Using Up Some of Those Hoarded Supplies

Helllllo!! Well, summer is officially over now as the Kiddo's started school this past week. Now, I get the pleasure of trying to figure out three different schedules again!! The sport practices are what throw me for a loop!! All three boys are involved in one or two different sports, so keeping track of who is where and when can get my head a spinnin', LOL!

I needed to come up with yet another masculine teenage birthday card this weekend.  Of course, MoJo decided to throw a little fit since I've neglected her for a while and decided not to cooperate when I needed her most! Go figure!! You would think that by now I'd realize that I am not one of those who can just turn on the "WOW" creative juices on a whim!! I need to keep that line dripping at all times or it takes a while to get the wheels turning again!!

I had a very vague idea floating in my head, but have to admit that the supplies (or lack of) dictated that I forge a different route.  While not the direction I would have preferred to go, given my last minute ahem! deadline and lack of MoJo, I'm thankful that I got a card made and used up a bit of of chipboard pieces that I have had in my stash forevah!!!

I started with some Pure Luxury card stock in Ivory, because much to my dismay, I discovered that I'm out of white!! YIKES!! I dripped a couple of drops of Distress Shabby Shutters and Tumbled Glass on my craft sheet and spritzed with water.

Using an old toothbrush I splattered the watered down ink on the front of my card.

I did a little sponging around the edges of the card with Distress Ink Vintage Photo.  I then decided to keep things simple and adhered some old DCWV chipboard embellishments and idea-ology alpha parts Ransom numbers that I swiped with Distress Paint in Picket Fence.

Not necessarily a WOW card, but it rated a "That's cool" from the Youngest Kiddo, so that must count for something!!

Now I just need to keep that trickle of ideas going!!

'Till next time.................hope you have a creative week!!

Splattered Birthday

One of my goals for this year is to actually use the supplies I already have in my overwhelming stash versus buying the newest version that has come out.  I have to say that overall I have been successful, but it does require some serious pondering when one has an inspiration but lacks the supplies to accomplish the look.

I needed a card for a 12 y/o boy this past weekend and really liked this card by Heather Campbell.   I lack owning any "splattered" stamps or stencils.  I experimented with some alcohol inks and Distress Ink refills and a can of compressed air (the type you use to clean off your computer keyboard).  I finally settled on the Distress Ink splattered look.

I dropped Distress Reinkers in Tumbled Glass, Shabby Shutters and Barn Door onto Pure Luxury card stock and "splattered" by spraying the drops with the compressed air. I then wet a small paint brush with water and dipped it into another drop of Barn Door reinker and tapped it against my hand to get the smaller splatters. Stamped the sentiment (from SU's retired It's Your Birthday) using Archival Jet Black ink. Rounded the corners using a punch and matted onto a scrap of Riding Hood Red paper.  Base is Pure Luxury.

Clean, simple and quick!! Can't complain about that! LOL!

That's about it for me today!! I am seriously behind in my mile challenge with my cousins so I need to crank out the miles this week!  School starts the end of next week and there are about a million little chores to get done before the big day!!  Oh! Some days I seriously need a clone!

'Till next time.................

Epic Failures

This past week creative endeavors were all epic FAILURES.  Not the "I don't like how this turned out" failure. I mean, all out FAIL, as in DID NOT WORK AT ALL FAILURE.

I believe I have mentioned that I was lucky to win a spot in Claudine Hellmuth's Technique Toolbox Class from Big Picture Classes.  Now, even though I have not actually created any projects with the techniques I have learned, I have enjoyed the class immensely! Well, I decided that I wanted to try a couple of the transfer techniques that Claudine shared.

EPIC FAILURE.

Before I explain the EPIC FAILURE let me be perfectly clear that the failure is completely on my end.

I didn't follow the most important step in the directions.

All the transfer techniques require a laser print copy of a picture.  I own an ink jet printer.  And while it has been said again and again that laser prints are easily obtained by visiting your local Kinko's, post office, even grocery store copy machine, the extra steps it would require me to make such copy just did not appeal (or fit into my schedule).

So, I attempted the techniques with ink jet copies that I had sealed with a workable fixative.

Have I mentioned EPIC FAILURE?

I am also apparently a slow learner because I tried not once, but SEVERAL times to get a decent transfer.

Ink jet copy sprayed with fixative and adhered to sticky back canvas.

