Lest We Forget....

Today I would like to pay tribute in keeping with Remebrance Day to all the men and women who have served our country and paid ultimate sacrifices so that we could live in a safe, free and democratic society.
I bowed my head in silence for 1 minute shortly after 11am and I would like to end this post with a very familiar poem....

 In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Please take a moment and pay tribute to our brave Soldiers past and present.

Ink resist background ATC's

My newest addiction for backgrounds is from that book we got and I did the Versamark ink resist backgrounds on glossy photo paper. I have never tried this before and when I got our ATC background book and read the directions I immediately was intrigued. Didn't take me long to get addicted to this one, thanks to Gwenny for the background.

Here I have done a cute little girl that has a Post Carde stamp on the background inked with distress dye ink in Cracked China and Frayed Burlap. Amazing how these ink colours work together.

This cute little girl is looking for someone to speak French to. Don't ask me girlie, I know very little.

And of course can't go without doing at least an Asian theme or two.

Here I used Fire Brick and Antique photo distress ink. Gives it a nice exotic background feel. I strung some beads I received in a swap recently with a few little asian coins as well.

The title of this card is " My 2 yens worth".

And this card I used Frayed Burlap distress ink and not as much Fired Brick. This woman doesn't have a clue what happened to the crow...a little mishap I would say??

She says....." See NO Evil"

Thank you for stopping by.

Have a great weekend.

ATC Background book and Inchie book

The first picture below is a combination of Artists that have done various backgrounds for ATC.

Our group ATC for Beginners were involved in doing a background swap. So we each did a background or several and then made the number of people that signed up and we each got a set. Here is a wonderful book of backgrounds that I have been admiring and even doing since I received my lovely gem.

The hostess, Jen from Australia and a new member Tina got the idea and took it from there.

It is amazing how far this book has travelled, how many hands worked on it and we all got a set.

The book is not together because I wanted to spread it out for you to see. I will be assembling it this weekend.

I forgot to mention that most of the backgrounds have instructions on the back to tell us how to do each technique.

Thank you for all who participated. We plan on adding to it in the future.

Having that said, I took some of the ideas from the book and played around with paper and stamps etc to make this nice little inchie book.

We recently had an inchie booklet swap over at Addicted to Inchies. so I was still in this frame of mind. I like working in small, it is relaxing and it really sparks my creativity.

All the pages in this book have been altered in some way, shape or form. I even added another technique not included in the book that Jen had on her blog using masking tape and pastels. I will explain that another time as there is just too much to tell you right now.

This is the Front and Back cover. The front has telephone book paper that has been glazed with a mix of acrylic paint to make it look sort of rusty, if you click on each picture you should get a better close up.

I then took my glue stick cap off and used it to stamp rusty coloured circles and a marker cap (smaller in diameter) to stamp antique white circles.

The back cover is the bubble technique, purple bubbles on  a very light purple paper. The crow is peeking out of her frame and I adorned her with a frilly neckline. Isn't she cute??

Next is the tissue paper background and I sprayed a bit of Radiant Rain and gave it a little shimmer with gold.The Asian beatuies are on masking tape with oil pastels sealed then the inchie beauties are glued on and some small butterlies fluttering here and there adorned with stickles for a shimmer.

Next is just a plain green paper that I sprayed with gold radiant rain ( love that stuff), punched a border on the end and where the hole is. Added some travel inchies, stamped a Poste Card stamp on some distressed inked paper.

The opposite page has painted paper towel, a crow with a crown, and some music he is singing to, perhaps to his girlfriend on  the back cover. She is rather pretty with her frilly collar.

And this last 2 pages, just an inked green paper with some stamps of numbers, Some versamark ink resist technique using dye inks, love that technique, thanks Gwenny! the clock in the top left corner is coated in Glossy Accents, they should have called it glassy accents, great stuff, gives it a more 3 D effect.

The opposite page is a full page of Versamark ink resist using purple and Frayed burlap (distress dye ink) rubbed on glossy photo paper. the stamp is a French script what I used and when you rub the ink on and blend the colours you get a lovely mutation of colours and the print is white from the original paper colour. 

