Alphabetica T

T is for texture - always!

This postcard was easy, one side is just a selection of Golden pastes and mediums - crackle paste, fibre paste, moulding paste, garnet gel, glass ball gel, a gel with small gold mica flakes in it.  I inscribed the word 'texture' into the moulding paste, waited for it all to dry, then added a coat of azo nickle gold fluid acrylic paint, and rubbed it around with a baby wipe to thin it out, spread it round, and remove brush marks.

The second side involved metal tape.  I love this stuff - made from aluminium in various widths, with a sticky back.  It's made for builders to use on pipes and roofs, I think.

I stuck several pieces of tape onto the card, about 3 layers in all.  I created some 'rivet' marks on the left, just poking it with a pencil, and wrote the title of the page in the bottom left corenr.  I ran the whole thing through the Wizard embossing machine, using a Tim Holtz embossing folder, the dabbed it all over with Stream alcohol ink (Ranger brand). 

Friendly plastic butterfly

I made a friendly plastic butterfly for the Amaco butterfly competition - all the entries will go to the holocaust museum, each to represent a child who died. I had decided not to enter the competition, as I was very busy at the time, plus international postage is expensive. But somebody from Amaco emailed me and asked if I would submit an entry, which was flattering...

I made this in a bit of a hurry, and it's not as good as I would have liked, but I didn't have time to re-do it, so off it went! It was on display on the Amaco stand at CHA 2010!


The butterfly is about 4 inches across, and I used a colouring technique I learnt from Liz Welch - doodled alcohol ink. I didn't have time to take step by step pics when I was making the butterfly, but have included some from an earlier project (below) so that you can see how easy it is to do. To make the butterfly, I used 2 wing shapes cut from doodled sticks and a body made from a piece cut from a fuschia stick. I joined them all together by dipping the edges into hot water for a few moments then pressing them together and holding in position for a few moments. The antennae were made from copper wire.


To make doodled alcohol ink Friendly Plastic, take a stick of gold Friendly Plastic and drip some alcohol ink on it. The newer bright colours are good for this technique. You can blow the ink around using a straw if you like.

Keep adding aclohol ink. If you're blowing it with a straw, you will find that the ink you're blowing comes to a sudden stop when it touches dry ink. So, eventually you will have to drip or dab the ink into the gaps.

This is what the finished piece looks like, along with the inks I used.

Now take a white Sakura souffle pen, and draw around the blobs using wriggly lines, then infill with doodles, until the piece is doodled all over.


Easy to do, and looks very effective. Liz uses it to make beautiful pendants, by cutting it to shape and size and laying it into bezels, then covering with layers of resin and trapping doodles or tiny embellishments between the layers.

An interesting swap

I've been involved in an interesting swap over the last 2 weeks or so. We were divided into groups of 4 players. The idea is that each player made 4 ATCs using their own stamp, then mailed the stamp onto the next player, who made 4 ATCs then mailed the stamp on to the next player, and so on. Once we had worked with all 4 stamps, we mailed a set of the 4 ATCs we had made to the other players. I was in 2 groups, and here are the ATCs I made.

This was made using a Home Impressions stamp provided by Rosie - I used half of the stamp, rotated and stamped 3 times. The background was 4 Radiant Rain interference colours sprayed onto black card stock. I stamped with versamark and embossed with Moonlight Bronze Obsidian embossing powder from Lindy's Stamp Gang, and punched some small flowers from plain black card and glued them on. I mounted the image onto a striped silver metallic background, which I coloured with Brilliance Pearlescent Crimson ink.


This was Mawgan's stamp - made by Paper Artsy - background was made from Amaeretti de Soronno biscuit wrappers glued onto cardstock and coated with gesso, then stamped with Ranger archival ink in sepia. The 'ribbon' down the side is self adhesive paper ribbon, which I coloured with distress ink. The heart was punched form a hand made background paper, embossed in a cuttlebug folder, and highlighted with Teasure Gold. A few tiny copper coloured peel offs finished it off.


The background for this ATC is stamped with Brilliance Coffee Bean ink onto some glossy cardstock coloured with alcohol inks, using a Madjac stamp. Liz's stamp was the inkspot and text stamp, which I stamped onto shrink plastic, texturised while still hot, and attached with a brad. There is a face behind the shrink plastic 'door'.


