Tag Archives: distress ink

Shadowpainting with Distress Reinkers

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I’ve liked shadowpainting for some time now, but never seem to use the latex-based masking fluid before it all gunges up in the bottle. It helpfully says on the label to dilute with ammonia to get it liquid again… but I just don’t seem to have that lying around!

Meanwhile, I’ve used WOW! Bright White embossing powder on watercolour paper to do much the same thing – it’s a lot quicker as well using a stamp rather than tracing patterns with latex gunk and waiting for that to set. I’ve used Distress Inks (from reinkers) to colour each of the images. I’ll be teaching the technique at the Manic Stamper Craft Club in Leicester on Saturday 🙂

 

 

Yin Yang

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Yin-Yang

It’s my last official day as a student (though my student ID card is still valid for another month… what can I find with a discount on? 😉 ), and I’ve popped down to the studio to do a bit of creative work before some of the tutors and my class mates come round this evening for an end of course party. These cards are part of my colour development work – I used Photoshop to create an inverted (negative) version of the distress ink colour palette and then colour matched the results to the inks. This way, I was able to quickly find the complementary colour for each ink, that being the colour opposite on the colour wheel. Frayed Burlap complements Weathered Wood, and Bundled Sage complements Dusty Concord. I added even more yin and yang with the Retro Circles texture fade folder.

Mixed media cards

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It’s demo time again for the Manic Stamper Craft Club, and I’ve spent the last four sessions teaching various techniques, including distress inks, image transfer, acrylic paints and myriad other art materials. There was a request that we take time out this month to put the techniques into practice, so I’ve spent a while in the studio coming up with these three cards:

The bath time one features image transfer, distress inks, and faux rusted enamel technique. The flowers use acrylic paints for background, stamping, tinting and covering metal embellishments. The final card uses the Ranger Summer Palette Challenge colours in distress inks, stains and alcohol inks as well as a bit of shine from Perfect Pearls, trying the capture the long car journeys for our summer holidays! Hopefully they’ll be enthusiastically received as examples of mixed media chemistry 🙂

Experimental Stencil Tag

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Experimental Stencil Tag

 

I took a little time out from enjoying the [rare] sunny weather today to put together this experimental tag. I used the Random Circles mask from Tando Creative to deboss the circles – inked up with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink, embossed onto a pre-decorated tag from my stash, and then covered with Vintage Photo Distress Powder for that authentic rusted look. I used the same mask to select areas of cardstock from the Tim Holtz Lost and Found stash and then stitched them onto the tag using my machine – stitching on card seems to be a bit trickier than into fabric! I aged all the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. A few TH cogs and sprockets, and various metal embellishments decorated with Distress Paints are then added with brads before adding the florist ad from the TH stamp set. A bit of unravelled jute string finished the tag off nicely. Not really my normal style, but hey, that’s what experimentation is about 🙂

 

Handmade tag book

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Over the last couple of days I have been putting together this handmade book as a potential project for a gathering of some of the UK course graduates of the Creative Chemistry 101 online course with Tim Holtz. The cover is made from 100gsm paper dragged through Distress Paints, which has the bonus of being waterproof once dry. The lining was done the same way. The pages are folded from A5 printed sheets of paper and stuck down the opening edge with 3mm wide double sided tape to form the tag pockets. They are handsewn for binding before gluing the spine and sticking into the cover.The completed book contains 25 different #5 tags with the instructions, and I probably need to explore a concertina binding on the spine to account for this…

[Book dimensions: 31/4″x51/4″ (8cm x 13cm)]

Quick mixed media tags

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I’ve got into the studio at last to do my own thing in between some craft room reconfiguration and college work! I’ve chosen to do some quick mixed media tags using mainly Ranger/Tim Holtz products:

Dare to dream
One of a kind

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Tattered Flowers in a Paper Vase

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I’ve taken a bit of time out from designing for my college course to make this canvas featuring a paper craft vase and paper craft, die cut, hand coloured and constructed flowers. I’ll be entering it into Tim Holtz’s Tattered Floral Challenge as it is his Tattered Floral die that I used to cut the flowers from 160gsm thin card. The vase is made from the same card to my own design – SVG file available if anyone would like it…

Each flower layer was wrinkle free distressed in first a layer of Fired Brick and Festive Berries both sides, dried and then wrinkle free distressed in a layer of Fired Brick with Ripe Persimmon. They were then dried before being spritzed and flicked with water and left to dry naturally. The centres were punched and then sprayed with Dylusions Granite spray. The flowers were assembled onto florists wire and stuck together with matt multi medium and left to dry over night before being glued into the vase and onto the canvas background.

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Here’s the inspiration pic, a vase of flowers in our lounge:

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Warm Wishes – Kraft & Kreme

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I’ve been asked to do a guest slot on the Less is More blog today 🙂

This week’s theme is Kraft & Kreme, and as always, a clean and simple design is required. Ok, my design might not be so simple to make, but it’s clean and simple under the definition of lots of white space (i.e. unfilled – kraft card isn’t exactly white!).

WOW Feb 2013

 

I cut a 15cm sq kraft card to shape, keeping the oval offcut from the front. I made a mix of 50:50 WOW! Primary Bark with WOW! Vanilla and triple embossed onto the oval offcut, then whilst still hot swirled it with a metal tool. I used the same mixture to emboss the sentiments (from WOW! Merry & Bright Christmas and WOW! Everyday Sentiments) and hearts (from WOW! Gratitude) – I flexed the clear stamps on the acrylic plate to follow the curve of the card. I outlined with Vintage Photo Distress Marker and shaded with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I’m happy to create a template if anyone requires one 🙂