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!

Gone Missing

My art journal (above) has gone missing....and as Murphy's Law would have it, I only discovered that it was missing one hour before I was supposed to teach it in class.....sigh.

We always leave the samples of old classes in the classroom in the store 'cos lots of our students come back later to have a look when they're trying to finish up the projects. So, as far as we all know, it was in the classroom. But when I got back from Japan, it was gone....siiiggghhh.

I'm really really really hoping its just lost in the mess of stuff in the classroom, but beginning to suspect very much that it's been taken....stolen 'cos this kind of thing has happened to me before. (This would be the 5th project that's been stolen from the store)

Siiiiigggggghhhhhh............. I'm not angry, just bewildered. And a tiny part of me hopes that all my embellishments on the front cover fall off in revenge!

Way Back When

Shadowbox: "Us" (using small shadow box from IKEA)

This is us in pre-kiddy days. Actually we kind of look like a couple of kids ourselves.... Me, I think I will always have a 'baby' face - hope this is going to work to my advantage when I'm 50 - haha.

Nothing much to share technique wise. Just like the colour scheme on this one - me big fan of black and white.

A Favourite (even though its pink)

Now this pink thing I like because it is the right kind of pink....you know what I mean? Not Barbie pink...old vintage Laura Ashley pink... an uncute pink....haha.

Layout Title: "Love You"
This layout is actually a self-made shadowbox of sorts.

Here's how you can make your own:
1. Cut a hole in a die-cut patterned paper to make a frame. Make sure you leave at least 1" border. (everyone's making these shaped patterned papers nowadays - my sharon-approved pink one is from Making Memories)

2. Reinforce your frame with chipboard so its nice and sturdy

3. Cut a piece of chipboard that is about 1/2" smaller than your frame. This will actually be your 'base'. There should be a 1/2" overlap between your frame and your base. This will be where you put all your 3D foam dots to act as the sides of your 'shadow bow' and the foam dots will support your frame so its lifted nice and high above the base.

4. Decorate your base and your frame separately (E.g. on mine, the frame has white corrugated cardboard and lace pattern paper stuck on the inside edges. The base contains the patterned background, photo, tag, cut out flowers etc.)

5. Assemble the 2 together and voila, your very own shadow box!

You always think of things you could have done only after you're finished...
1. It might have been nice to make some 'glass' for the shadowbox using an overlay stuck to the back of the frame
2. Should have tied some ribbon or string around the frame to give it a bit more texture before gluing it down
3. Wish I could have used real lace, but....oh well.
4. Should cut some chipboard to cover the sides where you can see the ugly 3D foam dots but I'm feeling a little bit lazy....heh

p.s. love this Beatles song... "love you forever and forever, love you with all my heart...."

Sharon's Scrapping Situation:
- almost finished with all 4 projects for July. They're ready for viewing and you can come have a look when you're at the store.
- quite pleased with an experiment in 'artistic baking' that went reasonably well. (You get to enjoy the results of my 'cooking' in one of July's classes)
- very amused by the 'bacon and eggs' I made for another July class.

Hmmm....seems like July has an unintentional food theme....must be my body protesting against eating too much fast food.