Yikes. Cause what am I like? I could no longer stand to work in absolute chaos anymore, so over the last week I have been s l o w l y pulling stuff out, sorting thru it, and trying to get all the stuff I want to use close to me, cause frankly, if I can’t reach it from my chair, I have blinkers on and forget I even HAVE that thing.
I had some boxes I had been saving for a while, they come every delivery of my low-carb tortillas from Amazon. They measure about 8×8 inches. I had also just emptied one of Poppy’s pet food boxes. Looking at them I had a few ideas. The pet food container was fast and easy.
The tortilla boxes were a little trickier, cause I had a very specific place they needed to fit.
Four of the boxes made the surround, and two flap-tops stuck together for strength and cut into strips made the shelves.
It perfectly fit the space, and between the two I was able to get ALL my little bottles of things right there within reach. Oh sure, I could have made them pretty but you know by now that really isn’t me.
As you can see, my desk is looking pretty tidy, but it took a long time to get to this point. Given how weak I have been I was like the turtle – slow and steady, a little bit each day, trying not to tax myself till I am feeling stronger.
Back to the AJ pages, and I may try to get two one day this week so I can get back on track. Looking back at my list:
Day 1 Paper Bag journal
Day 2 Health journal
Day 34 Doodle (but not) journal
Day 4 Transitions Journal
Day 5 Paper Bag (should have been Life Book, but not journal)
Day 6 Life Book journal
Day 7 Transitions
Day 8 Health
Day 9 Doodle
Day 10 Paper Bag
Day 11 Doodle
Day 12 Transitions
Day 13 Transitions
Day 14 Health
So the LifeBook (not) is owed some love for sure. Next week I will try to make sure I hit each one of the five each week (at least till I get Paper Bag complete – at most one or two more weeks) then assess and make a plan. I do rather feel like focusing on one thing for so long is not sustainable. I get antsy and want to play more, catch up on classes, and not become a one trick pony!
I will probably do a couple of overall shots on my WOYWW post – and speaking of, I did OK last week. Got to all those who had posted before I left for my friend’s birthday knitting celebration, then came home for a nap. Still so exhausted all the time. Then Thursday got eaten up by more tidying, and Friday was my Anniversary (love The Hubster!) so finishing the list got pushed. I did manage it, so yay for that. Let’s hope this week is a good one too….
I’ve run into a bit of a roadblock with my digital design shares and as Darling Daughter had her big Synchro skating comp in Sheffield this past weekend, and I did not get the time to work on what I wanted to. So I expect this week might be less than inspiring. Sorry. They got Silver this time, losing out by a very slim margin to the other SPICE synchro team. Maybe one day there will be more Inclusive groups to compete with them!
I will share the small TEMU haul I’ve mentioned. I got a few things. A fun stamp set with lots of bugs
And a small stamp set that Angela also got, which I loved cause of the odd leafy frond, and a cover die that will make a nice stamp or stencil as well:
I got a set of stencils, I think eight, and of the eight I really liked four:
I have one I cut on my old Cricut that is very like the cross-hatch circles but I like this larger sized one.
Finally, I got a set of quirky flower dies. I immediately cut them from fun foam and turned them into stamps!
They worked very well
I need to stick a bit of the first one to the backing plastic more as the one thin line scooches about if I don’t go straight down. Luckily that isn’t my favourite one. I also realize I missed one out so need to go back and rectify that!
Hopefully once I get a little help from The Hubster on my problem I will get to that digital sharing. Bear with me!
I was considering waxing the cover of my little notebook from yesterday, and I had a thought. What if…?
You know I have a lot of mica powder but I have NO gilding wax. Could I make it? You betcha!
It’ll be hard to see but the left is bare, the right is buffed.
I just cannot capture the sheen! I also did it on a book page. If you buff till the mica no longer stains the cloth, it doesn’t come off any further.
And all the colours work!
The more mica powder the more intense the colour. And of course I also had to try Brushos, which are probably the only other already-powdered stuff I have. It is super subtle, and looks like nothing in the photos. The first two are Ultramarine and the last Brilliant Red.
Trust me, there is colour on there in real life!
Things still to try:
espresso powder (coffee dyed effect?)
scraped Inktense
chalk pastels
walnut ink crystals
Knowing it works, I also wonder what the best applications for it might be…Hummm….
Well, I have not added any marks yet, and while I don’t adore these I do quite like them.
and
They are all a bit messy LOL! I really did push myself to NOT use all bright and vivid colours, but instead explore brown and blue, a combo I have always liked. And of course my cut-out wavy lines!