I can see using this technique for Christmas cards this year.

Today I also received my inchie booklet from a swap I was in but stay tuned for that.

Thanks for dropping by and if you have any questions just comment or leave me an email. I would be happy to hear from you.

=^..^=

Inkjet transfers and what does Stodgy mean?

Ok first things first, I have heard somewhere either BBC or someone English use the term "Stodgy". I would like to know what that means...does it mean you feel stodgy, or something is stodgy and exactly how do you use this term. I have had this in my head for days now and want to know what it means. If you can help please leave me a comment because I like it and I want to know what it means.

2ndly.... today I tried for a couple of hours trying to do image transfers using the Bernie Berlin techniques in her ATC Workshop book. So far no luck. I used wet paper then tried to burnish the image with no luck at all.
Then I tried using gel medium and it stuck to my paper when I tried to remove the photo paper, so not only  did I waste material time and effort and much frustration. If you have any luck or can tell me how you do inkjet transfers please let me know.
I did however do a transfer using freezer paper attached to a sturdy piece of cardstock and then burnished the image onto some flat (not textured) paper. It seemed to work the best although I think the darker your image the better luck you will have. I have done the tape transfers but I am wanting the  aged look that this technique achieves. Well so far it hasn't and I need to know why and how to do it successfully.
I would appreciate anyone that could take a moment or two to explain it to me. I have researched it to death and perhaps it is the gel medium I am using. I put it on thick, I put it on thin but it wanted to act like a glue and stick to my paper. ugh....
I decided to turn my thoughts to painting so I did that instead after much frustration.
Til next time....

Someone has been playng with paper...

I know I have been absent for a few days. Been kind of taking it easy, got Hallowe'en over with, a total of 3 kids. Not to mention the one I live with every day, for a grown man he sure keeps me entertained.

I have been cleaning up a bit and putting things away from painting, but, not too far, just needed to put some books back in storage for next year etc.

These are some things I have been working on.

It has been forever it seems since I did a trade over on the ATC for beginners board and I was ready to dive in.

This card below was a tricky one to say the least.

I cut an ornament shape out of mylar, plastic sheeting they sell to make your own stencils. I layed the stencil down then stamped into it with my face inked up, then I took the middle part of the stencil that was cut out from the sheet and used it as a mask, covered the face and stamped the flourishes all around the back ground. The face was inked with Tea Stain distress ink.

The flourishes were stamped with a Jumbo Java Tsuenko ink pad then I added chunky distress stickes to it.

I cut a small flower using a punch, and a gold piece for the top of the ornament.

It was a fun project but I tried to repeat it several times and just did not come out the same, good thing this one did. I promptly put it up for trade on the ATC for beginners board. See if I can tempt any traders there.

The next 2 cards below are done with masking taper layered upon layer on Card stock then you scribble oil pastels over the tape and start blending. My friend Jen explains how she did it and when I was done painting I had to try it. I am not a huge fan of hallowe'en so I decided to call this full moon as I noticed last night we are currently experiencing a full moon.

The pin in her hair just happened....I was moving things around on my table and I looked down and the pin was in her hair and I said, I like that. A bit of my bizarre nature coming out but it just seemed to fit.

The crow with his crown is sitting observing the state of the evening.

This same background I have applied to this card called " Inferno" because of it't red background. Before I applied the gel medium to the background I scribbled the swirls in with the tip of a pen. One thing about pastels if you don't like your design just smudge over it and try again.

I also used a blue pastel to smudge around the image to make it look like a shadow cast behind it.

I rather like this card.....I didn't really want to add to much more to it. I love the texture feel to it.

Thanks Jen for sharing this with me.

And last but not least or my Addicted to Inchies, November challenge, the bubble technique.

My friend Jan in the UK has a quick tut on her blog and you can find it here.

Since we had no set theme I just stamped a few different things. We haven't seen any snow as of yet here in Ontario but it will come soon enough.

Well until next time, thanks for dropping in and stay tuned for some more arty creations by me.