TXTure

I entered an ATC swap with the theme of 'Text'.  Any content was acceptable so long as there is some text on the card.  It was a very long turn-around (approx 2 months) before I could post these but finally, they are in the hands of their new owners and I can share them on here...  Hurrah!

Who's sending me txts?

 This one has a base of vintage text which I cut into random shapes and then glued to the substrate in various directions.  The design of the card was meant to be crisp, so I cut the paper rather than tear.  Then I applied paint to the edges, I think it was antique lined distress ink but I could be mistaken.
Next came three 1" squares that I painted with variously shades of yellow, orange and red.  The letters are chipboard covered in copper embossing powder and then clear embossing powder layer over the top.

 I found a quirky quote in an old Punch magazine and decided to make this the basis of the ATC.  The background is Dylusions spray ink in bubble gum pink and 2 shades of blue with a salt technique(draws in the ink to leave spots).  Next I stamped a row of little houses on vintage text and coloured them with Twinkling H2Os.  I masked the houses and then applied overlapping circles in bronze paint below the houses.  The word showtime uses individual stamps that I punched out from white card stock using a tiny circle punch.

I love this one.  The background is painted with various shades of orange, burnt orange and bronze.  I then splattered some turquoise paint across the card from my paint brush.  (I watered down the paint to flicking consistency first).  Next I applied a very thick layer of Viva Croc medium on vintage paper.  It took ages to dry but the effect was brilliant.  I then carefully applied Broken China Distress ink to the heart and pounced it until it worked down to the paper (I should have just done it on the back, but hindsight is a wonderful thing).
The print is from my computer, edged in vintage photo distress ink and the whole lot glued to the substrate.

A little bird told me....

When I saw the topic from Three Muses for this week, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

There were so many different layers that I won't go into them all here.  The paper is standard card stock with a coat of gesso to stop it buckling and pilling with the water and glues.

The first layer of paint is Golden Liquid Acrylics in white, red and yellow (heavy blending and then stippled to give texture).  Then I attached some old paper and started to apply the various layers.  Finally spraying with a gold mica spray! phew...

Sing birdie sing!

 Once I finished the background, I cut the bird and cage from the same card stock as the background but the scroll to hold the cage is a Tim Holtz grunge paper element.

I gave the cage and the scroll a distress treatment to make them look like tarnished metal.

I coloured the bird with Shabby Shutters distress ink and then splashed him with water (you can't see the lovely colour variations well in the pics.  The eye of the bird is a dot of black enamel from Ranger.

You can see the tarnished metal effect better on the scroll work.  I also over heated it to make the under layer of paint bubble a little, this makes it look like the metal is corroding under the outer surface.

I've just noticed that the bird and cage is Tim Holtz and the quote is Lou Holtz - It's a Holtz collaboration :)

I made a video and for once loaded in time and can be found here.  Approx 10 mins long

Clock Watching

When I saw that the Take A Word challenge for next week was going to be 'Clocks' I immediately knew what I was going to do, until I started to make it.  I didn't like how it was going , so it was dispatched to the recycle bin and I began again, and so happy I did.  The results of my second effort are below :)
If you would like to see a time lapse video, you can see it on YouTube by clicking here.  (I'm only just learning how to record and edit videos, so please be kind :)

Time Flies when I'm having fun

I enjoyed playing with this one, I even got to include some polymer clay for the arms!  If you look closely there is a tiny 'diamond' ring on the 4th finger of the right hand :)

The piece is made of very heavy weight card stock, sprayed with Dylusion Inks and than stamped in many layers with Archival Inks.  The outer clock is from white card stock, dry embossed with a clock and gears design and then painted with Lumiere Halo Blue Gold, then the high points rubbed with Golden Iridescent Bronze.  The arms were from a fairy mold, and the other bits and pieces were ephemera from my stash.