Distress oxides first look - backgrounds and stamped tags

This weekend I opened my new Distress oxide inks. I tried them a bit, just to know how they look like alone, in the combination with traditional Distress inks or stamped and misted.  So I made just a few small tags.

They are nice to play with, I need to say, although if you want to make a nice combo of Distress inks and Distress oxides, it is better to be a careful with the oxides. Too much oxides can hide the vibrant colors of Distress inks and make all background too dull. And also some oxides seem to be stronger than others e.g. brown ones, so put pink oxide over the larger spot of brown one is a bit difficult, after water mist pink oxide kind of soaked into the brown one and disappeared. But maybe I need just try more :0)

And for the water mists I prefer older Ranger Mister bottle to a newer Distress Sprayer one, because with the mister you have a better control over the water amount and it is really just the water mist and no big droplets of water, so oxides start to shine but they don't bleed too much (for me, this is important when I stamp with oxides).

But mostly (and with a bit of practice) they make a very nice and unusual backgrounds and I really love the combo with Distress inks. The contrast of the matte and bright colors is incredible and sooooo nice :0)

So here they are - the first tags I made, for more detailed look open every image in a new tab:

1) Distress inks and Distress oxides combo: 

a) first tag is Broken china Distress oxide over Mustard seed and Spiced marmalade Distress inks 

b) second tag Fossilized amber, Spiced marmalade and Vintage photo Distress oxides over Salty ocean and Mermaid lagoon Distress inks

2) combo and mix:

a) first tag is a combo of Broken china and Vintage photo Distress oxides over Mustard seed and Spiced marmalade Distress inks

b) second one is a pure Distress oxides mix - Fossilized amber, Mustard seed and Broken china distress oxides

3) Distress oxides mix: 

a) first tag Broken china, Wilted violet and Faded jeans Distress oxides 

b) second tag Worn lipstick, Wilted violet and Faded jeans Distress oxides

4) stamping with Distress oxides on white and kraft cardstock. Both sprayed with water more times - sprayed, dry with heat tool, sprayed, dry, sprayed, dry... .0). Bleeding of the blue colors on the kraft cardstock is not much visible, after the paper is dry.

a) Vintage photo and Walnut stain Distress oxides on the white tag 

b) Broken china and Faded jeans Distress oxides on the kraft cardstock 

5) background of all this tags made with Wild honey, Vintage photo and Ground espresso Distress inks and images are stamped over with 

a) Faded jeans Distress oxide (tulips) and Pumice stone Distress oxide (crackled pattern). I also covered this tag with liquid gloss acrylic medium, so all colors are more vibrant and have more depth - the tag resemble a glass tile. 

b) Broken china Distress oxide

c) Worn lipstick Distress oxide

Every tag is misted with water more times till the dye part of oxides started to bleed into the background colors. Especially on the third tag the Worn lipstick made a nice darker pink halo effect around the stamped image. On other two tags I used a glue stick and gold foil on the borders.

Art journal page - You can sail and you can fly...

"You can sail and you can fly, under water, in the sky" - another small journal double page from Dylusions journal (cca 20 x 25 cm / 8" x 10").

When I started with my previous journal page (London bridge), I didn't want to waste the beautiful Dylusions inks I sprayed for my background, so I pushed another double journal page against the first one and transferred the excess ink to it. As you can see, these inks are so strong that even this second page is as vibrant as the first one  :0)

So here is again a background with Bubblegum pink, Crushed grape and Calypso teal and some water droplets. I made an easy pattern with Black marble Dylusions paint and two stencils (The Crafter's workshop and Joggles) making also some circles and stamped most of the stamps from a new Layering marble stamp set (Waffle Flower) with Tsukineko Brilliance Platinum planet pigment ink around the page. For more dimension I shaded the circles with Distress Hickory smoke and Picket fence inks.

Stamps (Chocolate baroque boat and Carabelle studio origami birds and fish) are colored with Dylusions inks in waterbrushes. They were cut with white border and glued on a second (slightly bigger) black cardstock layer for more depth. White-silver string was strengthen with mate acrylic medium, so it holds its shape better and a white gel pen was used for highlights. Quote was printed on a small label printer machine.

