Creative Chemistry 101 revisited

Just a quick post (can't believe it's been so so long since I posted anything!) today.
Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 101 is up & running again this month (& 102 in July, then NEW! 103 in August) (why don't you join here at onlinecardclasses.com if you haven't already done so).  Same classes for a couple of months, but new forums & galleries, Tim answering new questions & now live chats as well!

So first week is looking at the first couple of lessons, so I've played along.  3 tags using distress inks (all last year's colours - twisted citron, mermaid lagoon, wilted violet, blueprint sketch and edged ground espresso, or hickory smoke).  And 3 techniques blended spritz & flick, brushless watercolour & wrinkle-free distress.  Butterfly stamps by Tim Holtz (Stampers Anonymous) & quote stamps by Finnabair (Prima).

Loved revisiting these techniques & looking forward very much to a summer of Creative Chemistry!

Back soon 

Kay

Autumn tag

My Autumn tag (one of the large tags)

 

I decided to create an autumn tag as it's feeling decidedly autumnal now, though we're yet to get the gorgeous autumnal colours on the leaves here!  This one's for our CC101 Facebook group challenge.  Looking forward to Tim's follow-up online class that starts the beginning of October - CC102 (only available if you've already taken 101).  (details here)

The group seems to have been quite inspired this month by Dyan Reaveley's technique, Patchwork background so here's my take on it (including lots of Tim's goodies).

It might be easy, but I'm not very good at 'taking a line for a walk' (see video) - I just got too many ultra small segments, so I ended up drawing a few curved lines on a large tag.  I still had over 60 sections! As I had decided not to doodle in the segments, I made a photocopy which I cut up to mask off the various sections.

In each section, I used paint as the background, & then over-stamped with distress in the same or matching colour.

Stamping the first colour



[Mustard Seed paint & ink / Rusty Hinge paint, Spiced Marmalade ink / Purple Twilight paint (Adirondack)  Seedless Preserves ink / Forest Moss paint, Shabby Shutters ink / Vintage Photo paint & ink / Frayed Burlap paint, Pumice Stone ink]

Most of the stamping detail isn't that obvious, unless you look very closely!  I die cut a mask sheet with Tattered Leaves, & masked the leaves, went round each leaf with black permanent marker (and the lines inside), then painted most of the rest of the tag in black (as Dyan's technique).  But I wasn't too happy about the result - the black was just too black & I tried to add other colours around it, but it just looked a mess!  So firstly, as the top left was looking decidedly wrong and empty, I cut the bottom off the tag & cut out both the (partial) leaves.

And here's where I love working with acrylic paint!  I re-masked the leaves and covered the whole 'mess' with the Purple Twilight paint which covered the black perfectly - so much better, and much more autumnal!

To make the leaves 'pop', I heat embossed them with a clear glitter.  And finally I used a couple of Tim's new stencils to add a few areas of 'bubbles' (vintage photo) & 'honeycomb' (rusty hinge) (as this was dabbed through with a blending tool (as Tim's technique for his September tag), it just adds subtle layers).

Detail of the 'patchwork' and some of the stencilling



With just a few finishing touches - tiny copper dots around the leaves (gel pen), three autumn quotes, and an edging of antiqued bronze stain & vintage photo ink.  And attached the 'spare' leaves at the top, and added stained & stencilled ribbon (as in Tim's September tag) - it was done!  

[the quotes I used were:
'the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves' - Jane Austen - Persuasion; 'AUTUMN is a second spring when every LEAF is a flower' - Albert Camus; 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' - John Keats - Ode to Autumn']

Back soon!  (fingers crossed!)

Kay

Hi again!

Another long gap! I can't believe I've only blogged once this year! Don't know what I've been doing really! But luckily I'm starting to get inspired to create once more!

So, here again with renewed inspiration having met up (in real time & space) with friends from a Facebook group at Neil Burley's beautiful new studio in his garden in Leicester. (Neil's website here - he's taking bookings now perfectly4med.co.uk) Many Thanks Neil!

