On the Fifth Day of Christmas your goodie box could be... Five Fab Fine Art Fixings - how's that for a mouthful (LOL)... (Be certain to sign up for all of the blog candy we are giving away - 12 days worth! All you need to do to join in the fun is to leave an answer to the questions on each giveaway. We will do the random drawing on January 7th Ü)
Are you singing along with us yet? I thought about loading this song to play when you arrived at the CLASSroom, but then decided it would most definitely drive you all away if you had to listen to it for 12 straight days - LOL! We are absolutely thrilled to see you stopping by and enjoying our 12 day celebration. Over the years I have learned that it takes time to get comfortable using new products and so I decided to just keep with my exploration of the Studio Line of products and see what types of creations I could come up with. I am truly excited for a couple of upcoming ideas I have floating inside my head, but before I go there I wanted to share this project with you so that I could showcase one of the techniques that I saw Claudine demonstrate at CHA Summer.
This resist technique takes on a completely different look than some of the other resist options I have explored as a rubber stamper due to the nature of the matte medium. I absolutely love how variegated the look is that comes about from using this process.
I used the Sticky Back Canvas (which I apologize for running out of yesterday during our sale - hopefully we will have more in by the beginning of next week) to create this flower. As you can see from the shape of the flower above it is quite maleable - which made it so fun to create with.
To begin I used brushed the Matte Medium over the surface of the Distressed Grid Scrapblock.
I immediately stamped my Sticky Back Canvas using this "gluey" stamp. As you can see I continued to use the piece of canvas that I had created my Christmas tag on. It is wonderful to know that you can continue to cut and use pieces of this canvas as you need it without any problem whatsoever. After stamping I promptly went and thorough cleaned my Scrapblock with warm water using an old soft toothbrush to remove all the "glue" from it's surface.
Once I had allowed the medium to dry I then mixed up my paint. Being an impatient artist I did use my heat embossing tool to help speed the process. I don't know that I can or should recommend this, but it did work just fine - whew!!!
The beauty of the Studio Line is that the paint is buttery smooth in the containers - it is really thick and gives excellent coverage. For this purpose I wanted a much more "watery" paint to work with and so I just added some water with my paintbrush and thinned the paint in to a much thinner "glaze".
As you can see from this picture the canvas has a tendency to curl when wet. I am showing this to you so that you don't worry - it will be just fine Ü
A little more warmth (don't overheat it or you might ruin the sticky part of this canvas) and my canvas was ready for me to create my flowers.
I ran it through my die cutting machine using the Nested Flowers. As you can see not all the edges cut smoothly, but it was easy to use my snips to finish the cuts. I then realized that perhaps I should have applied my backing before cutting them out - it was a rather "duh" moment for me. So I set about preparing yet another option to share.
I selected a lightweight cotton fabric and inked the surface of the Victorian Pattern using the same Modern Red paint. This time I did not thin the paint. I just brushed it on to the Backgrounder surface and then stamped directly on the fabric. Once again I immediately washed my Backgrounder using a old, soft toothbrush to remove the paint from the crevices. Once again I quickly dried the surface and found that the fabric was (is) still soft and maleable - yippie - it doesn't feel scratchy at all. I am thinking we might be able to create some wonderful little quilt blocks to make pillows, or... more testing to come - that's for certain!
This time I adhered my altered Sticky Back Canvas directly to my painted fabric and then sent it through the die cut machine. Once again it did not cut cleanly all the way around, but the snips cut the remaining portion easily. This method was a LOT easier than adhering the Sticky Back Canvas to the second fabric and cutting around the entire image. I hope this helps you avoid my little time consuming mistake. As well I found that I needed to use the Matte Medium to hold the Sticky Back Canvas in place being it lost some of it's "grip" after I did the whole scissor cutting method - LOL! This turned out to be a good experiment though because I have learned that by adding the Matte Medium I did receive a more "sturdy" product. It wasn't quite as maleable as the flower petals that I cut at one time with my die. Hopefully this all makes sense - I begin to babble when I get tired - LOL!
To complete the flower I sewed the layers together using an Urban Prairie Button as my center. I then shaped the canvas to make it more "blossom-like." Experimenting with products is SO much fun - I encourage you to give it a try. It does something for the soul - it makes me feel perhaps just a little bit like a pioneer woman - LOL! OK, not really - but it truly is fun to explore and see what you can find Ü
I finished my card by using the Urban Prairie Paper and a cute little tag with Kim Hughes "For You" sentiment stamped on it. We are so excited about your response to our endeavour to brighten these days following Christmas and would like to encourage you to participate in our drawings. You can only receive the goodies we are offering if you leave your comment. Thank you again for stopping by the CLASSroom and sharing in our explorations.
