Showing posts with label Distress Crackle Paste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Distress Crackle Paste. Show all posts

Mixed Media is a marathon. A card idea can come together and get produced relatively fast most of the time, but a big mixed media project takes time. The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge to use a bit of green sent me off in every direction. This giant tag is 6 1/4" x 9 1/4". I started with Tim Holtz Backdrops Vol 5 and chose an "Old Paper" piece. I cut it to a tab shape and matted it on black cardstock.  Instead of using actual stitching around the edge, I used a very old 49 & Market stamp set called Gabi's Line Stitching and stamped my stitching around the edge. Using Tim Holtz Blossom Stencil and his Opaque Crackle Paste I stenciled onto the paper. To knock down some of the brightness of the crackle paste, I dabbed on Old Paper Distress Ink. 




I rarely use my alcohol inks because I am usually not happy with my results, but this time I just wanted green. I used Ranger Alcohol Ink in Moss along with a little bit of Chronicle on a piece of Duralar paper to just get a mass of green. I die cut this with Tim Holtz Nested Hexagons dies and made a lot of hexagons and hexagon frames. I glued those down, some with foam adhesive. I splattered the tag with Distress Paint in Picket Fence. I took Tattered Rose Distress Spray Stain and Antique Linen Spray Stain and made a mass of an orange-y coral color on Canson XL watercolor paper. I cut 2 of the Tim Holtz Scribbly Butterflies from this and glued them together at the center. 




Next, I fussy cut these 2 amazing flowers from another sheet from the backdrops. That took time. Since the big flower was so fragile, I glued it to a piece of heavyweight vellum that I had already heat embossed with Peeled Paint Distress Embossing Glaze and Tim Holtz Floral Outlines stamp set (my favorite TH stamp set). I glued the small flower directly onto 2 hexagons. Since I wanted to lighten up the area behind my big flower, I put some thread along with a strip of Tim Holtz Mummy Cloth beneath it. I adhered the flower and vellum with carefully hidden foam adhesive. 


Finally, I inked and matted 2 phrases from Tim Holtz Idea-ology Clippings Sticker Book onto black cardstock and adhered them with foam adhesive. I tied some beautiful green Vivant ribbon around the hole I punched at the top. 


I am entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge and the Make My Monday Challenge and the Inspiration Station Challenge.


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Another "let's throw everything at the wall and see what looks good" card. I needed to make a graduation card and it only had 2 requirements: 1. It needed to says Congrats and 2. It needed to have a lot of burnt orange on it. If you're from Texas, you already know that means that the intended recipient is a very-soon-to-be University of Texas graduate (Go Horns!). Honestly, I don't know him well at all. His parents, however, are old friends of mine.

I wanted to use my Floating Leaves Stencil from Simon Says Stamp and incorporate some texture paste. There is a slimline card by Debby Hughes that I really love (and uses this stencil) and I was inspired by its design.

I started with a scrap piece of watercolor paper 3.25" wide and about 10" long. First, I inked up one of my favorite background stamps "Script" by Wendy Vecchi. Since I was going to put water on the paper, I chose the Gina K Amalgam ink in dark brown. I loosely inked up the stamp and stamped several times on the paper. I made sure the ink was dry and then I used Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paste through the Floating Leaves stencil. 


Then, I smooshed Distress Oxide inks in Crackling Campfire, Ground Espresso and Rusty Hinge onto my glass mat and spritzed them with water. I used a large paintbrush to paint the colors on and mix them a bit as I went. I dabbed up some of the wet ink but that made it too pale, so I went back with more ink and when I had the coverage I liked I dried it with my heat tool. 


I love the splattered look a lot and I recently bought myself some Kuretake Gansai Tambi Starry colors 6 color palette from Amazon. The set has 6 shades of metallic gold watercolor - from white gold through to a deep red gold. At $15 this is a great set. However, if you are serious about calligraphy or watercolor painting, I recommend you watch this review of the Kuretake vs. the Colico gold watercolors by Jane-Beata on YouTube. She is an amazing watercolor artist. Sandy Allnock does one too, but it is a bit older...Anyhoo, I used the Tim Holtz Splatter brush to splatter on some gold watercolor and then some white gesso (often when I use a paintbrush to do my splattering it becomes a hot mess fast. That splatter brush is fantastic!) I trimmed my cardstock and the decorated portion was only about 7" or so long. I trimmed it and actually ended up splitting it in two to cover the extended distance with a sentiment. I matted this onto a piece of Stampin' Up! Early Espresso and then onto a Crumb Cake card base measuring 8.5 x 3.5".

I used my Cameo Silhouette and slightly altered the font Zilla Slab to make the congrats out of Early Espresso cardstock. I matted that onto a small piece of the watercolor paper to make sure the whites matched. I then got lucky enough to find a piece of gold vellum in my stash that matched the particular gold watercolor I used. I cut a tiny strip and put it at the bottom of my sentiment piece. I glued it down with foam adhesive.

Finally, I wanted some epoxy dots and it took me forever and a day to figure out how many, where and what colors. Finally went with all vanilla dots which - even though they were self-adhesive - I still used Bearly Arts glue as I needed them to stick to crackle paste. At the end, I actually went back and added a few more dots of gold watercolor as I liked the look.

Are you making graduation cards? Opting to use the school colors or not?



Texture is the name of the game for the April Poppystamps challenge, so I decided to try something different. I used a die to create a stencil and applied Distress Crackle paste to showcase the die's design.


I started with watercolor paper and liberally applied Speckled Egg Distress Spray Stain to create a mottled blue "wash" over the paper. I dried this with a heat gun and set it aside. Next, I used the Poppystamps Gilded Plate die to cut out a paper stencil from lightweight cardstock. I taped down the die cut on my watercolor paper and spread a thin layer of the crackle paste over it. I quickly lifted the paper stencil as soon as I was done. Making a stencil from paper or cardstock means it is one use only. There's no way to clean it and use it again.


After the paste was dry and cracked, I rubbed a Distress Ink Reinker in Frayed Burlap into the crackle to emphasize the texture (I was experimenting, for sure). I trimmed this panel down to 4" x 5.25" as I knew I wanted to mat it later. Next, I was ready for my foreground. I used the Floral Cluster die to cut out two shapes from watercolor paper (using the less-textured side face up this time). I used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers in two colors of green to paint these dies. I used the bird from the Poppystamps Bird House Easel Pop Up set to cut two birds - one from red cardstock and the other from watercolor cardstock. I used a Zig CC Real Brush in orange to paint one beak and trimmed this bird to easily fit behind the red one. I snipped the beak off the red bird and used a black marker to color the face and throat (the etching on the die guides you where to color). Finally, I layered the red bird on top of the one with the orange beak to make one cardinal.

Next, I used the Potpourri Flower Set to cut out a lot of flowers from white cardstock. I colored the center of each with a Zig CC Real Brush in bright yellow. I assembled all these pieces on top of the watercolor panel. I used foam adhesive to pop up the cardinal and three of the largest flowers. I matted the panel on to a Stampin' Up! Baja Breeze cardbase.



Finally, I stamped the "Hello Lovely" sentiment from the Poppystamps Colorful Life Clear Stamp set in Memento black ink on white cardstock and trimmed it at a diagonal, adding a small piece of the same Baja Breeze cardstock just behind it. I finished by adhering this sentiment to my card. 

I hope you're getting to play with your favorite crafty tools today.