This page is also my second entry for a Simon Says Stamp new Monday challenge: Transport it which you can visit it here and also the first entry for their Wednesday challenge: Anything goes here.

It seems that it is difficult to stop, when you start to play with Dylusions colors :0)

23. 2. 2017 You can sail and you can fly, under water, in the sky

P.S. ...if you want to see more details, please open the picture (link) in the new tab :0)

Art journal page - London bridge

After a very looong time a new journal page out of the bounded journal book - a double page taken out from small Dylusions journal (cca 20 x 25 cm / 8" x 10").  It is so nice to have the freedom of the separate sheet of paper again. I need to admit, that working in the bounded book can be sometime a little bit limiting for me. I absolutely enjoyed all the sprays I used this time :0)

So here it is - Dylusions sprays background with Bubblegum pink, Funky fuchsia and Calypso teal and some water droplets. Then I used Black soot Distress ink pad and Carabelle studio stencil and on the bottom of the page Black marble Dylusions paint with older The crafter's workshop stencil. London double-decker buses are stamped with Dylusions Postbox red spray and Distress Candied apple ink. I cut them out with white border and then glued on the black cardstock which I cut out again, so they have both white and black border. It makes them pop up more on this colorful page. The buses, Big Ben tower, an emblem and London are from the same stamp set (Paper Wizard). Rope is a small stamp from Kaisercraft  and the cards are just real playing cards :0) And this time I used a nice script stamp set from Echo park. Unfortunately there are no upper-case letters for these lower-case ones. White highlights are made with a gel pen.

This page is also my entry for a Simon Says Stamp new Monday challenge: Transport it. You can visit it here.

I really enjoyed creating this page and I love its double meaning....I hope you will like it too :0)

21. 2. 2017 London bridge

P.S. ...if you want to see more details, please open the picture (link) in the new tab :0)

Creative weekend 7 - "A fashion moment"

A fashion moment - an art journal page in Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal.

Simple two colors watercolor background in pink and violet with pattern of ferns (Inkadinkado stamp) stamped with clear Versamark ink all over the page and covered with silver Pan pastel. I used gray Distress ink and the same stamp for the stenciled silhouettes.

I was extra happy doing this page, because I made these stencils myself using Dingbats PC font of women's silhouettes. It is "Sewing patterns" font from dafont.com - every lower-case and every upper-case letter on your keyboard is a different silhouette. And there is a whole large category of Dingbats fonts on this web site prepared to be used :0).
I changed this font into .svg file in Inkscape program and then transformed this "3 letters-silhouettes" file in Brother Scan-n-cut canvas on-line program into a great custom stencil pattern I cut with my Scan-n-cut cutting machine.
It was fast and easy, even if I tried it for the first time. I followed some youtube tutorials from applelover53. This lady has really awesome tips and tricks for Inkscape and Scan-n-cut including several nice and easy videos how to use dingbats e.g. HERE or HERE. Or just write "dingbat" into the searching box on her youtube channel and you will find much more :0)

I finished the page with the beautiful circle stamps (Lavinia stamps), a stitch stamp (Technique Tuesday), black archival ink, white chalk marker and a small label maker :0)

14. 2. 2017 A fashion moment

Creative weekend 6 - "Golden Ginkgo"

Another journal page started during a weekend and finished on Monday in Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal.

"Golden Ginkgo" started as a simple two colored watercolor background. Mix of dark and light green and dark blue watercolors created very nice turquoise - blue blend, although I used a very cheap old watercolors I have. I just spritzed it a bit with water and dried with a heat tool and a paper towel. Wet colors looks great, but dried with the heat tool they become quite dull.  So then I used a glossy acrylic medium (varnish) over the whole page and they started to shine again :0).
I used an older clock stencil with copper acrylic paint and the fish (Local King rubber stamps) and oriental text (Artemio) stamps with a darker gold acrylic paint. And on top another layer of glossy acrylic medium, so everything is nicely bright and sealed.
After that I painted one sheet of paper with lighter gold acrylic paint and used a ginkgo leaf die (Impression Obsession) from my stash. Because I was not quite satisfied with the gold acrylic color on the leaves, I tried to find some alternative I could use. Finally I over-painted all the leaves with Winsor & Newton gold drawing ink. This ink is incredibly shiny and beautiful and the color is exactly the lighter gold I wanted, because the main idea for this page was to make a gradation of metallic colors from dark to light :0)
At the end I made some shading around and under the leaves with grey PIT artist pen brush markers.

