planned.

hugs {brenda} x0x

Using die-cuts at Country View Challenges and Tutorial

Hey it's June already and that means a new theme at Country View Challenges. This month it was chosen by  Trace and she would like to see your projects using die-cuts

It's not often I am really pleased with what I have made, but I am today. This is a cabinet card album made with Tim Holtz dies Vintage Cabinet Card and Mini Cabinet Card.

This shows the front cover.

Here are the pages and ……..

the finished album.

Please don’t tell hubby he is the star of the show today, he has seen the album but doesn't look at my blog lol.

I have also experimented with using Windows Live Writer which is where the white base edge on the photos has come from - don't know why????? I am sure I will learn more about it as I go along.

So do you want to know how I made the album? My readers will know that I promised to work on some video tutorials, but no you won’t hear my voice as I have made this first one using photographs rather than a video camera. Still got to get that one organised!!

I hope this works ok.

I want to say a huge thanks to Chris who helped me learn how to get this video done, she went through every aspect with me both side by side on her laptop and then over the telephone too. Thanks Sis I appreciate all your time.

Thanks to you too for visiting today, have a great weekend and a fab month of June, I hope I will see you over at CVC during the coming weeks.

hugs {brenda} x0x