Problems with Solutions

Posting for the VivaLasVegaStamps July challenge (steampunk it), SanDee and Amelie's Steampunk challenge (anything with steampunk goes) and the WOW embossingpowders July challenge (favourite embossing techniques). I made three ATCs using the VLVS moodboard and prompts (at least steampunk, copper, umbrellas, underwater, script). I love using embossing powders with stamps, it makes images pop out and gives texture to the piece. I also love embossed splatters, here I have both stamped splatters and splatters made with chunky embossing enamel. All stamps are from VivaLasVegaStamps.

The lovely Banksy girl has been stamped onto transparent shrink plastic with black Stazon. I turned the plastic over and coloured the other side with blue and green alcohol inks. The tricky part was shrinking the pieces, they were A6 size (about american A2) and got into horrible curls. I did my best to open the shrunk piece and squished it with an acrylic block. I guess this size should be baked in the oven? 

The text is cut from a math book (luckily the index has this title over and over again!) and the background has been stamped with the Ledger background, small gears (some heat embossed with WOW Verdigris) splatters from the Coffee Ring stamp and some chunky black embossing powder. The plastic was attached with glue dots, they kind of look like bubbles behind the surface. The bends and wrinkles in the plastic ended up being quite cool, Here you can see how fantastic the piece looks with the sun reflecting itself around the insides of the plastic.

Paskis #324

Tämänkertaisessa Paskarteluhaasteessa pyydetään resist-tekniikkaa. Väriä hylkivänä "vastuksena" on tässä kortissa kohojauhe, värinä Brusho-jauhe. Käytin valkoista kohojauhetta, sillä väri voi kulkeutua paperissa kirkkaan kohojauheen alle (jolloin leimakuva erottuu huonommin). Leima on Carabellen, leimasin Versamarkilla, ripottelin päälle kohojauheen ja sulatin sen. Kohojauheen muoviseen pintaan ei tartu väri, ja lisäksi kohojauheen muodostamat alueet aiheuttavat hauskaa epätasaisuutta värin leviämiseen ja kuivumiseen.

Korttipohja on Tigerin akvarellikorttipohja, se vääntyili kosteudesta melkoisesti, mutta palautui aika hyvin. Täytyy vielä laittaa jonkun painon alle... Korttipohjan takana on postikorttipainatus, eli tarkoitus olisi lähettää tämä tällaisenaan. Ompelin reunojen ympäri vähän kuin kehykseksi, se näkyy ihan hauskasti myös kortin "kirjoituspuolella". 

W is for the Weddell seal

The Craft Barn alpha/dictionary challenge is asking for W. My wildlife encyclopedia didn't offer many options, because w is not really used in the Finnish language :) Anyway, let me introduce you to one of the largest seals that exist. It is also an extremist, being able to dive deeper and longer than any other seal! The weddell seal is relatively common and has been researched a lot... and it has been measured to dive up to 600m deep and to have stayed under water for even 75 minutes. I would be quite at loss for air even after 75 seconds!

I used a bit of tissue paper coloured with Paperartsy Infusion The Sage for the background. My table is a mess, and I haven't been able to find the little snippet that says "weddellinhylje" that should go on the front of this card. For the back I used a Rubber Dance background stamp inked with a bunch of Distress inks.

Unelmointia

Paskiksessa on bingo, ja tietenkin pitää päästä mukaan. Aluksi mikään rivi ei tuntunut omalta, aina tökki joko "one layer" tai "ei kortti" tai jotain, mutta sitten tajusin että minulla on lattialla kasassa keskeneräinen pahvinen art journal. Rivi on siis violetti-x-ei kortti. X voisi olla vaikka sininen, niin ei tule väristä sanomista.

Ilmoittauduin Carolyn Duben ilmaiselle verkkokurssille, jossa valmistetaan siis pahvilaatikosta art journal ja etsitään kokeilevaa leikkimieltä omaan tekemiseen. Kurssi löytyy tästä. Ensimmäisessä vaiheessa leikeltiin pahvit ja lisättiin gessoa ja värillisiä papereita ilman sen kummempaa suunnitelmaa.

Seuraavassa vaiheessa katsottiin läpyskät läpi siltä varalta että niistä sattuisi silmään hahmoja, ja tässä näin selvästi pupun. Sitten ei muuta kuin rakentamaan se muillekin näkyväksi :) hahmottelin hiukan lyijykynällä ja maalasin sitten akryyliväreillä ja ohuella pensselillä. Pöydällä oli läjä pellavaa jonka olin purkanut jonkun kankaan reunasta, siitä häntä. Löysin ilokseni sapluunan jossa oli sanoja (vaikka olisin voinut vannoa ettei minulla sellaista ole!) ja leimattu tekstikin lojui käyttövalmiina (ja sopi täydellisesti peittämään aluspaperissa olevat koesuoritukseen liittyvät merkinnät, jäljelle jäi sopivasti sana "alku").