This was Carol's stamp. I struggle with Victorian images, and had trouble with this stamp, which didn't 'grab' me. Eventually I stamped it onto a Twelve x 12 paper using purple ink and green iridescent embossing powder, then stamped some faint scrolls in the corners with a chalk ink. I added a polymer clay butterfly to finish, and mounted it onto purple pearlescent cardstock.


Annie was mean to me, she knows I love this stamp by Cory Celaya, but find it hard to use. Well, I had to use it this time LOL. I stamped the background by stamping the stamp 3 times in 3 colours, offsetting it each time. I stamped the image onto 'mother of pearl' fantasy film using blue Stazon ink, and cut round the image and used this as the focal point. I made a sheet of 'paper' by fusing angelina fibres together with inclusions of fantasy film, and cut small squares out and added them to the ATC with wire, threading small beads onto the wire to add interest. Finally, I mounted it onto dark purple pearlescent card.


This was an interesting stamp, by Queen's Dresser Drawers, again from Annie. I had some 'wrap around' cardboard ATC holders, so daubed them with several colours of Radiant Rain, then embossed them inside and out with 2 texture stamps and Moonglow Bronze Obsidian embossing powder. I made polymer clay embellishments as 'closures'. These were black clay pushed into home made silicone moulds which had been brushed with PearlEx, and 'cooked' for 15 minutes in the Melt Pot. The ATC inside was stamped onto 'waste' paper which has overspray of Radiant Rain from other projects, and embossed with the same embossing powder. I punched holes down the left hand side and mounted onto deep red cardstock.


This was my own stamp. I stamped it onto a hand made background, layered some of the paper 'ribbon' which I'd coloured to match on top, and mounted it all onto some dark green textured card stock.


This was also my stamp, by Queens Dresser Drawers, stamped onto a background paper made by spraying gold colourwash spray from Outside the Margins onto watercolour paper, then stamping the image and embossing with Moonglow Bronze embossing powder, and adding a black Hearty air dry clay shell moulded piece coloured with Treasure Gold.

I will ask the other players in the swap if I can add their ATCs to this post so that you can see how we each used the same stamps. Watch this space!

Deco Book

Here is my page in somebody else's Deco book...




I covered the cardstock with metal tape, added colour with alcohol inks, added a packing tape image transfer, framed it with some german scrap and stamped some leaves.

Stampers Anonymous ATC

The deadline was looming for a swap using a Stampers Anonymous stamp,
and all but a few of my stamps & craft supplies
are hiding behind a mountain of furniture - moved as a
result of remodelling my living room.

Luckily, I had taken this stamp to Art & Soul with me,
along with my Stazon and a few alcohol inks..

I hope my swap partner likes the result!

Altered Art????

At the end of our last holiday, we wasted a lot of time
at the airport looking for our suitcase because
somebody else picked it up up by mistake.

We finally caught up with them at the bus stop outside
(purely by chance) and exchanged bags.

I always put my name and address inside my suitcase,
so we would probably have got it back in the end,
but I don't need this sort of hassle!

I wanted to be sure I would be able to
spot my suitcase on an airport carousel.

It was a sort of plain silver colour.

Now it is themed with the season!


I'm not sure it's finished, but I like it better already!

And I certainly won't confuse it with anybody else's suitcase.

Just hope nobody else likes it enough to steal it...

A belated chunky page

Here is a chunky page I made back in April.
I have not been able to post pictures until now because
this was part of a surprise chunky book,
which was presented to the recipient yesterday.

(front of page - closed)


The book was thought up by Debra Cochran,
as a way of saying a special thankyou to
Kathy 'Sweetpea' Beringer, who had done a
fantastic job of hosting a number of chunky books
on CC Swaps group.


(front of page - open)


68 people each made one page for this book -
which had to have a crown shape at the top -
and each and every one of them made an
extra effort to make their page special.

I added an Art quote to the front of my page because
I know Sweetpea likes art quotes,
and a fish because I know she likes fishing!

My page is made from mirror card with
texture added by using a rough embossing powder
(Marcasite by Stewart Gill) then coloured with Steam & Rust
alcohol inks. The front 'flap' is made from fun foam,
heated and stamped into, then painted with
Stewart Gill paints and finished with wax rub ons.

The fish was stamped onto a piece of 'caught in crystal'
and mounted onto a piece of background made by using
Posh Inks on glossy card, layered with some textured paper.

(back of page)

On the backs of our pages, we each wrote a little about
why we appreciate Sweetpea,
and included a photo of ourselves on the page
so that she can put a face to our names.