I also wanted to use a bit of the Quinacridone Nickel AZO Gold. Golden has discontinued that colour and it is one that people absolutely ADORE to create a warm glaze over pretty much anything.
Pigment PO48 no longer available GOLDEN Artist Acrylics Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold has been discontinued (Heavy Body, Fluid, OPEN and High Flow). Unfortunately, there is no perfect replacement for Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold at this time.
I have one tiny little bottle of it left. But there is good news!
Luckily for me I had bought a tube of Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150) when my local art store was shutting. It really does mix well to produce something like the discontinued colour. Pretty amazing that Golden was so quick to develop a substitute and share the formula.
Anyway, I may very well revisit this class and try to do a collage series that is more like the amazing ones that have been shared in the FB group for FS2. I would love to do that, but crikey there is so much to do with all the OTHER classes it’s hard to imagine finding the time…
As with so much of my stuff, kinda. LOL! I have had this thick dense foam that came in I think maybe computer packaging for a while. It works like the moldable stamping blocks, so I’ve hung on to it – although I’ve never been a fan of that process. I never seem to have a light bulb handy and my embossing gun (well the old one anyway) was too hot. I got a few real Art Foamies from Funky Fossil (really loving them at the moment – the only UK place that HAS Art Foamies that I found, except eBay) and like them . All that swirling in my head made me wonder if I could MAKE something like them.
I looked at them and thought two thicknesses of standard Fun Foam would probably do the trick. I think the adhesive backed stuff may be better, but I had to use glue. I tried Art Glitter Glue and to seems to work. I found weighing them down with a glass cutting mat helped them stick.
I thought at first I might do three, but when I stuck them they seemed thick enough. I then mounted that unit on the thick dense foam. I stamped with paint rather than ink.
The best way to clean them seems to be to lay a wet wipe over them and brayer over that. Then “stamp” on to paper.
As you can see that more or less cleans the surface with no abrasive rubbing that might loosen the foam.
I have another on the go that I stuck with matt gel medium. No idea if it will stick better or worse, but I wanted to see. It seems messier and squidges out more that the AGG does.
We’ll see how it works. I want to try cutting the super thick foam, and I think I can but only with thick Sizzix style dies and I do not have a ton of those. Circles, a few flowers, a couple of hears and a couple of butterflies, pretty basic ones. I’ll be interested to see if it works.
I did get, on a long-ago trip back to the States, some thicker fun foam. That might work as a substitute, as I don’t have a massive supply of this blue stuff. Pretty sure my Scan&Cut will cut fun foam so this might be worth playing with a bit more.What I wonder is if these are really better than just fun foam stamps mounted on cardboard or plastic backing. I mean, I feel like the pressure you can get with the foam on foam might be different, but is it better? I wonder…
Now, you will have to go back a full decade ago to see the first time I made one of these. It is a page protector, sliced in strips, front one way back the other, that I use to flip and flop and mask of areas of the gel plate, when printing. The washi tape just makes it easier to see the slices.
The idea is to roll out the paint, flip over the vinyl, and print. You can easily add texture to get interesting overlapped areas
And the paint trapped below the vinyl can then be used on the main print (left) or a secondary one (right)
and the mop up prints have just a hint of the lines, which I think makes them interesting in their own right.
The final piece looks like this
and you can see I made use of that sheet of ATC mark-making elements on it for some final drama!
I thought as the 12×12 page protector isn’t QUITE big enough to use with the 12×12 plate, I might try making another version with contact paper instead. I have some ideas, as do some of the folks in my artist group. I will be interested in seeing how it all develops.
Well. That was interesting. I made myself a cover for my journal for 2023. I used one of the paper, transformed sheets (the one created by making a Masterboard from the crumpled deli paper experiments.
and one of the paper transformed experiments as well that was lurking on my desk
The final cover looks like this!
There are loads of instructions for making a Traveller’s notebook, mostly using leather, and mine is exactly like those but gel printed card instead. The location of the holes are the only bit of info you really need.
The four holes top and bottom are where the elastic goes to create the holders for the inserts. The middle hole gets a look you use to hold the whole thing closed. Not exactly the same but this link is as good as any for how to make one.
For the inside, I am recycling Amazon packing paper, using both Amazon UK based paper and Amazon USA paper, compliments of Dear Son and his shipments. I am curious to see how they both hold up, because my firm belief is the UK stuff is thinner, less sturdy, and more grey than brown. We shall see. Cannot believe it is WOYWW again so soon. The weeks are flying by. Yikes!