I actually LOVED this look!!  After peeling off the paper, I left the soaked canvas to dry 

sob, sob!  This is what I came back to a while later!  The wet inks continued to spread and diffuse.  My once cool image was no longer so cool!!

So, I tried this same method AGAIN with the thought that I'd immediately dry the canvas.

Like the picture?!  Uh, the cool thing about transfers is, no two are exactly the same.  And the second transfer totally hit the completely smeared ink level immediately.  

And it went immediately in the trash.

The next transfer technique I tried was into wet gesso.  I heard that sometimes the chalky texture of gesso will allow ink jet copies adhere and work with the transfer.  

Not so much for me!

My next attempt I used a charcoal pencil to outline the darker lines of the image.  I then had a major brain freeze.  I first spread out some distress inks on my surface covered with gesso, BUT didn't think what type of medium I was going to try to have the image transfer into. I placed my copy paper into the wet ink and gave it a rub.  The inks transferred to the paper and this was the result.  Not a transfer, but kind of a cool look!!

So, why did I decide to share all my EPIC FAILURES?

We all know that not every project or idea is a zinger, but yet, all we share are the projects that we deem "presentable" or blog worthy. I decided that I was going to share these EPIC FAILURES because it was time learning.  How can one succeed without the willingness to fail? 

I'm trying to learn to embrace my creative failures.  They might not be blog worthy or "presentable", but they are stepping stones to letting creative ideas flow.  And ideas will eventually lead to success.  It might take several attempts or it might take thousands of attempts, but as long as the ideas keep flowing, one will see creative success.

'Till next time.........don't be afraid to fail!!

Tinting Black and White Photos

Hello People!

I had originally planned on getting this post completed before we left on vacation last week.  Well, it would seem that getting all those little "before you leave on vacation" chores done and trying to get last minute laundry done without a working dryer took up all my time!

Do you have any idea how long it takes to dry a full load of laundry with only air and no heat?!!  I was wishing for a laundry line in the backyard so I could hang up all the clothes!  I'm sure it would have sped that chore up considerably!!!

As I'm sure you didn't drop by to hear my laundry woes, I thought I'd finally share the attempt at tinting the black and white photos I took a couple of weeks ago with acrylic paint.

I'm taking Claudine Hellmuth's Technique Toolbox online class from Big Picture Classes. This particular class may be closed to registration now.  One of the techniques that was taught is to tint black and white photos using acrylic paints and Claudine's Extra Time, slow dry medium.   I don't have this particular medium and as I am really trying to use all the goodies I have accumulated over the years so I tried this technique first with some glaze used for faux painting techniques and with a floating medium from Plaid/FolkArt.

Don't try the glaze. Just sayin'.  The glaze pulled up the ink from my photos rendering a blackish puddle of ick.

The floating medium was more successful as long as I had a light hand applying the paint.  It also pulled up some of the ink from the photos, but I rather liked the effect it created.  I found that the thinner consistency I mixed the paint and floating medium, the better.  If I worked the area too much, I started pulling the ink off the photo.

If you look closely, you can see the petals where the floating medium pulled off some of the ink off the petals.  They would be the ones that have a more blueish tint.  While the faux painting glaze just made a bluish octopus ink smear, I thought the floating medium pulling the ink slightly gave the petals a bit more dimension and shaded look.

This flower I added a bit of a brown tint near the bottom of the petals and along the center. Very faint, but again, adds a bit more dimension and shading.

Oh my!  This is not a success in my book, LOL!!  The streaks that you see on the petals is where the paint and medium just pulled up the print.  I also managed to get a nice black ink smear on one of the petals. By letting the paint dry some, I was able to carefully work out the smudge, but at the expense of pulling up more of the photo base.  This one is NOT a favorite of mine!  Not sure if it is the color, the lack of skill in application or a combination of both!! LOL!

 I am thinking about trying to seal the photos prior to applying the paint and see if I can keep the ink from bleeding. 

Or, I could just take a deep breath and order some of Claudine's Extra Time and see if it makes a difference with my ink jet printer!! HA!

Now to figure out how to use these photos in a project. Or maybe, they will just go in my "possibility" file for a while!

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Vacation was spent at Flagstaff, AZ and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  I will save all those details for another post! I have decreased the 400+ pictures I took down to 300+, but need to weed out more before posting.  You're welcome! LOL!

'Till next time..............