Category Archives: Tutorials

It’s been a bit quiet…

Posted on by
1

… on my blog for the past couple of weeks. That’s because I’ve been busy behind the scenes perfecting the art of casting and carving porcelain ready for final project pieces for college, applying and not getting a part time job, digging and planting the allotment, settling into the new studio, researching and buying fire safety equipment, public liability insurance and registering as self-employed from the beginning of next month!

College finishes with an exhibition at the end of the month, after which I’ll be able to post some pictures of my final project pieces, and from then on I’m freelancing. The timetable for the summer includes workshop planning, sample making and a couple of studio open days for groups I’m involved in.

In the meantime, I’ve posted the ‘small print’ for the workshops so that I am compliant with all the various guidelines for internet selling as well as being as helpful as I can be! They’re here if you’d like a read. If there are any workshops based on products or projects you’ve seen on my blog (or anywhere else for that matter!) then do let me know 🙂

 

Multi-Ink Tag – Twelve Tags for 2012 – October

Posted on by
Reply

I appear to have forgotten to post that I’ve created my tenth tag for my Twelve Tags of 2012 series, featuring the flower of the month, Calendula. Or at least my approximation of it! And I’ve learnt to use my new camera and MovieMaker to do a ‘how to’ video as well. Please let me know what you think!

 

[youtube=http://youtu.be/NyeP7octFCw]

Mixed Media – Exhibition Piece

Posted on by
2

It’s been a while again since I’ve posted – I’ve been busy finishing off end of year projects at college, culminating in our exhibition last night. Here’s just one of my pieces (I’ll share some more in a couple of days), for the final mixed media module, inspired by the work of Jacek Yerka, my ‘chosen’ artist for this term.

Continue reading →

An old magazine and a bit of Brasso?

Posted on by
4

Recycling is all the rage these days – apparently making something you’re about to throw away into something useful and beautiful is now known as upcycling. Here’s how to upcycle a glossy magazine page into a pretty greetings card using Brasso, embossing powder and a bit of elbow grease.

Continue reading →

Self-closing box instructions

Posted on by
Reply

Following several requests (well, at least one!), here are instructions for making my self-closing box using the printable template on my Template page.

Either print or trace the outlines from the template onto a sheet of A4 card (at least 160gsm recommended)
Cut round the solid lines
Using a scoring blade in your personal cutter, or an embossing tool or other scoring technique of your choice, score the dotted lines
Crease all the scored lines, folding upwards. Add a strip of double sided tape to the underside of the tab (red strip in photo)
Stick down the tab to the inside (printed) side of the last (right hand) section of the box, to make a pentagonal cylinder
The tags tuck under one another to close the box – you should end up with a nice swirl. To unlock, just pull one of the hooks from the rest. By doing the same top and bottom, you can create a horizontal box like the centre of a Christmas Cracker
If you want a vertical standing box, try tucking the hooks toward the inside of the box – this is tricky and fiddly, but gives this smooth bottom closure
And this is what it would look like on the inside.
Hope this helps! If you want a video version of this, then I’ll point you toward my Amazon wish list so you can get me the webcam I’d like to set up video tutorials 🙂

Perfect Pearls – demo board

Posted on by
Reply

Hi all – I’ve been feverishly working away the last two days getting ready for my next demo/workshop day at Kim’s Crafts (Hinckley Branch) on 10th September. In the morning, I’ll be demo’ing all things Perfect Pearls (from Ranger) and this is the demo board I’ve just finished.

I’ve just found it’s next to impossible to photograph pearlescent finishes! But the board shows the basics of applying perfect pearls to medium, then painting on a pearl finish to spritzing with distress inks, stamping over distress stains and inks, and bottom left, applying to UTEE and watching it ooze.

Paper Towel Printing – Distress Inks

Posted on by
3

I’ve carried on playing with my newly discovered technique, and thought I ought to try Paper Towel Printing with distress inks. Here’s a step by step guide:

Firstly, place your sheet of paper towel onto a glass mat or other non-absorbent surface. Wet by spritzing with water.

-=-

 Then I spritzed with homemade glimmer mist spray – good to have a background colour. I think it also helps the other colours keep in their place… This one is Peeled Paint with gold perfect pearls.

[To make your own mist – take one dropper full of reinker and add it to a mini-mister. Add a small scoop of perfect pearls. Fill with water to three quarters full, replace cap and shake vigorously. Spritz.]

-=-

Drop on ink from your choice of distress ink reinker – this is Faded Jeans.

-=-

Spritz each of those dots with water until they start bleeding.

-=-

Repeat with more colours – this is Spiced Marmalade.I also added Dusty Concord.

Spritz with water.

-=-

Start printing! Lay a tag/paper/cardstock/ATC on the towel and smooth down with your fingers. You may see water squeeze out of the edges at first – that’s what you’re after 🙂 You’ll also find the colours start to spread a little more into one another.

-=-

All of this from one sheet? Yup – and they are all double-sided as well. It seems that the colours stay pretty much where you put them, so this would be great to carry a colour theme throughout a tag book, or art journal, or across several pieces of cardstock for scrapbooking or card making.

-=-

And there was still some left over to do my art journal 🙂

-=-

Close up of the tags – they’re a bit blotchy still as I didn’t wait to dry them before sharing this blog entry with you! Lots of texture on some, lovely watercolour effects. Love it!

Paper Towel Printing – for art journals and backgrounds

Posted on by
5

I’ve been playing today 🙂  And one of the things I got playing with was a paper towel. I originally planned to dye it with acrylic paints/inks for decoupaging into my art journal. But one thing led to another, and before long, I’d ended up with what I think to be a totally novel technique – at least I haven’t seen it in all my hours browsing art journal techniques online. I’ll be calling it Paper Towel Printing, and this is the result:

Continue reading →