So I have gotten a few queries about the way I put the text around the edges of my ATC coins. I use a function in my program called “Attach Baseline to Path” under Path Binding. It makes the text run along any shape. inside it or outside it, forward or reverse, hugging the baseline or a ways away, and showing the path or not. It is interesting to play with. I have been trying to work out a way to share something you can use and had no luck. If you don’t have (and know how to use) a program that does this then I suspect, well, you just can’t.
I think I finally worked out something useful, if not perfect. You will need:
the download below, printed at 100% exactly (more on that later)
a 2 inch punch
a 2.5 inch punch
(you can try to make circle dies work or cut by hand, but the punches are the best option.)
Here are a few of the coins where I have used this technique:
The first thing i did was create some text in a circle. Much like those booklets of useful arty words that you can peel off and stick, I made circles of text that can only be use in limited ways. I have tried to pick phrases I see a LOT, that could work for a few different situations, and where I have grouped them, I’ve tried to make the sort of GO together, so if you wanted to use the whole circle, you could. This is what it looks like – this image will not print the the exact right size for the instructions I will be giving you – download the PDF HERE
Firstly, print the PDF. Be sure that your printer is not trying to re-size the file! For some unknown reason mine always tries to print it at 103%. Change it – in my case I have to tick SCALE and then enter 100
The fine grey lines are to help you line up your punches. If you are hand cutting, or trying to line up circle dies, they will be helpful. The outside dimension is 2.5 inches, the inside circle is 2 inches. This is how I do it:
Punch out the inner 2 inch circle
Line up and punch the outer 2.5 inch circle
Cut apart the phrases if you prefer
Don’t be alarmed by the mis-spellings in the PHOTO, they have been corrected in the PDF. When you have the phrases cut, you can edge them using a marker – and I love the Sharpie Chisel tip – for a fine line, or a dauber and ink for a more smudgy look.
Now, I think most of these could be made to work with any generic, pretty or arty ATC. It isn’t a crazy difficult process so I would be open to further suggestions if you care to eave them down in the comments – if I get enough that I feel are likely to be useful to many people I might do further sets. Hope this is useful!
Note: edited to add a quick PDF tutorial for anyone who needs more info. Hope it helps you wrap your head around the technique.
I love experimenting and I love figuring out a new way to do something, especially a substitute for something I don’t have, if I am on the fence about buying it. I had seen a demo of Distress Glaze over top of Distress Oxide inks, used to revive the bright colours, rather than leaving them oxidized and chalky. to be fair, I wasn’t 100% sure I actually LIKED the effect, but I wanted to see for myself. I don’t have a lot of glossy cardstock but I did find a little pack of a few sheets. Considering the properties of Distress Glaze, Vaseline seemed like a reasonable thing to try. And yeah, it totally works. This is not, actually, a “new” discovery. Once I knew it worked and I went looking, yeah, people have been doing it for a while, although they seem to mix 91% alcohol with the Vaseline. I suggest watching at 1.5 or 2x speed and the meat of it is at about 5minutes.
I didn’t, I just used Vaseline straight, with a blender, and it totally works al by itself. But that got me thinking of a few other ideas to try. The first thing I did was to add the Vaseline thru a stencil on the blank glossy cardstock then add the Distress Ink over the top.
When you then buff off the Vaseline, you are left with the white glossy card under it. You will not be able to see this super clearly, but the right is buffed the left not in the first shot and totally buffed off in the second:
It made me think that you could layer the DIs into the white spaces…except the Vaseline prevents it. Buffed off (on the right) you can still see the sheen of the petroleum jelly.
But the info from the video gave me a bit of an idea. I squirted a dot of hand sanitizer onto a aper towel and rubbed that over the piece – It kind of remove the Vaseline, at least a bit, and while it might have dulled the shine very slightly, it did then allow me to layer more Distress Inks over it and not have the jelly resist it! The first photo shows the piece in two halves. The left half has only the Vaseline applied thru the stencil and then rubbed off. The right side has the Vaseline rubbed off then the hand sanitizer applied over that, with both having more DI added as a final layer. Then you see the half with the Vaseline only after buffing and the next the side with the hand sanitizer after final buffing.
Here are the samples. I love them all. They are in no way tacky to the touch, and you need only the barest dab of Vaseline to get the colours to pop. But using it as a resist is really a nifty technique.
I think I was influenced by a Distress Resist spray video I saw, but I am 100% sure this is something I will carry on playing with. I also want to give the samples some time, to see how they look in a day or two. I may need to buy some glossy cardstock!
But wait – there’s more! I happened to have a scrap of tracing paper on my desk, and decided to see what would happen if I had a go at the Vaseline-thru-a-stencil on that, Distress Oxides over it, and then buffing off the jelly and cleaning the residue off with the hand sanitizer. In a word, WOW!
