Today's tutorial...chalking

Today I am demonstrating the use of chalks for images that have been printed off on computer paper or you can stamp on paper and use this same technique.
Chalks are found in array of colours today with the paper craft industry booming and giving artists another medium to play with. I have several colours to match papers and depending on the effect I want.
So enough about that let's get started.
Gather some supplies, chalks, some q-tips or cotton buds as some of my UK friends call them, a white eraser, cardstock and some images and some paper towels.
Here I went ahead and applied some images and stamped a grouping of birds in black on blue cardstock. you can either use a lightly coloured printed image or even black and whites work well with chalks.


Below I have decided on the chalk colour I am using for this little girl image. She is on a tan coloured piece of paper so I want to add a shadow behind her and around her head a bit. Now chalks do come with applicators much like eyeshadows but I like getting my fingers right in there plus I actually feel like I have more control where I want to put the chalk.So get a lot of chalk on your finger and lets move on. A little tip I suggest, if you glued your image on using a glue stick or glue from a container, make sure the glue is good and dry or the chalk will lay in that wet spot and sort of clump, your eye will catch that if you don't know to do that.

Now start with going from the image outward, why you ask? This is because you won't have a hard line where your chalk begins from the outside in. As you apply the chalk move your finger in a circular motion. Notice I am getting chalk on her head? that is ok right now, don't worry that's where the white eraser comes in handy, keep rubbing chalk where you want it and even deepen it if it is not what you are liking. This chalk looks orange here but it is actually a honey brown.

Now that you have the area chalked and are happy with it take you white eraser and just gently remove the chalk, I removed it from her hair and I went around the outside and softly blended the chalk making it look more subtle.

Now here, the little girls dress is actually a very pale yellow but lets make it more yellow. Load up that finger again, just wash off the chalk from your fingers to move onto other colours, or use another finger if you plan to use that colour previoulsy used. Rub that chalk in and if you want it darker then keep rubbing it into the paper. Again clean up with white eraser and just give the image a little blow to remove any unwanted chalk bits.

Below here is the same image but reversed on the card and I wanted just to show you the variations of colours you can use. I used a dark purple on the pink card all around the image then her little dress I wanted to use this pretty lime green colour.

There really isn't any rocket science to this, you can even use chalks wet but I personally rather use mine dry.

Just have fun, be creative, just changing a simple colour makes it look like a whole new image. This technique is great for ATC's and inchies too or regular greeting cards.

Now here I am showing you a version of chalking but using stamped images.

I love this grouping of birds and so lets make that image stand out a bit so it looks like it is coming off the paper.

Again do the above method using chalks, this time just chalk either the left hand side or right hand side of all the birds, this is my painting experience coming out, in painting you have a shadow side and a light side. or where the light reflects from one side. I am going to show you here with chalk and a tiny bit of white ink.

Here I have chosen to use a dark blue chalk against the light blue background and chalk around the birds on the right hand side facing you. Here I used a q-tip to lay down the colour because the space between the birds is rather small.

Now rub that chaclk and notice how you see a shadow forming??? at this point make this darker if you like or leave as is. I also applied a bit of chalk below the branch the birds are sitting on.

Next, tap a clean dry q-tip into some white ink and then gently remove some of that ink on a paper towel.

Next on the left hand side of the birds, just dab a bit of white where their wing might be, the one side of their head or on their tail and skip a bit of white across the branch but not a solid line.

That's it, you've just created a chalked image, wasnt' that easy?

If you would like to show me some of your cards just email me.

Love to see them.

Thanks for dropping by.

May the bell toll for them

I am a huge boxing and MMA and UFC fan. I started watching boxing as a kid with my dad, we would sit on the couch together and watch fights Saturday afternoons. Dad would sit there taking every punch in, every time an opponent got hit dad would take it too. LOL
Anyways I am saddened by 2 boxers that had their lives shortened this past couple weeks. Artruo Gatti and recently Vernon Forrest. These 2 boxers I have watched many times as I have seen a lot of fights. Such tagic endings to their lives but their names will live on for a very long time.

A big surprise...

