Cracked Up

Lovely crackles today at Grungy Monday 34.  Linda has asked us to produce a piece of art using  Tim Holtz's Crackle Resist technique which you can find over on Youtube  by following this link.  I have discovered that all  my Distress Crackle Paints have set like concrete. I think they are beyond rescue, but if anyone has any ideas I'd be really pleased to hear them.  The only one that was usable was the Rock Candy crackle.
I've made a tag that I've splooshed in Broken China and Antique Linen DI'sand stamped with Coffee Archival

The birds flying out of the cage are stamped in Black Archival and the birdcage is stamped onto Clearly for Art using Stazon. and I've heated the bird cage and curled it round a paint bottle to get an even curve.
The letters are cut with a Sizzix Decorative Strip from blue cardstock and this is the bit I've used Crackle on, and then inked over with Vintage Photo DI to get that old look.

The tag is  finished off with a Glassine flower and some bits of Ideology.

New Directions

Is that the name of some boy band? If it is, it's not them I'm writing about.
This year I have decided that I want to try a lot more mixed media type stuff. So where better to start than with an online course with the amazing Donna Downey.
Each month this year Donna will post an online tutorial for a mixed media canvas creation.
Here's my first attempt at January's canvas.

My canvas is 8 x 10, and I had a lovely messy time painting it. Love doing splatters!
As Donna says sometimes you've just got to go for it  even though when you've done something you may not always like it. I kind of think the word is a bit too black, so might have another go but maybe write with a charcoal pencil instead. I used various craft acrylics, but have had a little shopping spree this morning and ordered some lovely Golden acrylics as I only have white and titan Buff in my paint supply at present. It certainly pays to have a good hunt around on the internet, as I eventually found them at half the price of one of the first suppliers I looked at.
When the new paints come I'll have another go at this canvas.
Can't wait for next months project.
And.... in March I off to Birmingham for a fab looking workshop on Sunday 25th with Donna at The Custard Factory. Should be good.

A Little Blue

I just love the challenge this week at Grungy Monday. Linda has asked us to create something using another wonderful technique that can be found on Tim Holtz's blog. This week we are going back to August 2008 to use some Alcohol Inks. 

Luckily I just happen to have a couple of those lovely faceted fragments lying around in a box of bits and pieces. I decided to go with a blue/turquoise colour scheme for this technique, but wasn't really sure what to make when I started out. After a couple of attempts and quite a lot of Alcohol Blending Solution to remove some truthfully pretty awful splodgy blobs I ended up with two fragments that I quite liked. The stamps I have used are old favorites, Anthology and Artful Flight from Stampers Anonymous.  The decoration at the top is made fom some odd little beads and coloured wire

I was chatting away to a friend who had come round for coffee this morning and she said that she would love it if I could make one into a brooch for her. So that is what I did with both of them, and now I'm just waiting for the glue to dry on the backs.  I think these are also ok to enter in Simon Says Stamp and Show, which is Anything But a Card this week.

A Little Bit of Patination

I can't believe it's Grungy Monday 32.  Where does time go?  This week Linda has set us a fantastic challenge to use a favourite new technique from Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of Christmas 2011. I decided to go for Tag Number 7 full deets of which you can find here. I am also going to enter this tag in the Artistic Stamper January Challenge which is Vintage, and Hels Sunday Stamper Challenge which is Time this week
I have had some of that Kraft Glassine paper lurking in a pile of stuff I didn't really know what to do with for quite a while, so I loved Tim's video full of loads of fab ideas. I especially love the patina effect, so thats what I've used as the background for my tag today.

I colored my glassine paper with Sail Boat Blue and Gold Mixative Alcohol Inks, and then sploshed with Alcohol Blending Solution to create the patinated look, followed by a quick blast with the heat gun to set everything. I also used the glassine paper to make my flowers.The big flower has an old watch face for its middle, and the smaller flower has a little watch cog, and they are both finished with ideology pointers.
The sentiment is from the Stuff to Say stamp set, and is stamped onto a Journalling Ticket with Coffee Archival Ink, as is the tiny cogs stamp which I think is by Prima. The Tattered Banners strip is used at the bottom of the tag, as well as some old lace.  The whole tag is finished off wit some Ideology findings.

I have put in a close up photo of the patinated effect,, which I think is going to be a technique that I will try out with some different colour combinations, to see the effects I can get.

A New Journal

Having seen some lovely art journal pages on my travels around blogland, I have decided that I would love to have a go at the 366 art journal challenge which you can find at Kate Crane's blog The Kathryn Wheel.
I have got a couple of journals on the go, but this is such a fabulous idea, and hopefully something I will keep going through the year as it's definitely not as daunting as having a whole page to fill sometimes can be.
Here are my pages for January.

I find January a rather depressing month, so thought I'd use some bright cheerful colours on these pages. I had a great time getting painty and inky making these pages. I've used some stamps and some doodling, and may do a bit more doodling around some of the squares, as well as some collage elements from Art From the Heart. There are some bits of added texture in the form of cat fluff that is the result of my kitties helping me stick down the little squares (I lost count of the extra ones I had to cut as they kept running away with them).
Now I'm already thinking about next months pages, and have a few ideas whizzing around.

Happy Birthday to Tim

Happy Birthday to Tim, Happy Birthday to Tim, and so on. Over at Grungy Monday 31, Linda has set us the challenge of making a birthday card for the one and only Mr Tim Holtz.

Yikes, as they would have said in the Famous Five.

I find card making a bit of a challenge anyway, and usually get in a right old mess, but thought I'd have a go, and after thinking for a while decided to make some inchies. (I loved the inchies that we all made for Tim when he taught at Newport Pagnell last year, so that has been my inspiration).

The inchies are a combination of techniques. Really simple images from the Lost and Found paper stack, some stamping, some embossing,  and also some Ten Second Studio metal embossing using Tim's embossing folders. The Distress Inks I used are Vintage Photo, Faded Jeans, and Rusty Hinge.  I've used some watch parts and a pen nib for decoration.  These are all mounted on a card that I've painted with Old Paper Distress Crackle Paint, which is then inked with Vintage Photo in the cracks.

 The sentiments are computer generated and attached with tiny ideology bits the name of which escapes me at present.This is all mounted on some sanded Core'dinations cardstock, and layered onto some Kraft Resist paper, before finally attaching to a black card.

Now the only question is am I brave enough to ask Linda for Tim's address, and send the card to him?

A Vintage Photo

New Year and and new look for my blog, mostly because I'm ashamed to say it's about a month since I even looked at a blog, and mine seemed to have gone a bit odd, so I've frittered away several hours trying to sort it out.
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I've been on a bit of a sabbatical for the last month. Actually apart from a really fun art weekend with my lovely friends Sioux and Laura at the beginning of December, I haven't even sat down and thought about making anything, so my resolution for this year is to sit down and get inky at least twice a week.
I'm just squeezing in time for the final Grungy Monday Challenge of 2011 (Number 30),which is to use Tim Holtz Tissue Tape or District Market Tissue Paper. I don't have the tissue paper so it's just tape for me, and am also going to enter this tag in January's Artistic Stamper Challenge the theme of which is Vintage, and Hel's Sunday Stamper, which is anything goes.

Here's my tag which includes stamping and embossing as well as bits and bobs of Ideology.

Sorry it's such a poor photo, but it seemed to get dark at about 2pm today here in a very rainy Wiltshire.
I'm off now to catch up with what's going on in the Blogosphere