Grungy Monday 09

Grungy Monday 9 – Shabby Chic

What a mess!  This is definitely Grungy and Shabby, but I have to say. I’m kind of fond of it.  It’s the process not the product. 

This is for Linda’s Grungy Monday challenge over at Studio L3.  She has a wonderful thing going on, and if you didn’t get here from there, you should definitely check it out.   This week she picked a technique demonstrated by Tim Holtz here.  I’m pretty new to all of this, so everything she’s picks I’m trying for the first time.  It’s a blast!.

I painted my cardstock with black dauber as per TH.  Then I cut a stamp out of fun foam using my brand new TH cage die.  Also got this idea from TH.  It’s a great two-fer – you can find all kinds of great tips like this on his website.  I used this new stamp and the TH flourish stamp to do the clear embossing.  I am very limited in daubers and didn’t really want to use any of the colors that I had so I used another green acrylic paint that I had with some snowcap and silver dauber.  This is where the trouble started…..I couldn’t get the paint to wipe off.  Probably the other brand acrylic isn’t suited and I don’t think the silver dauber is suited very well either.  Plus the foam I used for the cage stamp was way too thin to have the stamp turn our nicely.  I read over on All Things Tim that if you don’t have the thick fun foam, glue two layers together.  Definitely a good tip.  I'll have to do that next time.  So…I had to pretty much scrape the paint off the embossing and took some paper with it.  The flourish turned out okay but definitely shabby.  The cage, due to thin stamp, turned out badly, but when it popped in my head that it looked like someone had drawn it on a wall with charcoals, I decided I liked it anyway.  So, I pressed on.  Next, I tried the tarnished silver and enamel technique that Shelly Hickox demos on her website.  If you haven’t check this out, you’ll want to.  She’s a genius with the techniques.  She just made this amazing telescoping steam punk card!  Check it out! 

Anyway, the number plaque thing is supposed to look like white enamel.  Well, seems my perfect medium had all kinds of STUFF stuck to it and the pad had actually turned to this mushy mess.   I applied it before the numbers had dried and also managed to pick up some green color, probably from my craft sheet.  Bottom line, added more mess to the mess, but I still don’t hate it.  You can’t see it very well in the photo, but the wing turned out okay, it has a pretty green flourish on it.  It did however crack.  I still don’t hate it.  I added some bling , a sentiment from the computer inked with DI peeled paint and a kiss of silver dauber, somemore bling, a silver daubered mat, oh and some stickles too. 

Like I said – it’s the process.

Grungy Monday 08

Here’s my latest for the Grungy Monday challenge over at Studio L3 (aka “really takes the sting out of it being a Monday”).  This week it’s a water color technique taught by Tim Holtz here.  So, I got out a piece of white card stock and what seemed like the most suitable stamp for this technique from my collection.  You’ll recognize this as coming from Tim’s Spring Sprung set.  The only inks I have other than archival black and sepia are distress inks.  So, I pulled out victorian velvet, worn lipstick, milled lavender,aged mahogany, dusty concord and fired brick; as well as peeled paint and forest moss.  I figured I would use some combination thereof.  My mini misters were all filled with a home brewed perfect pearls mist.  Figured, what the heck, so I inked misted and stamped.  And, it come out too runny.  Now although I’m a rank rookie at all of this, I should have know better.  Because, before I knew of Studio L3 and ATT, I had watched all the videos at www.timholtz.com a good two, three times and it should have dawned on me to spritz a lot less then Tim did in his demo.  Undaunted, I re-inked with the other 3 non green inks that I didn’t use on the first attempt and stamped over the first image, but shifted to the left to stamp in the between spots.  Actually, I didn’t hate how that looked.  So now, I needed something to add to all the void on this white card and the butterfly from the same collection seemed like the logical, suitable choice.  BUT, I decided to go check out my new guides at ATT  (aka Big Bunch of Enablers J).  Minutes later I was flying out the door, coupons waving in the wind.  Not only had the peeps there informed with the what and where, but also the how with links to the coupons.  When I got home and surveyed my new loot, I couldn’t resist stamping my new airplane from the Tim Holtz Visual Artistry collection right above my “weeds”.  I added the sentiment from the same collection  It is as much about this new craft journey as it is about anything else.  So, newly inspired, I redid it all and created this remembrance.  Big thanks to Linda and Gloria and all of you out there whose blogs and posts help me to create this and  inspire me on this journey!