Ok there is a little story I have to tell you about this " little surprise" that JB springs on me over a week ago Sunday. We are at Lowe's and shopping for a few things and out of the blue he says " there is a suprise for you next Saturday". Hmmm my birthday is over, it's summer time, is someone coming? I have to clean the house top to bottom??? is his mom taking me for my late birthday dinner that she suggested a few weeks ago?? So thinking it was the dinner I said oh I know what it is...it's the fish and chip dinner your mom wants to take me for since she couldn't think what to do for my birthday. (I am a very picky person when it comes to fish, so if it is lightly battered not too greasy then I can handle it, but to eat fish that tastes really fishy?? forget it. Anyways so I had myself convinced even up to Saturday that we were going for lunch at Kelsey's. We live in the country so we go the usual way into town, even right up to the traffic lights in town to but we are in the wrong turning lane...so I said hmmm so are we going to the Boathouse (our favourite F&Cplace). So JB turns into the parking lot of a supermarket and he says what is going on over there? Hmmm I look left and I see a bunch of balloons, some people walking around, the radio station is there...then I see some Pittsburgh Penguin t-shirts.
Well I still do not know what is going on....then we get out of the truck and I walk with him towards this covered area but roped off and it is the .......STANLEY CUP....
One of the players..Matt Cook is from Stirling Ontario, north of Belleville and it was his turn to have the cup...so as a charity function he brought the cup to Belleville and was signing a photo of himself and autographed for 5.00 and all the money was going towards his charity that he sponsors. Anyways I am a true Leaf fan but hey I have never seen the cup, we did not line up to see it up close for photos. JB got a shot of me and I the same for him but behind the ropes. I did get close enough to see the names on the cup but it was tightly secured. The line up was very long and it was going to be hours before you would get close to it...the sun was beating down and I was needing food.
Anways this is the actual Stanley cup that is raised by the players on the ice. I may never see it in real life again unless I see the real one at the Hockey Hall of Fame. This was truly a great surprise. JB is such a sweet guy. :) xo
That's me in the back with the glasses, heads were getting in the way and well you had to dodge to get yourself in the pic, but it was fun.

Inkurable Stamper's July Challenge entry

I don't do many challenges online but at Inkurable Stampers I do. I believe it helps me to expand my creativity and to break away from the usual cut and pasting on ATC's in this particular challenge.

This month's challenge is to alter a playing card. Well I love doing that and I pondered on many ideas and sought some inspiration but nothing really jumped out at me.
One day I said lets play with Shrinky Dink paper or Shrink plastic.
So I first picked my playing card that I wanted to use. In this case the King of Spades.
Then I cut a piece of blue cardstock and stamped it with bubble wrap with Tim Holtz distress ink in Tea Dye and also inked the edges for a suble look. Then I carefully positioned the top layer over the playing card and drew a small window to view just the face of the king. Then I carefully cut a door making sure I just had the middle section of the playing card showing when the door was open. I used a piece of drywall tape and placed it over the window, then cut a door size piece of paper and cut out another window and placed and glued it over the entire door inside the card. Now everything is concealed.
Next I took an Inkadinkado flourish stamp and stamped in black on Shrink Plastic, making four stamps in black and I drew 3 spades and coloured them in with Sharpie permanent black marker. I cut all the pieces out carefully then shrunk them with my heat gun, great tool that is.
Then I made sure while the shirnk plastic was still warm (and do NOT burn yourself) I flattened them with an eraser, sometimes the shrink plastic gets a bit distorted so to lay flat I make sure while it is warm I flatten it.
Then I positioned all the pieces on and glued them carefully and let dry. I then inked the edges just a bit with black ink just to give it a little more oomph.
This is called the House of Spades.
I hope I win, but, if I don't, it was fun trying.

Back to ART

The Wall

emboss resist using acrylic paints

Reach for the Stars

stamping and painting with bleach
Dream
stamping with bleach, inked edges

Fused ART

fused plastic, painted, sewn, inked, inchie painted with Twinkling H20's

(sorry the pic is darker than it shows)

Now that things are starting to get back to normal if you can call it that I finally was able to upload some ATC's I have been working on. These will be up for trade at the ATC for beginners Yahoo group I am a Moderator for.

I recently purchased a book by Bernie Berlin who lists many easy to do techniques and has lots of inspiration. I love techniques so here you will see some of my experiments. I apologize for some of the quality of the pics, I used my scanner instead of my camera, sometimes scans don't quite get as good a quality. If you see a card you might like to have just email me, I love to trade.

Well this is it for now.

Thanks for dropping by and I should be able to do some tutorials again soon.

Off to the land of nod.

ZZZZZZ