Patchwork

The Paperartsy challenge is asking for paperpiecing... and I really enjoyed Keren Bakers post where she used different patchwork effects. I decided to go for squares :)

I started with an inky underpaper, these are spritzes and splatters of Brushos. There is a 1cm x 1cm grid on the paper, and I planned to maybe do 2x2 or 3x3 squares... but my card base needed a 11cm x 16 cm panel, and that just wouldn't turn into larger than 1x1 squares! I tried to be picky and choose my favourite little squares and started cutting them out. I cut a suitable panel from a neat piece of the same grid paper and glued the little squares on. To made it more like patchwork than mosaic I sewed over all the "seams" cutting the threads every time, because I wanted them to show. Once the panel was done I adhered it with double sided tape and sewed around the edges. I can almost not believe I managed a card without stamping, but somehow the diecut seemed better than a sentiment strip.

Moona

Working on the Art Journal Journey June challenge (maps) has been postponed do many times I was afraid I wouldn't get it done! Especially since I knew what I wanted to do and it kind of scared me. I luckily dared to start playing and was happy to get inspiration from the Viva Las VegaStamps challenge using their prompts (black, white, green, dots, circles, sketchy, script, doodles...) and stamps too, of course. The sister of our dog, Moona, was run over by a car in the beginning of June... we had spent a lot of time together and really thought our dogs could visit and enjoy each others company for years to come. So here's for Moona, we all miss her. Sniff.

I started by tearing a piece of a map of our home town. I was happy to find it possible to get our home and Moona's home on the same spread. Actually even the dogs' birthplace is there, but I didn't think of that while gessoing. I used both white and clear gesso with the aim to have the homes and the route between them showing through a bit more than the rest.

I have never done an image transfer before. I looked through a bunch of tutorials on different blogs and found that it works different for ink jet prints and toner photocopies and laser prints... I had printed a large picture at work with a machine that also works as a photocopy machine. I'm sure it isn't an ink jet, but I have no idea what technique options there are for the functions of colour printing. I decided to just do it: opted for gel medium, and tried a small piece first, you can see the green in the lower right corner above. At least something transfered, so I spread gel medium over the picture and burnished well... and then waited and peeked and waited again and after maybe five minutes I lifted the paper. The edges were ok, but the middle had quite a lot of paper left on it. You can see that about half the page stuck to the image, half came off. I continued by rubbing the surface while it still was wet, but found soon that I had colour coming off too.

I left the image to dry and continued some hours later, misting with water and gently rubbing the paper away. It rolled nicely, but at times the colour came off too, especially around the eyes... I coloured the white from next to the eyes with black and brown markers (didn't want her looking like a zombie), otherwise the worn and torn look is fine. If I should do something different, I would spread the gel medium further around the image (I tried to get just the dog), it would have been easy to cover the extra green with gesso, now I lost a part of her other ear. Fixing the eye (or eyebrow) really made a difference, she looks like herself!

I started doodling text on the left page. I used acrylic paint markers, micron pens and a charcoal pen. I forgot to take a picture, but I felt it was empty and decided to stamp. Guess how disturbing the result was?!? Horribly restless and not nice at all. I hated it... a mess, the stamped images bled on the gesso and the text just dissapeared. Besides I had to sleep overnight for the ink to dry before I could start covering the stamped images with gesso. Luckily the end result is very pleasing, I used white gesso, Fresco Finish Granny Smith and Dina Wakley Umber, blending a bit with a baby wipe.

I thought this was finished at this point... untill someone noticed I had the year wrong, we are running 2016! Luckily this was easily fixed, and I ended up using a few more stamps too. This time I used Stazon, and it gave nice crisp images :) While I was at it, I spread a layer of satin glaze over the transferred picture. Part of the leftover paper on top of the image went transparent (like tissuepaper does), so it became a bit more vivid in colour.

I used a short poem-like text that I once copied from a funeral announcement. It's from Eeva Kilpi, a Finnish poet and though it doesn't translate very well wor for word, the idea is approximately

don't say that life is short

say: what a special experience

since it is not at all a question of length

but of experiencing the here and now 

Dogs are known to live in the moment, they don't worry about the past or daydream about the future. Yes, our dog does miss her sister when we do something where Moona would generally have come along (like going to swim the other day), but otherwise she doesn't really think about it, I'm sure. The mourning part is left for us humans, and I guess we'll gradually get even with it. I didn't have to shed tears making this page now, if I had tried a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have. And I'm super happy with the result, this spread will be cherished :)

A Little Birdie

Here's another card for the customer creations challenge at Designs by Ryn with a Brusho background  done with ink jet photo paper. The colour of the Brusho is mostly Purple, perhaps some Rose Red too.

I stamped the hummingbird (from Designs by Ryn) and the sentiment (from Tim Holtz) on the same cheap ink jet photo paper that I used for the background. I love how the photo paper captures every little detail of the images (though colouring it would be a challenge, the photo paper absorbs all colour immediately, no fixing afterwards!) I didn't want to add colour, because I found the plain image very effective, so I just fussy cut and mounted the white pieces on low foam tape for a bit of dimension.