Do not be tempted to dry this with the heat gun between layers, the Vaseline will totally melt and you will not be able to layer the DI. Totally ok for the final layer, as the Vaseline will have done it’s job by then. Look at it. It’s just lovely.
Funny sequence of events. One of my WOYWW mates stumbled across a very old (2011, I think it was) post about SAFMAT. That is an old product as well, clear, that you can print on and it is self-adhesive.
So I never saw the point of it for what they seemed to tout as it’s selling point – that you could print a sentiment on it and lay it over a card, where it would sort of melt into the background. First, it didn’t – there was a clearly defined sheen to the product, and second, why not just print on the paper? I wanted to put the printed area very specifically over a pattern on the paper, so for that, yeah, it was helpful. But otherwise, not 100% sure it was revolutionary. It was acid-free and that was unique, I think. When I posted about it Letraset had just re-released it, after being unavailable for a long time. It is now unavailable again (but there are a few for sale at stupid prices, like almost £100 on Amazon. doh!)
Considering the qualities that made Safmat useful, I thought of what else would work the same. I riffled thru my stash and found some full-sheet self-adhesive labels from Avery and had a go using those.
What I remember was that the ink-jet ink dried fast and if not permanent on the Safmat, it was …semi-waterproof, let’s say. On the labels material it was quick to smudge. I tried my usual sealing technique, using matt gel medium on a gel plate, and it worked pretty well – although there was a weird byproduct of that which bears exploring some day – so long as I gently laid it on and tapped lightly on the back rather than, say, brayering over the back to get a really good coat of the gel medium on it. That did tend to smear a bit more. Left, brayer over the back, right, lightly tapping to coat.
Applying the clear sticker to paper, in this case some rubbish, an old gloss spray overspill sheet, works really well. and if you burnish the sticker paper better than I did here, it really does almost disappear.
In this case, I planned to cut out the wings so there was no real need to do that. In the end I didn’t end up using these wings as I planned, but they did look good!
I have a couple of other kinds of clear labels to test. Both are from Amazon, in the under £7 range, but for far fewer sheets than the Avery ones:
The glossy vinyl one says specifically non-waterproof. and all the “waterproof” ones seem to be white. Still if the gel plate sealing works on the plain sticker paper, surely it will work on both of these. And it does. A couple of interesting facts. The glossy-labelled one is not only glossy, it is a lot thicker. May be good if you want something to retain some dimension – like the wings,raised above the surface but not great if you want it to melt into a background. For that, the Avery labels are thinnest.
The PPD paper is also glossy and slightly thinner.
Unlike the Avery sticker labels, the inkjet ink dries very well and pretty quickly on both of these. But they are quite glossy, compared to the Avery version I sealed with the gel plate and matt medium.
PPD and Evergreen Goods
Bottom is Avery label sheet
And of course you can seal the other two just like the Avery one. I tried a couple of methods. Brushing on the gel medium smears the inkjet ink pretty easily. Daubing on the medium with a sponge actually works pretty well, although for my sample I had a slightly dried blob on the sponge and didn’t realize it so it isn’t as good as I am 100% sure it would have been if the gel had been all smooth. I did try sealing with the gel plate on other samples but then messed them up by trying to pick them up before they were fully dry – busy day and no time to hang about! On the top is the daubed on gel and the bottom is brushed on. Personally the brushed on is very smooth – except where it smeared. DOH! I used totally the wrong brush for this, but it was what was in arm’s reach.
I think that the Avery labels, especially if you have a laser printer, and laser print labels, is 100% the best option. The resulting print has a definite sheen but is not gloss-glossy IYKWIM. Of the other two, again, it’s likely the laser version will work best, and otherwise if you want a thicker sturdier piece, go for Evergreen Goods. A thinner more flexible version, PPD. And if you want to seal the inkjet ink with a spray fixative, it is likely going to be better than anything else. You can get a bundle of clear sticker paper + fixative spray (in gloss or matt) from PPD. I have it. It works. It does smell a bit, but they all do! I should test the spray over the Avery labels. That might be the magic bullet. Now, where did I put that…?
So then the only real issue is the acid-free question. And that might be a question that won’t get answered for years, when someone can look back and see if the art has deteriorated or bits have fallen off! I am not sure if I care about that. I cared deeply when I was scrapbooking and it was my photos of my kids (and even so many were duplicates or prints from digital media, so not one-of-a-kind photos) but I am not making art that I sell or that I expect to last for decades. No one cares about it but me. If I were selling it then I might buy that £100 package of Safmat from Amazon LOL! I’d be able to afford it…
scrappystickyinkymess 