Alcohol Ink Leaves for (American) Thanksgiving

Blatantly copying Linda Cain's techniques for her Fall Wreath (or Centerpiece) Design of using Alcohol Inks and Tim Holtz Sizzix die cuts. Love the colours alcohol inks give on clear plastic (with white background).

CCC #23 - Double Distress

Over at Studio L3 it's Compendium of Curiosity Challenge #23 - Double Distress. I found this a difficult technique for a couple reasons. Lighter colors on Grungeboard tend to look "dirty" because small flecks in the grungeboard tend to discolour darker than I would like. Bundled Sage and Weathered Wood didn't really work. I also had trouble getting my Distress Ink pads to apply directly to the paper as I wanted then - I often ended up with banding from the sides of the pad. I was also overly ambitious in attempting to do this multi-colour. In the end I'm happy with what I came up with.

The background is Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans with Black Soot highlights and Walnut Stain on the edges. The ornament is Adirondack Acrylic Copper on Grungeboard with some distressing. I wanted to compare acrylic metallic with alcohol ink metallic

Storage teaser

I didn't do any challenges this week - I've been taking some time to design and build some storage towers for all my ink stuff, which as I haven't really done much woodworking in the past 2 decades has involved a lot of trial and error. Here's a teaser of what I'm coming up with for Distress Ink + Reinker storage:

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 21 & Simon Says Show and Stamp

This weeks technique over at Linda's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge was Perfect Distress, which Tim actually demonstrated in one of his online video clips. The Simon Says Show and Stamp challenge was "your Favourite Tim Holtz Stamp", which I interpreted to use only one stamp, plus the sentiment. The stamp is from Stampers Anonymous Winter Wonder, and I selectively inked the snow flake stamp on it.

The background is Cool Peri Acrylic Dabber, Broken China, Stormy Sky and Weathered Wood Distress Inks. The highlight flakes are Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink and Perfect Pearl Perfect Pearls. Sentiment in Jet Black Archival Ink.

This shows the pearlescent effect. This effect is hard to photograph just right since it varies in the light.

Love this close up. Check it out in full size.

Simon Says Show & Stamp - Shabby

My entry for Simon Says Stamp and Show Something Shabby.

Products and techniques used: Grungeboard cut with Sizzix dies. Heart-Distress Crackle, Crackle Accents, Tissue Table, Distress Ink (background and cracks), Old Paper Distress Stickles (wings). Cage-Copper Metallic Mixatives, Distress Ink. Tag background: Winkle-free Distress, Stampers Anonymous stamps (Natures Elements), Idea-ology embellishments.

CCC #20 Industrial Grunge

The background is Copper and Silver Metallic Mixatives Alcohol Inks, Idea-ology game spinners and gears(distressed with a Texture Hammer), and tissue tape. The embossing folder used was a Cuttlebug one. The material for the tag is Grungeboard cut with the new Sizzix Tags and Bookplates dies. I look forward to using different materials to make tags in the future.

The technique I used for the birds was to stamp the birds with Black Soot, spray with a mini mister, dry, then go in and colour the background with Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans Distress Inks. Showing some nice background details in the full size image.

The sentiment was done with Tea Dye and Aged Mahogony DI.  Some detail on one the spinner and brad distressing.

Cheap Stickles Storage

Back with more cheap storage ideas. Here's one for storing your Stickles. Here's a completed rack containing all 41 of the current Distress Stickle colours.

 

The key is the following: 1/2 inch Schedule 40 PVC couplings from Home Depot. I got them in a 10 pack for easy counting. They were less that $2 per bag. The holder above cost me less than $8 in parts. It's not the lightest of materials - the rack weights just over 1.5 pounds.

The coupling will have 2 ends-one with writing on it, and a plain end. I ended up putting the plain side down so that they sat a bit more flush. You might need to do some light sanding since the smooth end has some slight burs and could scratch up your work surface if left un-sanded. I used hot melt to glue them together in a space efficient honeycomb type pattern. I think it kind of has a "space station part" look to it.

If you're worried about getting the Stickles out from such a tight arrangement, there is enough give inside of the couplings for the caps to move around, like a joystick. They will move out of the way when you reach in to grab one. You could also assemble the couplings into rows, and then arrange the rows in an elevating fashion.

CCC #19 & SSS

Calendar made with Frayed Burlap over Watermark Resist on a somewhat glossy cardstock (was a freebie from Eclectic Paperie). Stamped with Black Soot.

Top of background: Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord and Black Soot
Bottom of background: Scattered Stray and Wild Honey.

Sprayed with water, Forever Violet and Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls Mists.

Mask was made with .007 plastic sheet with Xyron re-positionable adhesive applied to it (I'll cover that in another post).

 

A more head on shot the shows the stamps better. The background is choice between seeing stamps, or seeing the Perfect Mists.

EDIT: Also entering this in GC74, since Watermark Resist can be used for embossing. 

Adirondack Arcylic Dabber Storage

Here are some photos of a storage solution for Adirondack Acrylic Dabbers. I used 1" Schedule 40 PVC pipe cut into 1" lengths, which I then glued together. The Schedule 40 is pretty thick, but as you can see, it doesn't add too much room between each dabber. You can pick up 2 foot lengths of PVC at Home Depot. Normally it comes in 10 foot lengths. As you can see, I used hot melt to glue the tubes together. I have no idea if this is the idea adhesive, but it worked for me.

My cutting wasn't precise - I used a PVC blade cutter which tended to make some of the cuts uneven, but it didn't really affect the outcome. Hot glue helps cover up a lot of mistakes. As you can see, the dabber cap, the clear part, rests perfectly inside the tubes. I suppose if I had a mitre saw, and wanted to created a lot of white plastic dust, I could have used that.

I originally arranged my cut pipe in section of 12, and then glue each section together. The problem with this is you have to hit 12 spots which the glue gun pretty quickly. In adding my third row of 12, I worked in sections of 3. You can see the thickness of the PVC here.

I made up a triangular arrangement which has the advantage of not requiring a straight edge to assemble, and may possible be a bit more secure.

CCC #18

My entry for CCC #18. The tag was a freebie from Eclectic Paperie and it had a coating which lead to an interesting dotting pattern when I hit it with the Mini Mister.

I can see now the difference when doing a Dabber Resist, and simply doing a stamp after the fact - the Distress Inks will colour the resist somewhat, which obviously you wouldn't get if the order was reversed.