And because I'm not able to decide which photo I should use for this project, here are more examples how the page change in the sunlight :0)

P.S. If you would like to see any of the photos on this blog bigger and more detailed, just open it separately in a new tab :0)

6. 2. 2017 Golden Ginkgo

Creative weekend 5 - "New style"

"New style" - a bird page with a new technique in Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal, finished on Monday (because of  all the interesting videos from Creativation) :0)

This page started as a acrylic mixed media background - layering of chalk and normal acrylic paints, some acrylic stamping....too messy and disappointing for me at the end, so I changed a bit my planes and finished the page in more graphic look, which I like.

But the main goal was to create the leaves with a great technique I saw on the Paper Artsy blog. Leaves are stamped on the acetate sheet with black Staz-on ink, dried (I carefully used a heat tool) and then colored from the stamped side with more layers of acrylic paint. Firstly I used 3 layers of beautiful transparent Red iron oxide from Golden and than more opaque and lighter Americana Bright orange paint and sealed all with glossy varnish medium. If you then cut the leaves out of the acrylic sheet and flip them over, the colours from the back side really shine through the clear plastic and they are perfectly protected from damage.

This is a wonderful technique and I absolutely recommend to try it :0) It is just necessary to thing carefully about the order of the colours you will place on the back side of the acetate, because your first layer of colour will be most visible one at the end. It is a reversed style, normally if you work on your page, it is your last layer which is the most visible .0)

So this page turned to be more mixed media than expected. I used Golden acrylic paint, Paper Artsy Fresco acrylic paints, Americana acrylic paints, different stamps for background texture, colored pencils from Derwent and Caran d'Ache, Twisted stencils - big and small - from Tim Holtz, skeleton leaf stamp from Florileges design, thicker acetate sheet from some stamp packaging, clothespin stamp from Penny Black's older Embellishments stamp set and I changed a bit the Prima's bird stamp from Jamie Dougherty (I stamped it with Antique linen Distress ink, redrawed the picture according my needs with permanent black liner and "erased" the rest of the "unused" lines with clean water and brush, because distress ink is water-soluble). White details are made with water-based fine Sharpie pen. Alphabet is again my latest favorite Perfectly penned font from Concord and 9th.

23. 1. 2017 New style

Creative weekend 4 - "New Year's resolutions" and "Beauty of pear"

Two new pages in Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal. First ones in this year :0)

"New Year's resolutions" made with Dylusions and  Distress acrylic paints, LaBlanche stamp and Dylusions white and black pens and "Beauty of Pear" with Distress stains, paints and markers, Penny Black stamp, simple masking technique, Distress Vintage photo embossing powder, "Perfectly penned" alphabet stamp set from Concord & 9th and beautiful white mulberry paper.

14.1. 2017 New Year's resolutions

15.1. 2017 Beauty of PEAR

2016 Friendly Christmas gifts

We were invited for a nice Christmas lunch to our friends and I wanted to bring something a little bit more personal to them. I decided for my previous Christmas gift idea and make the special bookmarks, also with a wishes of "Happy year". I thing they turned out very cute :0)

Colored with alcohol markers, embossed with Wow! Metallic gold rich pale embossing powder and gilded with double sided tape stripes and gold foil from Prima. Text stamped with great "Perfectly penned" alphabet stamp set from Concord & 9th. White ribbon colored with matching alcohol markers.

2016 Christmas cards

Christmas cards for 2016...that was quite an adventure :0) Sometimes your idea seems to be easy and then, during a realization itself, you find out that things go wrong or at least other way than you've imagined. So you change your plans and start again and leave this part and add another....and at the end there is the day when you really need to finished it all and send all your best wishes to your beloved as soon as possible. So you focus hard to make the cards almost perfect...during the morning, during the day, during the afternoon and evening and even the night...and at 6:30 a.m. you decide not to go to bed at all and keep your eyes open even a while longer so you can go to the post office after they open :0))

But i think it was worth it and I'm very happy that this year I also included a small gift for everybody - the bookcase with wishes of "Happy year" made with love, because I think that we all need a happiness in our lives :0)

Embossed white cardstock base colored with archival and distress ink pads plus colour cardstock background embossed with white embossing powder and colored with archival inks / colour cardstock background embossed with clear embossing powder and colored with archival inks.

