2021 Topic 3 The Creative Laboratory with Zinski Art {by Tracey Springer}

 2021 Topic 3: The Creative Laboratory with Zinski Art {by Tracey Springer}

This topic has certainly had our bloggers scratching their heads. Tracey went down the quirky zini critter route with specimen jars for her laboratory shelfie! Along the way she went in a few twists and turns, like most research does, and landed back on the turf she feels most comfortable with - bold, bright and striking!
~ Leandra

Hi Everyone, it's Tracey Springer with you today. Creative Laboratory wasn't one I was going to do (hence I'm not using any of the gorgeous new releases) but I'm very glad I did I jumped in to share some Zinski fun with some of those older stamps that you know and love. I hope you enjoy my crazy cards as much as I do!

 

I started out with a vision of putting some of Elena Zinki’s crazy little Zini critters under bell jars – almost like they were precious specimens on display in a museum. 

I used a bell jar die cut from the Sizzix 'bigz' Bell Jar die and cut out the acetate tops to be able to figure out what I could fit under the jar. Zini’s turned out to be the perfect size. I selected numbers 15, 32, and 38 to play with. 

I coloured them in using Copics and fussy cut them out (I must admit Birdie lost a leg and at one stage I was very tempted to leave him like that to see if anyone noticed).

 

The next step was to play with my infusions to back the jars with to make the Zini’s standout. I love how each play with the infusions creates something different depending on how much you spray. 

I added an outline around the acetate jars with a layer of ‘Fresco Frosting Glaze’ (designed to crated an effect on acetate, acrylic or glass that replicates sandblasted glass) and a small stamp on one edge using the line stamp in Tracy Scott 041 TS041. 

 

 

I assembled them with a layer of foam tape raising the Zini up but taping down the edges of the jars – it gave it quite a bubble 3D effect.

 

My trusty vintage ‘Hermes Baby’ typewriter was used for the specimen labels and quotes.

 

I then overthought the process for the next week – I tried to do styles that aren’t ‘Me’ creatively anymore. I hand-dyed muslin cloth using watered down Fresco paints – they turned out really nice but they didn’t work together like I wanted them to. I threw out sample after sample until I finally decided to actually do ‘Me’. 

 

I got out black cardstock and the very cool set of background stamps ETS 41 by Tracy Scott, stamped and heat embossed in white and it instantly made my jars stand out. Yay!

I stuck to bold, bright and simple for the rest of the cards – painting my favourite ‘Fresco Finish’ colours – ‘Yellow Submarine, Bubble-gum, Coral and Sargasso’ onto card stock and stamping the large wording from ‘JOFY 89’ (my all-time favourite background stamp) and the scallop border stamp from ‘JOFY 79’. I distressed around the edges of the coloured backgrounds with my scissors (I do have a tool but I can’t find it) and assembled. A simple piece of knotted bakers twine finished them off. 

 

I hope you enjoyed my play, the creative process certainly taught me a few things this time – I learnt that its ok to do ‘Me’ and to just roll with it. 

Happy creating, 

Tracey XO

Instagram: @tracey_springer