Wrapping up Creative Chemistry 103

I knew I was not going to get to try all the wonderful techniques, but was fortunate to get to experiment a little. While I did not have all the supplies as used in class, I did some things with what I did have. One of the techniques looked a little familar to me! I had done something similar to it a few years ago. Here is a picture of a skeleton leaf card I made several years ago using stamps from www.stubbystampers.com

Trying out that technique again was fun, and what would my Creative Chemistry experience be without making something Halloweenie?

The technique I used differs from what was done in class. For my technique, I used Kromekote cardstock (from a stash I have been using gradually for believe it or not 10 years). My inks used are Color Box Fluid Chalk Inkpad in Bisque, and two Ranger alcohol inks in dark colors and Sunshine Yellow alcohol ink.

I first made my own stamp layout on a grid block using some various packs of Recollections brand Halloween stamps I had purchased over the years from Michaels craft stores.

Here is a picture of what my stamps all laid out on the grid block looked like.

Next, I inked that up with Color Box Chalk Bisque ink and stamped on the Kromekote. For best results I let the chalk ink dry somewhat. Since Kromekote is a treated paper with a very nice, shiny, slick surface, that takes a while.








When dry as it's going to get, I then applied the two shades of dark alcohol inks in the usual manner using a felt on the ink applicator. As soon as the paper was covered to my liking, I wiped over it with my cloth towel to bring out the images that had been stamped in Clearsnap Color Box Chalk. Normally, the Chalk ink dries with a soft finish. Since it is not soaking into the paper, wiping off defeats that effect, but does keep the paper beneath it from absorbing the colorant from the alcohol inks. I then spla shed a little Sunshine Yellow alcohol ink in areas to kind of colorize the Bisque areas to more of a warm orangy shade. The alcohol ink and blending solution does take a little time to dry on the Kromekote, so I was careful to wait until it looked dry before trimming it to the size I wanted.

I'll probably apply this to a card front and add some embellishments. But, the classroom gallery is closing soon, so I wanted to get at least this part of my experiment posted there.

Thanks for checking out my blog!

Creative Chemistry 103 - Day 1

So happy to be taking the 3rd in a series of wonderful classes developed by Tim Holtz, hosted at  Onlinecardclasses.com website.

Chock full of great techniques, even on just day 1, with several days to go. The classes are so well put together with not only PDFs to save or print of all the techniques, but lovely examples by guest artists, with additions like technique labels to print and stick to the back of the example tags we make for each technique. It is a learn at your own pace class, but going on live right now with Tim Holtz answering questions in the forum.

I know I won't be able to do a tag for every technique in just this week. (Raising more sweet foster kittens that are about ready to find homes.) But, I'm sure I'll eventually get to trying each of them out to see where it takes me.

Here's my tag for Day 1:

I used Kraft Resist paper from the Paper Stash collection to cut out my own tag. Using the technique described in class, I used Distress Inks and Distress Pens to stamp out stampers anonymous rubber cling stamps for my design. The great thing about this technique is Distress Ink colors that would not normally show up on a dark background are not only visible, but have a cool kind of extra dimension/depth.

I posted an ATC a while back that used a similar technique, only instead of inks, Pearl-ex and chalk were the colorant to stand out on the dark background. I think I like using the inks better as it is not as time consuming or messy as the Pearl-ex and chalks were both powders.

Off to look at class videos for Day 2!

Thanks for checking out my tag.