A-Z techniques - P for Polished Stone

Continuing on with the A-Z techniques, this month is P. I chose to do the polished stone technique. Instead of using the dye inks and metallic acrylic paint, I used alcohol inks and Lumiere paints. The other "P's" are parrot and paint pen.

I covered a piece of glossy cardstock with some rubbing alcohol then dabbed three colours of alcohol ink over the surface. I then dabbed on some copper coloured Lumiere paint.

For the P image I used a parrot from Dover publications, printed it, cut around it and pasted it on the ATC.

I used a chipboard alphabet P and coloured it with a Marvy Metallic paint pen.

To complete it I die cut a Cuttlebug Corner die and embossed it with copper embossing powder.

L technique in A-Z techniques

Continuing on with the A-Z techniques in ArtVentures the latest is L. Initially I had made some ATC's using the Lumiere paint scraping technique, a lattice border and a love stamp. I was not entirely happy with them so I made another set using a different technique and I can use the original ones for RAKS.

The technique that  I decided to use for the L technique to send out to the participants is the layered background technique from Hero Arts and some Graphic 45 lady images.

I cut my watercolour paper to size and stamped embossed a small  Hero Arts  stamp in white. I added the Old Paper distress ink on a clear acrylic block, spritzed with water and placed it on the paper allowing the colour to seep into the paper.

I then stamped a Magenta background stamp over the top (I stamped off a couple of times to make it lighter). I added several colours of distress ink to a craft sheet and wiggled a Penny Black stamp over the inks, spritzed it with water and stamped onto the background.

To complete the cards I cut out some ladies from Graphics 45 paper.

Inchie swap

I have signed up for a swap on the Dream, Create Inspire group where we are using a frame from Blumoth Crafts. Eleven people joined the swap, and we create the inchies using a colour scheme and and in some cases a theme chosen by each person. We have two inchies, the centre and the frame to complete our own when we receive our inchies in the swap. I have decided to wait until I receive my inchies before completing the frame.

I coated the inchies with gesso then used Acrylic paints, Metallic Paints, Lumiere paints, Perfect Pearls, Pearlex, and some of my stamps and stamping supplies such as Smooch inks, and pigment inks to do the bases. On some I used molding paste, others I used papers and even some netting type paper.

The embellishments are scrapbooking pieces, old buttons, old pieces of jewellery, brads and other "doodads".

I am really looking forward to seeing all the tiny works of art that everyone makes and the completed frames.

Mini Memory for Carol

I am on a roll with these Mini Memories and am thoroughly enjoying the creative process so much.

Carol A. chose the theme of birds/birdhouses and the colours mint green, white and pale mauve (with a condition that we could use pale pink in lieu of the mauve).

I started by painting gesso on a 3x3 chipboard square. I then added mint green pigment ink and embossed with mint pearl embossing powder. I stamped a background stamp into while hot using Old Rose pigment ink.

I recently picked up some small wooden house pieces at my little dollar store and thought they would be perfect for a bird house. My hubby drilled a hole for the entry and the perch. I painted the house with gesso, then white paint, then pink paint on the roof. I added some sequins for the tiles which Annie sent me a while back. To finish off the roof I added a piece of white german scrap paper which my friend Mel sent me.

I added a piece of the stick from a Q-tip as the perch. I took a washer and coloured it with pearlescent turquoise Lumiere` paint and put this over the entry. I stamped a leafy type Magenta stamp on the body but felt it needed more dimension so I took some Glossy Accents and added some green seed beads (which looked more mint green in the bottle). Felt it needed a bit more so when the green beads dried a bit I added some pink seed beads to give it a bit of a floral effect.

The little bird is the one that was originally on Trizzy's Mini Memory and I attached it to the roof to make it look like it was coming in to the bird house. The final touch was to add the word home with some little alphabet beads.

I hope Carol does not mind my taking artistic license with the colour combo, as I tried to stay as close as possible to her colour choice with the supplies I had on hand.

Brocade

Over on CC Swaps Adrienne is running a Mystery swap. She broke down and gave us the instructions early, and the Mystery is Brocade using polymer clay. You can get the directions here

As instructed I conditioned and rolled out the black clay, then added 4 coats of metallic paint to each piece. I chose to use Lumiere paints for the base coat, copper, gold and silver.

