Some Journal Fun On A Snowy Day

 
I did this page a while ago and didn't have time to post it. It is my fist try at Steampunk.  I'm happy with it.  It could probably use some more grunging up or  something but it is as steampunk as I could get.

 This is a tag that I did using a method I saw on the internet. First I used some scrapbook paper and covered a tag that I had.  I blended Vintage Photo around the edges and smudged it over the tag.  I used a stamp and black archival ink around the edge.  Then I went around the edge of the tag with a gold leaving pen.

 I used Ferro "Metal Effects" Modeling Paste through a key stencil.  Then I went over it using Viva Modeling Creme (Mother of Pearl).  I let that dry, which surprisingly didn't take long at all.  Then I used Silks acrylic glaze (Nutmeg) with my finger and I lightly tapped this on the areas of the Modeling Creme.  I love the way the key looks.  Nice and old and gungy.

 

I added some scrap lace to the bottom and some ribbon that was originally off white but I colored it with Distress spray Vintage Photo.  

 

 This cute little girl I found HERE (the page is photo intensive and takes a little while to load) As soon as I saw her I thought of the child's poem "Mary had a little lamb and wanted to do a page based on that.  I did a search for school houses and I found this  (HERE):

 

  I copy and pasted this picture into Microsoft Word and sized it to fit the page that I was using.  I cut out the desks and half of the chalk board.  I covered my background with scrapbook paper and added some stamping.  I embossed a clock stamp using a mixture of black and copper embossing powder.  I love how it turned out.  I don't think the picture does it justice.  Then I inked the edges with Vintage Photo ink.  I colored the little girl using Distress markers and a water brush and glued everything in place.  I only glued the sides and the bottom of the desks, leaving the top open so that I would be able to insert a tag.  I wrote Mary had a little lamb, added some ribbon to the top and glued some paper flowers to the top of the tag and placed it inside the desks.  So cute, if I do say so myself.

A little late with this post...

These are two pages that I did a couple of weeks ago, but a friend borrowed my camera so I couldn't get a picture.

The flash from the camera washed out the color a little.  I can't wait for winter to be over so that I can get natural lighting again.  I love this little girl.  The original photo is below.  I cut and pasted her into a Word document, sized the picture and printed it on card stock.  I did the same thing with the birds and the mushrooms.  The cage isTim Holtz "caged bird" die.  I embossed it with "aged silver" embossing powder.  Then I gave it a patina look by rubbing "Broken China" distress paint and then rubbing gold "rub n buff" randomly.  The leaf branches are from a Martha Stewart edge punch that I cut and colored with distress markers.  I added a flower that I made from the Tattered Flowers Die, cut from white card stock, colored with distress marks and attached with a brad.  I added buttons to the coat from "adhesive faux pearls" by "Recollections".  The background was created by gluing Tim Holtz tissue paper to the page. The page was then given a wash of color by spraying the page with water and  covering it using distress paint daubers.  I added some molding paste through a stincel in various areas.  I used a white Signo pen to outline some items and added the phrae "A bird's song is sweeter when he is free".  The doodles covered my phrase a little.

This was inspired from a pocket folder that my sister gave me.  When I was cleaning my work space I found the pocket and opened it to see what I had put in it.  Low and behold, it was a pocket full of posies that I punched from Tim Holtz "Tattered Flowers" die. I put them in the pocket to use at a later time.  Seeing them spill out onto my work space gave me the idea for this page.

This was so cool, I had to blog twice in one day!

 Soooo, I bought the Sizzix Apothecary Bottles die this week end.  Once I got it home and cut some out of card stock, I had no idea how to make them look like the picture on the package.  So I thought about it and had an idea.  I tried it tonight and it worked great!  So happy with the results.

First I distressed the bottle withe vintage photo using the blending tool.

Then I took my embossing ink pad ad dabbed it on the bottle until the whole bottle was covered with embossing ink.

Then I covered the bottle with UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamal)

I heated this with my heat gun until it all melted.