I understand Sweetpea quite liked the book :-)

Metal ATCs

More ATCs for a swap - I am on a metal kick
at the moment - these are done with sticky backed
metal repair tape (bought in the hardware or DIY store).

As the tape isn't wide enough to cover an ATC,
I cut the tape up into small pieces and stick them
down on the cardstock, then go round the edges
making dents with an embossing tool.

A quick dab with alcohol inks,
and voila! a lovely background

I've done this before for altered book pages,
but today I had one of those 'light bulb' moments!

Why not stamp on the metal tape?
I found that Stazon worked well,
then I stuck my stamped images
onto some cardstock, cut them out
and mounted them onto the ATCs

Because the metal is very thin,
it is easy to make marks on,
so if you need letters or words,
just draw them onto the tape,
cut them out, and stick them down!

Altered board books 2

I may be getting the hang of blogging
but my new scanner is defeating me....

My old Canon used to take great scans of 3D objects, but this HP one
definitely doesn't like things protruding from the page!

I wish the image was better, but perhaps it is fitting,
as Bren's book has been the most challenging yet.

The theme was YOU (as in ME!!!) and I found it really
difficult - perhaps I don't know who I am...
But I do know what I like, so went with that.

The background was something I wanted to try out, and I really love
the effect - it is pieces of shiny metal repair tape from the DIY store,
all cut up into small rectangles and stuck down,
then little dents put in using the end of a dry embossing tool.

I coloured it with stream alcohol ink and some gold mixative.
I took a permanent marker and wrote things about myself,
my likes, loves, and dislikes around the edge of the page.

At this point I came to a complete standstill for a couple of weeks
because I couldn't decide which images to finish the page with,
or how to apply them. I have laid many stamped images
and photographs onto the page
and taken them off as they just weren't 'right'.

Finally, I realised I didn't want to obscure the background,
so as you can see, I have used packing tape transfers
for the images - all of which are of things I love!

More mirror card

I coloured my textured mirror card with alcohol inks - Stream & Rust. It looks much better and more brightly coloured in real life - I am discovering the limitations of scanners in capturing the
shininess!




I also created this mirror card ATC, again coloured with alcohol inks, but with some stamping and heat embossing, too.

I like this mirror card a lot - my latest passion!

Mirror card

I have been playing with mirror card. It has interesting possibilities. I am working on a chunky book and want the pages to be very colourful but also interestingly textured. I took some mirror card and stamped it using a texture stamp & versamark ink. I then added Stewart Gill Lead patina embossing powder and heat embossed. I will colour the page with alcohol inks, and then add the main image by layering another piece onto this background.








This is an ATC background experiment. I took some silver mirror card, and coloured it with yellow & red Pinata alcohol inks. I didn't much like it, the inks don't seem to blend together as well as the Ranger alcohol inks, and it looked a bit 'spotty'. I stamped it with versamark and a texture stamp, then heat embossed with a deep green embossing powder. This was a big improvement. The colours were still too harsh, so I gave it a quick dab or three of Stream alcohol ink, which turned the underlying yellow & red inks into greens and a reddy brown. I really like this now, all I have to think of is how to add an image without spoiling the background!




The last mirror card experiment of the day was a happy accident! I had coloured some silver mirror card with Stream alcohol ink, and wanted to add a gold dragonfly image. I wanted instant gratification, and didn't wait long enough for the alcohol ink to dry properly. I stamped my dragonfly with versamark, and coated the card with gold embossing powder. When I tapped the powder off, there were splodges of embossing powder all over the card - in all the areas where the alcohol ink had been thickest. Not what I wanted at all! I decided to try and retrieve the card by brushing the embossing powder off. It brushed off beautifully, and then I discovered that the alcohol ink had been brushed off with the versamark and embossing powder, leaving the mirro card showing through to make a silver image. I know that Stazon will dissolve alcohol ink, but the results are not crisp and clear, or even very predictable! This image is very clear and fine - even if the scan isn't! I had planned to stamp and emboss the image again, but this is so ethereal, I don't want to cover it up. And the next time I create this effect it will be intentional!!!



On a completely different topic, it is a public holiday here in the UK, and in our normal tradition for public holidays, it is raining!!!! We have had several weeks of gorgeously sunny and warm weather, and we really need the rain, but I had quite forgotten how grey the day can seem without sunshine. The sunshione and warmth have made several of my garden plants peform spectacularly this year, and they are so beautiful I thought I would share: