Tag Archives: Creative Imaginations

Tuesday Techniques and Tutorials – Twinkling H2O’s

30 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Techniques, Tuesday Techniques, Tuesday Tutorials

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I have a mad love and passion for Twinkling H2O’s.

I admit it – they’re just one of the most beautiful products out there and add so much to a project.

So I had fun today and decided to try them out on a couple of different surfaces using a resist technique. My plan was to see if I could come up with some Christmas Card ideas and I think I have!

All you need (I forgot to take a pic of supplies!) are Twinkling H2O’s, a paintbrush, water, a mister of water, embossing powder and a heat tool, and any surfaces you want to paint on – I used vellum, watercolour paper, and kraft glassine.

First, mist your Twinks with water. These are solid paints and they need to sit a bit to get , well, painty! For this technique I made them really liquidy, like watercolours.

Mist your Twinks…

Next, stamp your image with Versamark ink and heat emboss. I did kraft glassine first:

kraft glassine embossed

As you can see, due to the nature of the coating on the glassine, the image isn’t as crisp as it would have been on paper.

Now, swipe colour over your embossed image, the coating on the glassine will cause the paint to pool a lot on the surface:

painted…

At this point, I pressed my cloth onto the surface and picked up most of the liquid, and so, the colour:

As you can see, it’s very faint but the shimmer sat right on top of the glassine and looked awesome!

glassine shimmer

I tried watercolour paper next, and because of the surface, it took the colour really well but left less shimmer – definitely the easiest surface to work with but not as much final impact:

watercolour paper

It’s still pretty though!

Finally, I tried out vellum. This was the hardest surface, it curled a lot with the water, and the colour didn’t sink in so ran a lot because of the curling, but it had the best combination of colour and shimmer together:

vellum

Also, the translucency of the vellum made a great effect too.

Once  I had tried them all out, I went back to the vellum and held it down so it wouldn’t curl and the colour wouldn’t run as much. Then I heat set the paint until the surface was dry. I like how it turned out but it’s way too much fussy work for quick cards:

I also used silver embossing here, instead of the white I used on all the other pieces – love the extra shine it gives!

I went back to the glassine and thought that the colour might take to the glassine better if I crumpled up the paper and broke the coating, which I did, and then added another layer of paint. It turned out pretty well!

And this turned out to be my favourite card – I love the soft colours.

My favourite effect though, happened when I embossed the stamp on glassine, then crumpled it all up and painted on the broken surface – the darker paint colours stayed vibrant with a ton of shimmer!

And see the flecks of white on both glassine surfaces (you can see it best on the first card)? That’s the embossing powder. When I crumpled the paper it broke the hardened powder and when I painted, the brush and water caused flecks to flake off and stick in the paint colour. I think it looks cool – love that side effect!

I’ll definitely make some more glassine cards – it’s too much fun not to and it’s the perfect thing to do at the Retreat when it’s 3am and my mind no longer functions properly!

Hope you liked the cards, and I really hope you go buy some Twinks to play with – they really are the bomb!

S.

 

 

 

An update, brownies, and a class I took…

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Baking, Mini Album, Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Uncategorized

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Sorry for the little blog break here – I’ve been crazy busy since returning from Orlando and there just aren’t enough hours in the day…

I’ve been completing the few unfinished projects from the show – I made 7 mini albums plus other items so there was a lot of little odds and ends that needed a final touch or two!

Bazzill – Christmas Lickety Slip Album

Creative Imaginations – Beautiful You Mixed Media Album

Basically Bare and Graphic 45 – Nutcracker Suite Easel Album

7 Gypsies and Canvas Corp – Epicurean Library Drawer

Creative Imaginations – Holly Jolly Altered Album

I’m only showing you the sneaks here of a few things but if you want the full reveal, all the details, and to hear about the fun we had then you need to sign up for the Show and Tell at The Paperie on Tuesday, October 23! I think there may be some giveaways too…. 🙂

I’m heading over to have wine and chit chat with a friend tonight so I thought I’d bring some goodies with me – brownies!

Brownie Batter!

I took two of my favourite recipes, made a change or two and combined them to make gluten free mascarpone brownies with ricotta topping. They look and smell yummy and I’ll post an update later with how they taste! I already know the batter was good….

And they really should be good because if there’s one thing I know how to bake well, it’s brownies! That’s not ego my friends, it’s just the simple truth! 🙂 But I can’t roast a chicken to save my life…. UPDATE: They are the bomb…. 🙂

yummy, yummy in my tummy!

Finally, I carved out a little time on Saturday morning to take a class from my friend Rae Lynn, the queen of clean and simple LO’s – her work is always gorgeous! She has started a new class series to do a Book of Me and the two LO’s we did are awesome!

I only took one picture with me for the class but the sweater I was wearing was the perfect colour for the papers and since Miss Smarty Pants Rae Lynn brought her camera and Canon Selphy printer, we took a snap, printed it and I was in business! It always feels good to go home with a completed LO!

i am…

I changed this second one a little – the background paper was a light tan/brown and I had a piece of Bo Bunny Vintage Double Dot paper that was the exact shade of my shirt so I used that instead. Also, I think I’m going to change the title to “An unexpected pleasure” and do my journalling on one thing rather than do a list of several “simple pleasures.” I could have had this one done but I was really uncertain about the journalling and decided that focusing on one unexpected pleasure – my camera – would work better for me for this LO. So now that I’ve settled on that, it will be done tonight, RLOK, I promise!

an unexpected pleasure

I love how the bright background paired with the black title, splatters, and stars make my camera pop!

And that’s been my life this week, crazy and full – how have you all been?

S.

Index Card A Day – #44 & #45

28 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in ICAD2

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Two more index cards for you today and they’re very different from each other!

#44 – one day at a time

I made this one while I was away with very limited supplies. I used a second generation type of inking to get the lighter swirl and text images. Then I used regular inking to stamp the sentiment and butterflies. I coloured them with my Koh-i-noor pencils and smudged with my fingers to blend and give them the halo. Simple, basic….

#45 – celebrating…

This card is special – it was our wedding anniversary and so I made a card to celebrate that – even though I was on vacation away from D!

I used my Twinkling H2O’s, of course, to make the shimmery stripes and paint the wood veneer people, then stamped the sentiment in Jet Black Archival Ink.

The fun part of this is that the sentiment is actually pieces of three different stamps all jumbled together. I simply cut them apart and stamped the bits as I wanted. Have I mentioned before how much I love Ali Edwards and Technique Tuesday?

Oh, right, only a few thousand times! 🙂

I’m pretty sure I’ve also mentioned my love for Twinkling H2O’s…..

See you all next week for more ICAD’s and a vacation recap in pictures!

S.

 

Index Card A Day – #28

29 Friday Jun 2012

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As promised, here’s M’s card:

She used simple Crayola watercolours but the way she picks and blends colours is amazing to me. I would never think of using the colours she mixes together and she loves it when she makes a new one! And they always seem to work – she’s got a good eye, that one!

I got a new stamp set that just had to be broken in so I started with another premade base – this one was clear gesso over the hexagon portion of the 12×12 Punchinella.

I knew the quote I was using so wanted a night sky and a moon. I painted the moon with two shades of Twinkling H2O’s then, because I didn’t have a dark or navy blue, painted teal over the card, followed by a deep purple and used tons of water to blend – the colour was perfect! I sprinkled some salt but it didn’t work for some reason so, whatever!

I didn’t like the moon, it needed something more and book paper seemed to do the trick – I love how the paint for the sky darkened the edges of the moon and how the paint from the moon lightened the area of the sky around it.

I stamped the sentiment directly on the card but it didn’t stand out so I took a tag from my Tuesday Techniques post, stamped on that, cut it out and it was perfect!

This card turned out even better than I had hoped! The texture from the gesso and the stencil is subtle and exactly what I wanted for this, and I love the gradient in the quote strips. Plus, the moon seems to be glowing – awesome!

It’s Canada Day weekend here and more importantly, Memorial Day in Newfoundland¹, so I’ll be away this weekend but still creating! Can’t wait to see what everyone else comes up with in the next few days!

S.

1. In the First World War, on July 1, 1916, approximately 90% of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was lost at Beaumont-Hamel. The following day, only 68 of the original 780 men were available for roll call.

Index Card A Day – #23

25 Monday Jun 2012

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I don’t know if I’m going to be able to tell you about this one – it was a big hot mess and so I just kept layering!

Essentially, there’s a ton of paper towel on here, and a bit of book paper. Then some Coarse Texture Gel over a stencil and heated, which added to the hot mess, so Flexible Molding Paste and another stencil.

Add some Twinkling H2O’s, some Stardust pen, and a quote… I’m calling it done!

Because of the multitude of paper towel layers and the molding paste, there’s lots of dimension and texture to this one:

See you soon for the last one!

S.

Index Card A Day – #16

17 Sunday Jun 2012

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This card actually started at crop night Friday night and was finished yesterday morning. At the crop, one friend had The Crafter’s Workshop Layered Stars Stencil (I may need to own that one!) and another friend got a brand new quote set from Dyan Reaveley, The Right Words, which I *needed* to use!

So I spread a layer of matte multimedium over the card and layered a couple of scraps of book paper I had left over from another (unfinished) project, which I sealed with more medium. Then I used the star stencil and light molding paste, which I heated so it would bubble and get that awesome velvety look and feel. I coloured the top star with Distress Markers and smeared them around to blend a little, then stamped some script over pieces of the card. Finally, I stamped the quote, added a few mists of Dylusions Ink Spray and called it a night.

Yesterday morning, M wanted to paint with “the shiny pots,” aka my Creative Imaginations Twinkling H2O’s so I added layers of those to the, so far, boring card. And now it’s all good!

I wish I could photograph the shimmer of these paints, they’re really incredible! And I love the quote, that whole set has amazing sayings – I may *need* that as well! 🙂

I love how dimensional the stencilling turned out:

Look at those dots! But the best is the top star:

Look at all the rays shooting out! And the blended markers! Awesome…

I did buy a couple of new stencils at crop night and I’m itching to make use of them. Plus, I bought some Golden heavy body acrylic paints to mix with my molding paste so I think I’ll have some fun with that combo tonight!

Come back tomorrow and see how it all turns out!

S.

Index Card A Day – #11

11 Monday Jun 2012

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Good morning everyone! Are you all shocked at my early morning post? 🙂 There’s a good reason for it – I’m today’s hostess for the Index Card A Day challenge at Daisy Yellow!

For those of you who frequent here to read my ramblings – welcome back, I love to have you here everyday! For those of you who are hopping over from Tammy’s blog – welcome! I hope you find this crazy insight into my process entertaining if nothing else, and that you find something here that inspires you a little!

Onto the card…

My prompt was alphabet stamps, can you tell? Yeah, me neither – it was a journey to get here, let me tell you!

When Tammy asked me to host a day and I chose alphabet stamps as my prompt, I was super excited! I love my alpha stamps, easy peasy…. or not. Pressure people, I felt pressure, and my mojo ran away, tail between its legs. Seriously, it was a bad scene – I won’t subject you to the initial reject cards, you might never come back and that would make me sad. 😦

Finally yesterday I said, “Enough! Pull up your big girl panties, Sara, and just do it already!” Ok, then.

And here’s how it started:

See, a great base of letters – awesome! And then a thin layer of gesso, smooshed around and scraped a bit for texture:

So far, so good! A bit of dimension, letters happening, I have a great quote in mind to stamp out, on a roll people, I was on a roll! I misted:

And tried a ghosting technique:

Hmmmmm….

Let’s do away with that! Mist and wipe:

OK, I’ll make it work. Add some more mist:

And blot:

Ok, I like the colours, you can still see the letters; better. Now, to add the quote:

My teeny, tiny alphas, then my favourite Lawn Fawn alphas:

Finish with my well-used $1.50 set:

Now the fun stuff – Twinkling H2O’s!

Paint the edges:

Still not working for me. Argh.

Tissue paper and multimedium to the rescue!

As you can tell, at this point I was determined to make this thing work, even if it ended up with 37 layers of stuff!

More twinkling H2O’s – lots of it! I love that shimmer!

Add some shimmery painted hearts:

We’re getting somewhere, and I can still see the alpha stamps under all those layers! This is good, my friends!

And then, I got “help”:

AKA: no more pictures!

I simply added the last line of the quote to my card, adhered the hearts and called it done! I love the texture:

…and in real life, you can see all the layers peeking through, including all those alpha stamps!

The moral of this story, the alphabet stamps were a prompt – and they prompted me to layer. Without them, I wouldn’t have the depth or texture I have on the finished card and so, I’m happy. The shimmer is a.maz.ing. And the colours are incredible – I couldn’t take a picture that did them justice. They are so vibrant it’s ridiculous!

And that quote? It’s Audrey Hepburn:

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m Possible!'”

Meet me here tomorrow (at a more reasonable hour of the day!)  for the next instalment of the Tuesday Techniques – Stencil series. We’re playing with paint – yay!

S.

Tuesday Techniques – Dry Embossing Other Stuff

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Tuesday Techniques

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One of the fun things about dry embossing is that it works on a multitude of surfaces. Today I’m going to show you a bunch of items that are not paper and the great effects you get when they’re embossed.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned my love affair with Sticky Back Canvas – if not, consider yourself filled in! Apart from being simply awesome on it’s own and fabulous with a bunch of other techniques, it looks amazing when it’s embossed.

Canvas

Ranger Foil Tape Sheets are super cool anyway – they’re thin adhesive sheets of silver metal – but embossing takes them to another level!

Foil

Vellum and Kraft Glassine are similar in that they sort of “crack” when embossed. The vellum turns white when embossed, and the Glassine has a coating that lightens. Great effect while still keeping the translucent properties of the materials.

Vellum

Glassine

I also like acrylic sheets. Although it’s harder to get a picture of how it looks when embossed, it’s really neat and leaves a great shadow when applied over another surface with foam adhesive.

Acrylic

Finally, Creative Imaginations has wood veneer sheets – honestly, real wood that’s thin enough to cut and emboss! What not to like about this look?

Wood

It was hard to pick what to use on the tag but the wood was calling my name – I was dying to see how it would look with the Dylusions Ink Sprays 🙂 And it looks awesome!

As always, leave me a link in the comments if you try any of the Tuesday Techniques – I’d love to see what you come up with!

S.