Medallions: colour and white cardstock colored with distress ink pads, stamping with Ranger Black soot archival ink. Bunnies and trees colored with Distress markers and sealed with Distress micro glaze wax. Silver "mirrored" stars. Dimension to the frames added with white craft foam circles.

Bookmarks: background colored with alcohol markers, bunnies and books with Distress markers sealed with Distress micro glaze. Embossed with Wow! Metallic gold rich pale embossing powder and gilded with double sided tape stripes and gold foil from Prima. Text stamped with great "Perfectly penned" alphabet stamp set from Concord & 9th. White ribbon colored with matching alcohol markers. 

So have a great year 2017 and a lot of happiness in it :0)

Birthday card

Hi :0)

It was a loooong break, wow :0o But not completely without creativity, so here is a birthday card I made. On the front page it says: "It is your birthday today?" and inside: "So you should stop running for an instant, so I can congratulate to you..." .0)

BTW I love this great "Perfectly penned" alphabet stamp set from Concord & 9th. In a combination with "Liquid platinum" embossing powder from Ranger is so nice. And there is also a clear "Wink of stella" pen shine on the planets...just for a balance :0)

21.12.2016 "Space" birthday card

Creative weekend 3 - "Rose is a rose is a rose"

Simple "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" page in my new Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal :0) Distress ink pads background, stenciling through two stencils lying on each other, stamping without and with masking technique and coloring with Distress ink pads, Distress markers and white colored pencil...

9.10. 2016

Creative weekend 2

Another small page I made this weekend in my new Seawhite hardbound 7.5"x7.5" (ca. 20x20 cm) journal :0) Distress ink pads background, water spraying through stencil, stamping with positive and negative masking and colored pencils incl. white ...

1.10. 2016

Tim Holtz Creative chemistry 103 adventure ends....or maybe not :0)

So here are my tags from Tim Holtz's Creative chemistry 103...

Day 1 techniques:

Distress DIY ombré (tags 1-3), Distress highlight stamping (tag 4), Distress off-set stamping (tag 5), Distress washed watercolor (tag 6), Distress Micro-glaze resist (tags 7-8)

Day 2 techniques:

Distress paint resist (tags 1-2), Distress paint lifting (tags 3-4), Distress stain rub resist (tag 5), Distress luminous mica (tags 6-7), Distress marker spritzed watercolor (tags 8-10)

Day 3 techniques:

Distress layered collage (tag 1), Texture paste coloring (tag 2), Texture paste embossing (tag 3), Texture paste resist (tag 4), Distress grit-paste grunge (tag 5)

Day 4 techniques:

Distress crayon smudge (tag 1), Distress crayon gesso fresco (tags 2-3), Distress crayon texture resist (tag 4), Distress crayon watercolor resist (tag 5), Distress crayon blended background (tag 6), Distress crayon layered coloring (tag 7)

Day 5 techniques:

Alcohol ink stamped resist on Yupo (tags 1-3), Alcohol ink texture resist on Yupo (tag 4), Alcohol ink painting on Yupo (tag 5), Alcohol ink faded layers on Yupo (tag 6-7), Alcohol ink liquid landscapes on Yupo (tag 8), Alcohol ink splattered florals on Yupo (tag 9)

Tim Holtz Creative chemistry 102 adventure continues

So here are my tags from Tim Holtz's Creative chemistry 102...