And hoping to enter some challenges this month! So hopefully I'll be posting more often from now on! And having now got an iPad mini (which I love!) I now don't have to be on the computer to blog (that is as long as I can figure out how to upload photos from the iPad!!!



Watch this space!

Front cover of notebook made at Neil's studio

Inside front cover - now to complete all the tags!

Rusted enamel challenge

Finally, (just in time!) my entry for the CC101 Facebook group's rusted enamel challenge!

The group is open to participants of Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 101 course only - it's a great course, well worth doing - it's still available online.
So I used the technique twice...
Firstly on the card - I stamped with archival before doing the technique over it (I used Victorian Velvet distress ink).

And secondly on the background, on a canvas board.  The background inks were Spun Sugar, Weathered Wood and Iced Spruce, which I used direct to the canvas & then spritzed with water, to blend them a bit & also to make sure the embossing powder stuck!  As the board already came covered with gesso, the distress for the rusted parts didn't work 100% perfectly, but I think it makes quite an interesting, grungy background, none the less!

Finally, I added a grungeboard dress form covered with lace & trim, lightly coloured with Victorian Velvet.

Seasonal distress challenge

There's a bonus challenge this month from our CC101 Facebook group... to create a piece using one of Tim's 4 seasonal sets, and one or more techniques from Tim's Creative Chemistry 101 online course.
At the moment, I've got 2 sets of the seasonal distress inks; winter & spring (& no reinkers!).  So as I've used the spring set a lot recently, I thought I'd use the winter set.  The colours are usually quite Christmassy, but as it's July I wanted to see if I could use them for a non-Christmas project, so I decided to use lots of water & see what happened!
First I clear-embossed the flowers (in the background) onto a 4.5" x 7" canvas & coloured them with festive berries. I pressed the ink pad onto my craft sheet, & picked up the colour with a waterbrush, using lots of water. My stamp (by Judikins) wasn't very clean so the clear embossing which should have shown up white over the white canvas turned out grey in places (you can see a couple of bits if you look closely!)

So I decided to add some more flowers on top!  I used the dabber resist technique (with pitch black dabber) onto natural sticky back canvas, (using the waterbrush rather than stains (!)) with festive berries again for the flowers...

To finish off the flowers, I inked the centres with iced spruce & then added distress stickles over the top (actually antique linen rather than clear rock candy, which has gone 'walkabout' at the moment!).
I used the dabber resist technique again with a mixture of iced spruce & evergreen bough for the  leaves.  Then I cut them out & attached them to the canvas 

I coloured the background with iced spruce & evergreen bough, very watered down.  I added random blocks of iced spruce on top, & then spritzed the canvas heavily, let it lay there for a bit, & then stood the canvas upright & let the water run down.

  I gessoed the edge of the canvas, adding a little festive berries to the gesso, which made it a soft pink, which I toned down with a little iced spruce.

To finish the canvas, I added the ribbon & coin, as it looked sort of oriental!


Back soon!  Kay

Dabber resist

Our FB group, for anyone who's done (or is doing) Tim's 'Creative Chemistry 101' course holds a monthly challenge.  This month, it's the 'dabber resist' technique and today's the last day for posting!!!
I've been experimenting (playing around!) with it & here's my attempt!...

 The background text & the main quote are Tim's stamps,

the flowers are from a 'retro florals' set by Chocolate Baroque

I used a silvery pearl cardstock, which seems to work quite well.  The background is in peeled paint & broken china.  I embossed the quote & the middle flowers with dried marigold distress powder on top of spiced marigold distress ink.

taken with flash, this shows the shine from the cardstock!

 At the moment, I've put it in a wooden frame - I did have a try doing the dabber resist technique on a frame, but I think I need some warmer/lighter colours of stains - the peeled paint in particular came out very dark on the wood - not the effect I was looking for at all!!!  Once I've got a couple more colours, I'll have a go at the frame, with a few embellishments as well, of course!!