I used some embossing mats to imprint the clay after dusting them with my anti-static pad.
I added some cheap acrylics over this, and rolled it out again. I cut them into shapes and baked as directed.

For this first batch, I think I was too heavy handed with the acrylics and was not really happy with them.

The second batch, I followed the same procedure, but used large background stamps to imprint the clay. I used Winsor Newton Finity acrylics and Luna Lites after imprinting. I think the better quality paints and a lighter hand definitely made a difference in the final outcome I rolled out another piece of clay, imprinted it with a text stamp, added some Pearlex and baked it then adhered the tree piece to it. After making this I saw an idea on a blog and thought I would make a little book since I have some small chipboard book cover pieces.

I took the embossed chipboard and coloured it with yellow gold and burnt orange Mica Magic. I adhered the Brocade piece to this. I took some index cards and cut them to size and rounded them with a corner rounder punch and punched a hole in the corner. The back is also coloured with Mica magic and a saying stamped in Versafine onyx black. These are pics of the book closed and open.

March It-Girl

The ArtVenture It-Girl for March is Karen and her theme is Shrines. This is something that I have never done before and I really struggled with the theme. I made several attempts but was not happy with them, so back to the drawing board.

I was looking for something in my spare room and came across some small picture frames and thought they might work for the shrine. I settled on one that had a deeper "box" for the picture and a nice leafy motif.

The frame was a dull gold tone and I decided to jazz it up a bit. I started by painting it with gold Lumiere paint, then dry brushed silver, turquoise, blue an pink around it. The bottom was done with bronze.

The centre (background) is a matchbox into which I placed a piece of cardboard covered with plumbers a tape which I embossed with my Cuttlebug and dabbed with Alcohol inks.

The image is a postage stamp honouring Star Trek figures, but it looked a bit like an old Monk to me so thought it fit the theme. I adhered it to a Style Stone and edged with Krylon pen. I attached it with some E6000.

The charm at the top was silver, but seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, so I coloured it with some Adirondack Markers before attaching it. I added the gems and the flower embellishment to complete it.  I also glued the stand onto the back again so that it can sit on her desk or another piece of furniture, if she chooses. I hope Karen will be as pleased with the piece as I am.

12 Days of Christmas

We did another Twelve Days of Christmas swap again this year on CC Swaps, and were only allowed to sign up twice. I had been thinking about this for a while and had some silk scarves that a vendor very generously sent me when I commented on her instructions that she posted. I ordered some more from her and set to work on decorating them.

I coloured the white ones with dye inks and some with pigment sprays. Stamped with pigment inks and then heat set them, rinsed them and heat set them again. The black ones were stamped with Lumiere paint and heat set.

For the second set of gifts I bought some trinket boxes and altered them. I painted the tops then added acrylic gold mica flakes to some, tiny beads, buttons, air dried clay pieces (received from Adrienne last year) and various other things from my stash.

Domino Swap

Sweetpea is hosting a Domino/game piece swap over on CC Swaps. I debated about joining, then I remembered that I had some dominoes which I had prepared a while ago, but had never done anything with them.

The top left is coloured with Brilliance ink and stamped with Ancient Page. 

Top middle: done with a bit of dye ink rubbed on and dried then stamped the Hearts in Touch (HIT) image with Memories ink.

Top right: Alcohol inks dabbed on, then stamped with Mica Magic Pearl ink.

Middle left: painted with copper paint pen, stamped with HIT image with Stazon black ink.

Bottom row: Stamped the houses with Stazon and coloured them with Sharpies. When dry, I put a coat of varnish over it.

Middle was painted with Lumiere paint, stamped the image "Lady with Pearl Earring" and covered it with transparency and glued it to the domino. I then stamped and embossed the Magenta image on the top with Platinum ink & EP, and added the little charm.

The Thistle: background is Brilliance inks; stamped the image with Memeories ink, and colored it with sharpies.

Of course, the final piece (the little hand) is not a game piece; it is a Style Stone which I coloured with Mica Magic inks.

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Sketchbook page 2

The background on this page was done with Lumiere paint scraping. I added images from Dover art and some scrapbook paper.