And here are the results.  The first bottle was a first attempt error but I still like the way it turned out.  The middle bottle I distressed using "Peeled Paint" and covering the edge with "Tea Dye".  The last bottle was distressed using "Stormy Sky". 

On one of the bottles, I didn't get enough embossing ink on it the first time. After it cooled I had to redo the emboss inking and covering it with the UTEE and reheating it and it came out great.

Nooooow, how to do the corks and the labels......hmmmmmm.

I had a lot of fun trying techniques that I found through Pinterest!

Below are five tags that I made today.

 The background on these two tags were done using Inka-gold metallic rubs.  You can watch the video tutorial here.  The colors made me think of peacocks, which is why I stamped a peacock feather and a peacock on each of the tags.

 This tag was using black gesso as the base.   I stamped a flourish with embossing ink and used Recollections "Glacier" embossing powder.  After I heated the powder with my heat tool, I painted a coat of Americana Acrylic paint (Light Buttermilk) over the whole tag.  Then using a baby wipe, I rubbed most of the paint off giving it a shabby chic look.  You can see the video tutorial for this one here.

 This was a Tim Holtz video.  I must say that my attempt doesn't look half as good as the one that Tim did, BUT, I did have a lot of fun following along and doing all the different layers.  You can view that video tutorial here.

I played with Tim Holtz crackle paints.  For this tag, I painted the whole tag with Americana Acrylic Paint "Heritage Red".  I let that dry completely and then painted the whole tag again with Tim Holtz Crackle Paint, "Picket Fence".  I let the tag dry by itself, which is the recommended method rather than using a heat tool on it

The left side of the tag is the effect of the two paints.  The right side of the tag I used "Tea Dye" distress ink with a blending tool.  This is a good way to tone down the white but is not really needed to see the crackle.  Very, very cool!

This tag I did on my own.  I took a vintage photo from my stash and cut out the little girl.  I then painted her with Tim Holtz Distress paint, "Clear Rock Candy.  You can see the effect on the top photo.  Then I added her to a tag that I colored using distress Ink pads added a couple stamps and outlined the photo to help it pop a little bit more.  Sorry, there isn't a video for this one.

Trying New Techniques.....New for me that is.

 I used the acrylic paint resist technique.  I inked a fern stamp with lettuce green acrylic paint and stamped the tag.  I ended up  doing it twice because the first time I did it, I pressed the stamp too hard and smooched the paint.  Then I distressed it with various colors of distress ink using a blending tool.  I cut the bird from Tim Holtz, "Bird And Branch" die and cut off the branch.  I stamped the bird nest with eggs and tried to color them in....it ended up looking very muted and lost its detail.  So I went back in with my micron pen and scratched the detail back.  I added the eggs from some scrap that I had in my stash.  I'm not real impressed with the results.

 This was an emboss resist using Gelato's for the background.  It's pretty simple to do.  I embossed the image and the saying with clear embossing powder.  I rubbed the Gelato's across the background and used a paintbrush and water to spread it evenly over the card.  I guess I should have used a color ink instead of clear embossing ink.  Live and learn.  Still, I think it is cute and has potential.

I love this one but mostly because I love the bird stamp.  I used the ghosting technique with this one.  I covered the tag with distress inks using a blending tool.  I used a background stamp and sprayed it with water.  Then I stamped the card.  I lifted the stamp, let the water sit for a few seconds and then dried it with my heat tool.  If you double click on the picture you can see the results a little better.  Then I stamped the bird and colored it in using my distress markers.  So cute!

This is a tag that I played with a while ago.  I did the background using Gelato's and painting over with water.  Then I used my flourish stamp and rubbed the Gelato's on it, sprayed it with water and stamped the card in various spots.  I took a stencil that had dots or holes on it and ran a green Gelato's over it.  I cut two hearts out of an old dictionary page and colored it with Gelato's and blending it with water.  I glued the hearts on the tag and then to help them stand out a little, I colored around them with a black Gelato and blended it by rubbing it with my finger

So Excited About How This Turned Out!