I didn't have as good success on other surfaces - here's one I did on linen-textured cardstock... I found it quite difficult getting the stain off the resist but leaving it on the background!! Again, I used the same colours of distress... (stamp by PaperArtsy)

Back soon (in June)!  Kay x

Creative Chemistry 101 - afterwards...

So what have I been doing (craft-wise) since my last post?  I've been busy playing & experimenting some more, & doing a few cards for Easter etc
I tried the nostalgic batik technique again...

My first attempt (above) didn't work too well - the card I used was very porous, & the heat embossing of the elephant & the trim didn't work too well!  At first, I thought it was my embossing powder (I noticed after I'd bought it that it said it was for pigment ink) but, as a 'creative chemistry graduate' (!!!) I experimented with different inks & cardstock... It was definitely the card!! And then I got too much water on the card (by the elephant's head) and the card started to disintegrate!  So this ended up just a practice piece, and I took note not to use this card again for this or similar techniques!!! I liked the colours though, and the design!

I tried again with the elephant, stamping & heat embossing onto a small 2 1/4" square canvas...  After I'd inked it up, I used beeswax to seal it - it rather 'lost' the embossing! & I need to perfect adding a top coat of beeswax! but it did work!


So third time lucky!  - I did this card for a friend who likes butterflies ...

Tim's nostalgic batik technique as before - butterflies in vintage photo and trim in dusty concord - both clear embossed.  Then I distressed the background with broken china, dusty concord & vintage photo,  and stamped the 'weeds' over with black soot.  To finish, I used spritz & flick technique.


& now onto Easter... first a very simple card

I just inked the embossing folder with mustard seed distress for the chick, and for the background, I just embossed the card, & then coloured it with distress inks in shabby shutters, broken china & mustard seed.

For the next cards, I cut egg shapes out of card, then used the stamping with reflections technique with the springtime background texture fades and finally sprayed with heirloom gold perfect mist.  I added a die-cut felt bunny on top of some lace & a little bit of 'grass' texture fade (inspired by Tim's Easter tag), but roughly cut the edge to shape (I haven't got any kraft core at the moment).

And finally another Easter card - I wanted a pastel, 'shabby chic' feel to this one.  I used similar techniques to the ones above, but I stamped the texture fade with aquamarine archival using the script stamp from one of Tim's Christmas sets - of course the script is reversed, but because so much is embossed I think it just gives almost a texture to the background...  Again I sprayed it with heirloom gold perfect mist.   I used some printed tissue paper for the 'lace' and die-cut the flowers out of alcohol-inked paper. I used the  bunny from Tim's March tag... and used scraps of the alcohol-inked paper (and one of the tiny flowers) for the bunny's mosaic, and embossed with tattered rose distress embossing powder (the powder seemed to want to stick onto the paper, so I carefully brushed the paper with a small brush!). And I heat embossed the bunny's bow with gold embossing powder to match the flower brads.


So my next two projects must be Tim's Easter & April tags, which I haven't done yet!


Wishing everyone a Happy Easter!!  Back soon!  Kay

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry - day 10

Well, it was the last day of class today!  And rock candy distress stickles - a little bit of vintage sugar sparkles!

 

the whole tag sparkles in the light - I just couldn't photograph it too well!

all my sample technique tags - now just waiting for a cover!

 A great way to end this fantastic class!  And as well as all our technique tags (25 plus) we've got lifetime access to all the materials as well!!  So, no excuses there then!
... and there's still time to join in - see here
Tim has been the most amazing & supportive teacher, so hard working and enthusiastic about the products that he (and we) love; producing all the materials and answering everyone's questions (including mine!).  I really have learnt so much and been so inspired from this class!!  But I do know you never stop learning - there's definitely more to learn!  (I do hope Tim does another, and another, and ... - roll on Creative Chemistry 102!!)

So now it's a case of putting everything into practice that I've learnt - and there comes the daunting part! Wish me luck! 

