Creative Chemistry 101 - The Aftermath

Whoo Hoo, I graduated. 

I haven't quite finished yet, still a couple more techniques to go - I was going to do them tonight but the storm made it a bit too wet to trudge downstairs to the studio.  Besides, I had just cleaned up this mega mess, the floor is just as bad - just as well it didn't fit into the frame :)

Now I have to go and upload all of these into the class gallery before it closes on Monday. 

Hope you're enjoying your Easter break.  Catch you later

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 9 - Perfect Splatter Distress Technique

How pretty does this look?  I wasn't sure about it when I finished it last week, but when I photographed it today, it thought it looked great.  I love the big spotches of gold through it  - it looks so luxe.

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 9 - Perfect Mist Distress Technique

I must have been the only person on the planet not to already have Perfect Pearls or Pearl Ex in my stash.  So I HAD to remedy that situation.  I added some to the Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Lucky Limeade and So Saffron mists that I had already made and this is the result.  I don't like the big spotches but I wasn't quick enough to mop them up and I didn't want to do another layer cause I did like how the colours looked together.  See the shimmer :)

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 8 - Shattered Stains Technique

Again, when I heard we were using crackle paint, I did lash out and buy some of this Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint.  I have used some old, retired SU chipboard and used reinkers instead of stains.  This is a super cool technique that I will definately be using again.

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 8 - Crackle Paint Resist Technique

Oh my, it's probably wrong to say how much I love how this turned out, but I do.  This tag uses some of my new Distress Crackle Paint (in Shabby Shutters) and my new (and one and only) Tim Holtz stamp.

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 8 - Paint Dabber Resist Technique

I must admit, when I saw that we were going to use this sticky backed canvas, I did buy some so I would have it in time for class as I had seen it used on one of the JAI challenges and it looked SO cool.  I did also manage to find a Snow Cap white paint dabber too :)  I really love how this turned out too!

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 7 - Distress Powder Resist Technique

Now, I have NO idea if I did this correctly or not, as I couldn't see the powder 'turn' when I embossed it.  I kind of wish I had of added a bit of red to this, just for a bit more of a pop of colour, although I might have covered it up with the brown I added around the edges :)

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 7 - Rusted Enamel Technique

I like how this has turned out.  I do wish I had of perhaps crumpled the tag first because I think that it would have made it a little more realistic.

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 7 - Nostalgic Batik Technique

So I have skipped ahead to Day 7, which focused on different embossing techniques.  Day 6 we looked at Distress Markers.  Since I don't have any of those, and have used the techniques shown previously, I decided to skip ahead to Day 7.

I wish I would used a bigger/bolder image to stamp on the LHS of the tag, oh, well, there's always next time, hey?

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 5 - Marbled Stains Technique

I absolutely love this.  I only wished I had of waited a little bit longer for the tag to dry properly before stamping on it, so the blacks would have been a bit blacker.  Again, the only stain I have is Picket Fence so I used my Distress Ink pads for this technique.  I think they worked pretty well.

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 5 - Stamping with Stains

I really like how this turned out.  I managed to find myself some Picket Fence stain for this technique, along with a few other new supplies.  It's funny that the cost of the class was super cheap, considering the wealth of information we have gained, but I have spent a small fortune on supplies to complete these techniques.  I haven't brought everything Tim showed, but have managed to get myself a nice little stash of Ranger products for future use.  The thing is, since doing this class, I can see a whole heap of new ways to use some of my stamps, which is a good thing.

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 5 - Stained Kraft Resist

This was kind of interesting since I don't have any Kraft Resist paper/cardstock or any of the distress reinkers, except for Picket Fence.  So I used some retired SU! DSP, embossed an image on it and then used my inkpads to try and recreate the effect of using the distress stains.  I was really, really happy with how this turned out until I noticed what I did, take a look

Creative Chemistry 101 - Day 4

As I mentioned in my last post, the only technique from Day 4 that I was going to try out was the :Layered Misting Technique cause I have already tried colouring with Reinkers and I didn't really like the results I got using my SU reinkers to make the custom stamp pad.  I will revisit the custom stamp pad once I get some distress reinkers.

Anywhoo, this is my Layered Mist Technique tag. 