Day 1 techniques:

Distress paint marbling (tags 1-2), Colored crackle (tag 3), Altered surfaces (tag 4), Eroded metallic (tags 5-6), Stamping resist (tags 7-8), Industrial (tag 9)

Day 2 techniques:

Mixed-media layering (tag 1), Embossing with stencils (tags 2-6), Embossing through stencils (tags 7-9)

Stencil stamping (tags 10-11), Stencil sketching (tag 12), Ink monoprint (tag 13-14), Paint monoprint (tag 15)

Day 3 techniques:

Smudge stamping (tag 1), Brayered stains (tags 2-3), Photo tinting (tag 4), Faux cracked glass (tags 5-7), Distres glitter Rock candy (tag 8), Distress glittering (tag 9)

Day 4 techniques:

Faux patina (tag 1), Faded layers (tags 2), Ombré (tag 3), Monoprint (tag 4-6)

Day 5 techniques:

Rusting with distress powder (tag 1), Sticky powder with glitter (tag 2), Sticky powder with leafing (tag 3), Shabby chic (tag 4), Tarnished silver (tag 5), Chalkboard (tag 6)

Tim Holtz Creative chemistry 101 adventure

Summer was quite busy, but I still had some time for creating. I spent few very nice weeks with Tim Holtz's Creative chemistry courses 101, 102 and 103 and it was a great adventure to discover or re-discover all the techniques he shows in his video lessons :0)

On the beginning of Creative chemistry 101 I decided not to use only Tims's Manila cardstock, but try a different kinds of papers I have and I could use in the future for my art pieces instead, so I have a better references how these papers behave, how they take water, colors and stamped images. I used more than 10 types of papers - watercolor, mixed media, kraft, black, specialty, even photo paper and mostly I was very happy with the results, although sometimes was a bit difficult manage the technique on them. And if I loved some technique a lot I made a few (or more) tags with it :0)

So here are my tags from Creative chemistry 101...

Day 1 techniques:

Blended spritz and flick (tags 1-4), Brushless watercolor (tags 4-5), Wrinkle-free distress (tag 6)

Day 2 techniques:

Alcohol ink agates (tags 1-2), Archival resist (tags 3-4), Reflections stamping (tags 5-9)

Day 3 techniques:

Watercoloring with re-inkers (tag 1), Layered misting (tags 2-5)

Day 4 techniques:

Stained kraft resist (tags 1-4), Stamping with stains (tags 5-6), Marbled stains (tags 7-8)

Day 5 techniques:

Watercolor with markers (tag 1), Blending with markers (tag 2), Stamping with markers (tag 3-5)

Day 6 techniques:

Rusted enamel (tags 1-3), Nostalgic batik (tag 4), Distress powder resist (tag 5)

Day 7 techniques:

Dabber resist (tag 1), Crackle paint resist (tag 2), Shattered stains (tags 3-4)

Day 8 techniques:

Perfect distress mist (tags 1-2), Perfect distress (tags 3-4), Perfect splatter distress (tag 5-6)
Day 9 technique:

Rock candy distress stickles (tags 7-8)

Clouterie - Guest Design Team spot for Chocolate Baroque - with photo tutorial :0)

This post is really exciting for me :D. Today I can show you a project I made for Chocolate Baroque stamps as a Guest Design Team member. It's been posted freshly on their Design team blog here.

As a winner of a Spring art competition earlier this year (with a Spring art journal page) I received this great opportunity to make another project with their beautiful stamps. On my blog I would like to show you step by step process, how I created this "textile shop window". And you can find the list of all the materials and colors I used at the end of this blog post :0)

a) first I made a colored paper for a shop window. I sprayed watercolor paper with water, added red Brusho powders and a pinch of blue. Then I used a brush to make a first layer of color. Until I had the final color I wanted, I kept adding the water and red powders and also just a little bit of Brusho Emerald green, because it is an opposite color of the red on the color wheel and make the red more dull. I always moved the brush in the same direction (from right to left and back), so at the end I had a texture resembling the wood grain. After everything was completely dry, I used Lascaux Satin matt acrylic medium as a sealer. I cut the paper into strips, scored them a little bit for the texture, finished the edges with Jet black archival ink and used the double sided tape adhesive tape to connect them into the shop window.

b) then I sprayed my background watercolor paper with water, I added Merlot Color burst powder and with the brush made my base flat color layer (quite pink). I let it air dry, so the final color was more vibrant. After that I stamped background stamp repeatedly with clear Versamark ink on the dry page and than sprinkled the page gently with Merlot Color burst and Prussian blue Brusho powders. With the dry brush I worked the powder into the pattern stamped with Varsamark. Than I sprayed the page with water again and spread the both colors on the page with brush . The stamped pattern remained darker, but it's necessary to be careful with the water (with too much water the dry pattern will be too blur and also with too much powders - they are very intense - the darker will be whole page and the pattern less visible at the end). I trimmed the paper a little bit, so it is slightly narrower than the shop window and can be completely hidden under it.