Back soon, educated and inspired (fingers crossed)!  Kay

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 - day 9

Perfect Pearls today - I really hadn't realised how versatile they are!  (I was very tempted by the sets at the craft shop this afternoon, but I did resist!!) - I already had 3 perfect pearls, & a set of 6 Cosmic Shimmer iridescent mica pigments (which I must try out with these techniques soon!).  I love the depth you can get with multiple layers of inks & pearls - they almost look like some of those amazing enhanced photographs of galaxies & nebulas in deep space...(!)

So, I had a great play with the perfect pearls... here's my first attempts...

(from left)

Perfect Distress Mist - I made up 3 mists - heirloom gold in dried marigold, pewter in tumbled glass, forever violet in dusty concord - even the first layer was amazing -

& it got better as I went on!

Perfect Distress - I used tattered rose stain for the tag, then inked the stamp in milled lavender, broken china & iced spruce with pewter perfect pearls over & then distressed the edges with same inks.  The wicking from under the pewter wasn't very noticeable though - perhaps it was the colours I used?

Perfect Splatter Distress - I used my 3 perfect pearls with distress inks in vintage photo, spiced marmalade, mustard seed, broken china, dusty concord, and aged mahogany, which took over!!!



perfect splatter distress before inking, with glossy paper coloured with remaining inks

the tag improved after I'd inked over it in places!!

& here are my second attempts...





(again from left)

Perfect Distress Mist - I used same mists as before, but on a Kraft tag, which gives a totally different effect!  I think they must be made from a thinner cardstock, as it really warped, but I loved the effect, & I'm thinking if I sprayed a whole sheet of Kraft paper, I could then die-cut lacy borders from it - I think it would look rather 'cool'!!

Perfect Distress - this time, the inks (mustard seed, wild honey & spiced marmalade, over antique linen stain) originally wicked too much under the heirloom gold perfect pearls!!  So after much playing around (which meant that the perfect pearls spread over the tag as well!) I restamped the quote with wild honey, & tried again, just on this - it did work better this time!

Perfect Splatter Distress - I used roughly the same colours as before, only missing out the aged mahogany!!

So yet again, I've had such great fun today, thanks to Tim!! and learnt so much!!!  And I know I've only just scratched the surface with all these techniques, so more playing over the weekend, methinks!

And by the way, my shattered stains butterfly from yesterday has alighted on my Vagabond, & seems quite happy & settled there!

Back soon!  Kay

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 8

Day 8 ... waiting for paint to dry!!! - but on the plus side, I had time to sort out most (some!!) of my supplies which had spread out in the dining (craft!) room over the past week or so!!!

1) Dabber resist,on canvas & inks with distress stains - I liked the effect, not sure about my colours though, I think I want some different ones (see below though)!

2) Crackle paint resist - I love the effect of crackle paint!  I diluted dried marigold & tumbled glass re-inker (1 drop re-inker to a spritz or two of water) to use instead of distress stains, along with tattered rose, antique linen & a little peeled paint stains.  I wanted a pale background, & I loved how it turned out - not sure about the placing of the stamps though!!  Oh well!! ...

3) Shattered stains - I love rock candy crackle!!!  I decided to try out different ways of colouring the dry crackle.  From the bottom  ...

a) distress markers

b) distress stains, with a little left-over diluted re-inker

c) dylusions ink spray, spritzed into a palette, and painted onto the bird with a brush, with a little left-over diluted re-inker as above


I also used the distress markers on a butterfly...

I can't believe there's only 2 technique days left!  I'll have to make sure that I now use everything I've learnt from Tim!!!

Back soon,   Kay

           

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 - day 7

It's day 7 today - heat embossing, & I've done my "homework"!!

1) Nostalgic Batik - I stamped the elephant with mustard seed & the 'trim' with wild honey & heat embossed clear over the top.  Then I inked the background with various colours of distress ink & overstamped the 'weeds' with black soot.  It was looking a bit dark, so I quite heavily misted & flicked the tag with water, until I was happy with the background.

