Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Illustrious Order of the Dirty Hands

A big thank you to everyone who attended this class and hence joined the "Illustrious Order of the Dirty Hands" (my new title awarded to whoever is willing to sign up for my messiest class of the month!)

Altered Tool Box: "Play, Learn, Grow"
(box from Creative Imaginations)
Box is in my favourite colours using lots of scrap strips of patterned paper.
Love that little squirrel....and the spinner trees.

How to PLAYalong:

1. Squeeze white PVA glue (I used Elmer's Glue) on edges of box making it a little drippy... Dry with heat gun. (glue will fester and bubble in a most delightful manner, making pockmarks and blisters on your box)
2. Using a candle, rub wax onto the surface of the lid of the box. (make sure you don't 'draw' with your candle like you would with a pencil, but rub it with the length of your candle pressed flat against the surface)

3. Slap on some brown paint. Leave to dry then rub with a dry tissue or kitchen towel. will find that the parts with wax will rub off leaving nice wood grain texture (see below). Rub in a little Distress ink if you find the grain too 'white'. Adjust colour of wood by rubbing in some Staz On ink. (I was going for mahogany - can you tell? haha)

4. The parts with your blistered glue will look like this (level of blistering is directly proportional to amount of glue used):More trees and another squirrel. The clock face tree with the safety pin reminds me of a nipple ring somehow.....erm....let's not go there.
I have LEARNed that:

1. If you put some modelling paste on the corner of the box, pat it a with an ice cream stick to make 'peaks', let it dry, then colour it with Distress inks and Staz On ink, you get a rather lovely texture like this (A bit Freddy Krueger....haha) :
2. If you use some letter stencils (e.g. Tim Holtz's), place them on your box, slap some modelling paste on top of them, then lift the stencils away, you can make cool dimensional words, like the "grow" below. (They need to be coloured after they're dry of course):
By the end of all this messing about, you will GROW to be immune to the fact that your hands are mucky, messy and good ol dirty and will have officially been inducted into The Illustrious Order of The Dirty Hands! Welcome to the Club!

7 comments:

Sue Lui said...

Sharon, reading your post made me laugh! :D I must have missed this class completely. Didn't even know it was on. :P Great messy looking box.

Lydia said...

thanks for the wonderful knowledge sharing post! been missing all my favourite messy classes these few months. next time i go down to shop, u explain more on the different mediums..confusing!!! hehehe...

CK Chai said...

cool project! Love its dirty look! Guess I've pretty tied down by my own issues and have not been checking out recent class? Really thanks a lot for sharing but I wonder if I can achieve the same effect by reading your tips coz I am one lousy with instructions!

jaz lee said...

Sharon,tfs all your wonderful techniques.you are the best! i love this box to depth!!!

am sorry to hear abt the missing project.hope u gals can find it within d outlet. yea,i know, i heard abt such case sometime back too. issh,who is that greedy fella??!! sigh.

anyway,glad u had a good holiday.u totally deserved it.

Have a blessed weel ;) -jaz

Chowchow said...

Wow Sharon - this is ab fab. Thanks for sharing all the tech with us. I have never heated Elmer's Glue before but I have done it with 3D lacquer. I would say that the effects are similar. Will try your tech soon.

Michelle

Sasha Farina said...

an amazing box.. anytime you're tired of it, I can do a pick up.. *grins*

Shirley said...

Fabulous Sharon! Love that Freddy Krueger style paste! You do seem to like him in your styles huh!! Hahahahaha!
Big pity about the loss of your book though.... Yeah, I really hope the bellies drop off and prick the thief's fingers too! In revenge....