 I made a trip to Hobby Lobby yesterday.  I saw these embossing folders by Vintaj, in the jewelry isle.  I hadn't seen these before and didn't know that they were designed to emboss metal.  When I came home and started reading about them, I was disappointed because I don't do jewelry and I thought that I had wasted my money.  I thought about returning them but decided to open the package and see what it looked like.  As you can see above, it looks just like an embossing folder only it is metal.  I wasn't sure how well it would work with paper, would it tear it, would it poke holes in it?  Then I thought, what would happen if I used cardboard and embossing powder to give it a metal look.  I am very happy and excited with the results.  If you watch this video, you can see the intended use of this product.

I cut a 1 1/2 inch square of cardboard.  The kind that comes at the back of a tablet of paper.

 

 I placed the square so that the image of the single bird was centered on the card.   I closed the folder over the cardboard.

 

I placed the folder in my cuddlebug sandwich, A plate, B plate, emboss folder with cardboard sandwiched in, B plate.

I ran the sandwich through my cuddlebug.

 Opened the sandwich to find this wonderful emboss.  The next step was to see if I could give it a look of metal by using embossing powder.

 I placed the embossed card on my embossing ink pad with the raised image facing the pad. I pressed the card and swiped it across the pad to ensure the whole card was covered.

I covered the card with Recollections copper embossing powder.

 I applied heat and watched the embossing powder melt and reveal the image.

 

How cool is this?

 

My next thought was, can I give it a patina look?  I purchased this ink (sorry the picture is blurry) with the embossing folder and thought, what the hech, lets see what happens.   So I squeezed a little ink onto a paper plate.  I dabbed my finger into the ink and rubbed it on the copper.  I used a damp paper towel to remove any excess.

 

 

 I LOVE how this looks and can think of so many ways to use it as an embellishment in my other crafts.

I tried it a second time using my favorite embossing powder Recollections, Aged Silver.  This one didn't turn out as well, due to the fact that the embossing powder was too thick and washed out the dry embossed image.  So I started wondering if I embossed the card with embossing powder first, could I then run it through the cuttlebug to dry emboss it.  I really thought that it wouldn't work because it would crack the melted embossing powder.

I started by cutting my 1 1/2 inch cardboard and coating it with embossing ink.

T

 I covered it with the powder and shook off the excess.  I applied heat with my heat gun.  You have to heat this one from the bottom of the card.  The powder is chunky and if you apply the heat on the top, it blows the bigger chunks off.

This is the result.  Another thing to be careful of is applying too much heat in any one spot.  This causes the pigment in the powder to turn clear.  You can see at the top of this card where I was a little heavy handed with the heat gun.

Next, I placed the card on the raised side of the embossing folder, over the part of the image that I wanted embossed and placed the card powder side up.  I closed the folder and squished it with my hands some because the embossing made it very thick.  I made my cuttlebug sandwich the same as before and ran it through.  I have to say that I was hesitant about continuing because it was hard getting it through.  I thought that I was either going to break one of the plates, which could be replace relatively cheaply, or worse, I would break my cuttlebug, which would be a lot more expensive to replace.  It was a very tight fit but it went through.  I did learn that I should put less of a coat of powder on the card so that it isn't as thick.

This is what I saw when I opened the folder...still not sure if it worked.  I picked the card off and look what I saw.

Sooooo cool!

These are more results of playing with this technique.  The third card on the top is the card that didn't work because the powder washed out the dry embossed image.  I decided to punch it with my star punch and use some of the patina ink on it.  Another nice surprise!  Then I wondered if I could use the same method using my Tim Holtz embossing folders or my Cuttlebug embossing folders.  I cut another piece of cardboard, picked a section of image from the Gears folder.  I ran it through the Cuttlebug and the image embossed beautifully.  I applied the copper embossing powder and heated it and look at the results.  How fun!