2) Rusted Enamel - colours used were broken china, spun sugar & shabby shutters.  I decided to add stamps with jet black archival ink on the 3rd tag before I embossed it.  (I tried with the 2nd tag with sepia archival, but it didn't show up too well! & I still need to practice in swiping some of the embossing powder off!!



3) Distress Powder Resist - I inked the stamps with distress scattered straw & embossed with dried marigold distress powder.  The stamp is maybe a little too fine-detailed for distress powder? - but it did work!!  The quote would have worked great, except I didn't stamp it too well, so the right hand side didn't emboss much!  So I 'embraced my imperfection' & after I'd added distress inks to the tag, I overstamped the quote with vintage photo - slightly 'off centre', but it's given a 3D effect to the left-hand side of the quote which I like!! I think I'll  use this 'mistake' again!!!

I enjoyed playing with the embossing powders today - I've got quite a few, different makes & colours, so I'm off to try out all of them on light & dark cardstock (to see if they're translucent or opaque!) & so I've got a reference for them!!

Looking forward to paints tomorrow!!!  Have I said I'm loving this class??  Well I certainly am!!  And I'm learning so much - Tim is one amazing teacher!!! 

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 6

So day 6 is working with distress markers - I've been lucky enough to get 3 of the colours, and they are just great!  I had a very happy morning practicing the various techniques...


I love how they blend together - I think,luckily (!) Fired Brick, Crushed Olive & Stormy Sky make a great range of colours!  Of course I'd like to get my hands on a few more (especially Picket Fence!), but meanwhile, I've been having great fun playing & experimenting!  They even (sort of!) worked on a kraft tag! 

1st stamping on kraft, 2nd stamping with misting the stamp, on watercolour paper

trial blending with markers

3rd generation, on watercolour paper - I'm amazed how vibrant the colours are, 3rd time round!

A bit slpodgy (lots of misting!) but I love the effect! 

 I followed Tim's advice & example & made notes by the side, so my tags today really are samples!  I especially love the effects on watercolour paper.  I loved Day 2's brushless watercolour technique, but I love using the markers,  a different effect, as you can put the colours exactly where you want them to be!

first 4 trial pieces

Back soon!  Kay

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry - Day 5

So it's the end of the first week, & the weekend to relax, take a breather & keep on playing with what I've learnt so far!!!
So Day 5 was all about distress stains.



1) stained 'kraft resist' (left)
2) stamping with stains (top right)
3) marbled stains (bottom right)

 1) Stained Kraft Resist - well, Kraft Resist is still on my wishlist, so I heat embossed a kraft tag with enamel embossing powder - luckily this didn't melt again when I dried the distress stains with my heat tool!  I think the kraft tag is slightly darker than the Kraft Resist paper, & the black archival ink darker than the black printing on the Kraft Resist, so my final stamping at the end didn't show up as much ...  * see below for my other attempts!

2) Stamping with stains - I've only had 1 attempt at this so far - fairly please except that I must have 'flooded' the stamp with the picket fence, or pressed down too hard or for too long, as it is very 'splotchy'!!

3) Marbled stains - well, it worked after a fashion, but I definitely need more practice!!!

my first 3 attempts at 'stained kraft resist  - I finally went with my 1st one for my sample tag!

I tried another tag using sepia archival, buit this time I lightened the tag with picket fence, so it hardly showed up at all!  For a third tag, I went back to firstly stamping with jet black but using picket fence - although this did lighten the background stamping, it still showed up too much when the final stamp was added.  So I need to do a bit more practice on this technique - and if I made my own, make sure the background stamping isn't where I want my final stamping to be (or get some Kraft Resist paper, which would be much easier!!)

I'm going to play a bit more tonight (& I've got a few ideas to go with!) and then another whole week with Tim - I can't wait!!

Back soon! Kay

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 4

Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad!!

Day 4 was about techniques with distress re-inkers.

1) watercolour with reinkers (left)
(2) - messed up & not shown!)
3) custom stamp pad (right)

1) Watercolouring with re-inkers - I enjoyed this one!  I layered a PaperArtsy stamp behind the Crafty Individuals girl stamp, & then got to work watercolouring.  I've just got 4 re-inkers, but I was pleased with the colours & how I could blend them together to make other colours and lighten them - the 'brown' is a mixture of dried marigold & dusty concord and the girl's fair hair is a very very pale wash of dried marigold!

2) Layered misting - I love Tim's example, but I really couldn't get on with this one at all - I think I need a lot more practice!! I wasn't sure why the final spray seeped under the stencil (& I also tried it with an adhesive mask - same problem!)  Tim has kindly answered my question about it so I'll have to have another play ... * (see update below)

3) Custom stamp pad - I really enjoyed this one as well & loved how it turned out!!  I couldn't wait for the Cut N Dry felt I ordered (its come now!), so I used double-sided adhesive to stick a piece of felt onto the grey side of some Cut N Dry foam.  I only used 3 of my re-inkers - dusty concord, tumbled glass & dried marigold & I was surprised how colourful the bird stamped out.  I also used the same custom pad to randomly ink up the sprigs at the bottom.  Really pleased!!   Hopefully the custom pad will last for a while... I made one last December for one of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas 2011 (Day 3) & kept it in a sealable plastic bag - the custom random pad is still full of ink!


*Update
Thanks to Tim's advice (light mist, allow to soak in, another light mist) & his advice to another misting question to mist from further away, I have managed a passable attempt at layered misting ... thanks Tim!

Back soon with day 5!  Kay

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 3

So, it's been a catch-up weekend for me!  Loving it!
Day 3 was all about Archival Inks.  And this almost totally the day of umbrellas (I don't know why - it wasn't raining, we've actually had some lovely sunny days!!)



1) Alcohol Ink Agates (left)
2) Archival Resist (centre)
3) stamping with reflections (right)

 1) Alcohol Ink Agates
For the background, I used a mix of six inks, Gold Mixative & Blending solution.  Then I stamped Art Journey's "Umbrella Girl" in Black Archival over the top.  I love alcohol inks!

2) Archival Resist
So the other day I bought a couple of 'bright' archival inks (I'd only got black & sepia) and used these (Magenta Hue & Aquamarine) together with StazOn mustard & pumpkin for the "resist" (Stampington stamps, & actual bubble wrap!).  Then I added distress stains & finally the images in black archival.

3) Stamping with reflections
OK, so most of my texture fades are all-over patterns, apart from Tim's small set.  And with my first attempt using - yes, you've guessed, Umbrella Man - this didn't cover the whole of the tag!  And I haven't got any reflections stamps - so this is my take on it!  I stamped a PaperArtsy image in black archival onto the texture fade using a small tag, from which I then ripped off the top & bottom & inked with distress.  For the 'background' tag, I just inked up the texture fade with Aquamarine archival & then went over with distress. (I haven't yet dared to cut a slit in any of my texture fades!!)

So I've finally got my day 3's sample tags!  But these weren't my first attempts! I definitely learnt from my first three! 

1) Alcohol ink agates - after I'd stamped with black archival, I decided it should have a bit more blue, so I started over the tag with another layer of alcohol ink - wrong!!!  - the alcohol ink started to dissolve the archival!!! Oops!!
2) Archival resist - when you've got two inks in plum (dark) & amythyst (bright) with similar lids (Ancient Page archival), pick up the correct one! My 1st attempt was going OK until I used the plum!!! Oops!!
3) Stamping with reflections - if you're using a small texture fade, do this on a separate piece & add to a background as the embossing folder tends to mark at the bottom & at the sides!  And I discovered I haven't got many 'background' stamps (or any reflections stamps)!!  Oh well!!

Back soon with days 4 & 5!! Kay