c) I stamped drapery, carpet, mannequins, corners, shop sign and haberdashery pieces on the mixed media paper with Jet black archival ink and heat set it with my Tim Holtz heat tool, so I could color them with Distress ink pads without smudging. I cut them out and finished all the edges with black waterproof Faber-Castell India ink marker. For the haberdashery I cut out separated masks (from sticky masking tape I stamped the pictures on) for brown and colourful parts, so I could color them safely without mixing the colors. I used Tim Holtz foam applicators and also helpful Tsukineko daubers for smaller pieces. 

For the shadows on the mannequins and all other pieces I used Hickory smoke Distress ink.

Corner stamp I stamped twice and drew a border around both pieces by hand. I colored them with Distress inks and than I lightened up some parts with clean water brush, so they look more dimensional. I wet the areas with water and then removed the excess color with dry paper towel. Left corner is before the and right one after I used the water brush. I am very happy with the wood like look and texture of the corners and the shop sign. It is also thanks to a texture of the Canson paper I used. 

The same lightening process I used on the strawberry patterned violet ribbon (my "carpet steps"). 

And I also decided not to use the thimbles I embossed with silver embossing powder. They would be too contrasting with other elements around.

d) I cut out rectangles from white silk wrapping paper I had from my birthday flowers and I sprayed them with Distress sprays in rainbow colors. I dried it with my heat gun. After that, for every piece I used a darker Distress ink pad color to stamp a patter on it and dry it again. I crumpled he papers several times so it was easier to work with it and arranged it around the mannequins. I used the colored paper ribbons from my stash and stamped buttons to finished the look of the textiles.

e) Finally I completed the page. For more dimensional look I used also a black adhesive fun foam. I used two layers under the shop window and also the drapery and one layer on the back side of the mannequins and lower step of the carpet. So the final layers of the page are - black card stock in the same shape as the shop window as a base for the whole page, violet background patterned paper, one layer of the fun foam frame around the page, upper carpet step directly on the background violet paper and lower carpet step with one layer of the fun foam on the back . Then the mannequins with one layer of the fun foam on the back side and the haberdashery on the upper and lower steps of the carpet. After that the second layer of the fun foam around the page and under the top drapery and on the top of it the corners with shop window and shop sign. 

For bigger parts I used the double sided adhesive tape, but the mannequins stands are glued with Distress collage medium and the haberdashery with Rangers Glossy accents which I also used (in small spots) under the "fabrics".

And here it is - the final project once again:

For the project I used:

Stamp sets from Chocolate baroque:

Floral Mannequins and Haberdashery, Texture Fragments for "textile" patterns, Damask Panel for background pattern and corner stamp from Steampunk Butterfly. 

Colors: 

for the shop window: mix of Brusho watercolor powders - Scarlet, Crimson, Prussian Blue and Emerald green and Color Burst watercolor powder - Merlot, 

for background: mix of Prussian Blue Brusho powder and Merlot Color Burst powder, 

for drapery and carpet: Tim Holtz Distress ink pads Milled lavender, Seedless preserves, Dusty concord, 

for fabrics: Distress ink sprays Spun sugar, Mustard seed, Spiced marmalade, Twisted citron and Tumbled glass and Distress ink pads Milled lavender, Wild honey, Carved pumpkin, Peeled paint and Broken china and for the haberdashery pieces: Distress ink pads in all these colors, 

for brown pieces: Distress ink pad Vintage photo and 

for shading of all pieces: Distress ink pad Hickory smoke. 

Papers: 
slightly textured Hahnemuehle Toscana 90 lbs watercolor paper 24x32 cm for background and shop window, Canson Mix Media 138 lb for all stamped pieces, silk (flower wrapping) paper for "fabrics".

Thank you so much for your patience and support. I really appreciate all your comments and nice words I can read on the Chocolate baroque blog and here :0)

Have a nice week and maybe see you some day with another Guest design team spot :0)