I managed to find one of Tim's masks to use for this technique.  It did take me quite some time though to work out how the stupid thing worked.  Once I did, which was purely by accident, I was good to go.  My base coat uses SU! Real Red, So Saffron, Tempting Turquoise, Lucky Limeade and Pumpkin Pie reinkers.  I then laid out the alphabet masks and then sprayed over a mist of Not Quite Navy.  I kind of wish I had chosen a slightly darker colour to have gotten a better contrast as the NQN has turned a bit green.  But this was a super fun and really messy technique that I will definately use again.  I will cover my off white desk up a bit better next time though. 

This is just one of number of posts I'm doing tonight showing all the techniques I've learnt.  There's probably a way to do it, but I couldn't find it, to add more than one photo from each post to the class gallery using Inlinkz so I have to do a separate post for each tag I made.  Sorry.

Creative Chemistry 101

I have been taking Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 101 online class.  Today was the last 'official' day of class and I am sad because it has been one of the most interesting and informative classes that I have ever taken.  And now I understand and can reason with anyone as to why I NEED to have all of the different inks/reinkers/crap supplies I do - it's all in the chemistry.  And it's not that one is universally better than the other, they just have different properties that make each one better for a particular technique than another.  So, let me just let me share what Tim mentioned in one of the videos - "You need it all", lol!  I {heart} his thinking.

Day 1 we learnt all about the different properties of various inks - lots of things learnt that day and consequently a few dollars spent too! 

Day 2 we learnt all about Distress Inks and these are my samples of the techniques we learnt.

Blended Distress/Spritz & Flick

The tag I used is a manilla one that is as old as the hills.  I think if I had of used a better quality of cardstock, it would have turned out a bit better, ie more intense colours.  They seemed to get sucked into the paper.  I also wished I had used red in the top RH corner.  I didn't think I had one but I had forgotten about the Winter Trio of Distress Inks I ordered and had sitting in my cupboard.  I also cannot spritz & flick with my left hand.

Brushless Watercolour

Got a little over excited with the edging.  I guess it's something I need to practice because I keep getting this line thing going on even though I am applying in a circular motion.

Wrinkle-Free Distress

This was fun.  Again, should have used a better quality cardstock.  This is an old manilla folder that I cut to the same size as the first tag.  Don't really like those big brown blobs, but as Tim mentioned, it's all about practising the techniques, not making masterpieces.  Told you I {heart} his thinking.

Day 3 we learnt all about Alcohol Inks.  I must be the last person on the planet not to already have these,  but the effects are cool and I will be getting some more colours.

Alcohol Ink Agates

These two are my favourites, but I can decide on which I like best.  The white 'spots' are the pearl mixative I used, it was the only colour that I could find in stock in Australia.


Archival Resist

I wish I had have used a darker ink (brown) over the top of this.  It's a bit light.  Too impatient to wait for my order to arrive.  I found that the Jet Black Archival is very, very slippery on the gloss card.

Stamping with Reflections

Would have loved to have some of Tim's reflection stamps, but had to make do with what I had on hand.  In hindsight, I wish I had of stamped a text background ever so lightly before running through the Big Shot.  Think that would have set it off a bit better.  See that brown line around the outside, having trouble with that.  I guess it's just practice, hope so anyway :)

Day 4 we learnt all about Reinkers.  One of the techniquese we learnt was Watercolouring with Reinkers.  Since I am already familiar with this technique, I haven't done my tag yet, figured I'd work on the things I'm not familiar with so I can ask any questions I may have before the forum closes.

I haven't done the Layered Misting yet, but it looks like it's going to be a fun one.

Another technique was the Custom Stamp Pad.  I've tried this twice now and I've not been overly happy with my results.  I'm not sure if it's because the images I've used are a little too detailed or if it's because the opening to my reinker (I'm using SU! ones at the moment) is a little too big, meaning that I can't control the flow of ink that well.  I'm planning on getting a few of the Distress ones and will try this technique out again once they arrive.

Well, that's about it.  I'm hoping to get crafty again tonight and try out some more of these fabulous techniques.

If you have any questions about what I used, please leave me a comment or send me an email.  It was a swag of stuff and since most of it isn't SU! I can't recall the names of everything.  I will get around to updating at some stage.