Welcome Back Carol Quance #1 Shrink Plastic Bracelet ....

"Don’t know about you but I love the Lynne Perrella images. So how about being able to take them with you wherever you go and wear them at the same time….. voila, a shrink plastic bracelet".
 

Certain peeps will chuckle at this as we’ve been having a discussion about Shrink Plastic.

There are a number of different makes on the market and you can also get White, Frosted and Black varieties. I’ve found that Shrink Plastic can shrink differently too depending on which make you use. It can shrink unevenly and leave you with a slightly crooked shape.  The make I used was Polyshrink. I’ve always found it reliable and it doesn’t tend to stick to itself when shrinking hence wasting precious shrink plastic. I decided to work with Translucent Shrink Plastic.

I used three different heart shaped dies.  

I cut out quite a few as I hadn’t decided how many I wanted to add to my bracelet and it was likely there would be a few that went wrong (no really!?).  In the past I’ve used chalks or ink pads to colour the Shrink Plastic, but I thought I would have a go and see if it worked with the Fresco Paints. 

After quite a lot of experimentation, it seemed the best method was to ..  

1) sand the Shrink Plastic.

2) Next paint the Shrink Plastic, let it dry naturally. You can see on some i have darker bits at the edges, just remember, the colour gets bolder as it shrinks, and a thin layer of paint is all that is required.

3) Now stamp it with a permanent ink (I've used a variety of Lynne Perrella stamps) like archival, brilliance black, or versafine. Remember you are staming onto paint, so these inks are better than using staZon. StaZon is great direct to Shrink, but the others are better on top of paint.

{"TIP: Regarding stamping the images, I placed the SP on the stamp rather than the other way round, you can then be sure you get the part of the image you want – it even shows through the Shrink Plastic"}. 

I also thought that the die cut shapes looked better stamped completely rather than leaving white space.  What do you think??. 

{"TIP: When Shrink Plastic shrinks any colour used will become more concentrated and darker.  Unless you want dark backgrounds, initially try testing out a light colour.

DON’T FORGET to punch a small hole before you shrink otherwise you won’t be able to attach it to your bracelet"}.

5) So, once you are ready, and the ink is dry, shrink it. Simples!

The next step is optional but I thought I would try some clear embossing over the image. 

6) Press your Shrink Plastic shape (inky side down) into a clear Embossing Pad. I found this gave better coverage rather than the other way round. I used about three coats of clear UTEE for each one. If you don’t have UTEE use ordinary Embossing Powder, It’ll just require a few more layers. If you haven’t tried this before, look for triple embossing videos on YouTube for hints and tips.

This pic just gives you a comparison between embossed and not. 

7) Lastly I applied silver Liquid Leaf to the back and along the edges of each piece of Shrink Plastic. As previously, I used yet another defunct Krylon pen and dipped into the Liquid Leaf. I found it applied best and most smoothly if I “tapped” it onto the surface of the Shrink Plastic. Here are the finished shapes. 

Time to put it all together with the aid of these tools.

I attached each piece to the chain via a jump ring and used a magnetic clasp to join it all together as well as adding some more heart shaped charms from my jewellery stash.  

 I hope you have enjoyed this step by step and how to of Shrink Plastic. Would love to see what you create. Click HERE to upload/share your artwork.  I will be back tomorrow evening with project #2.

Leandra Says: I love how the paint works so beautifully onto the Shrink Carol. THis is a fun project, and a great gift too. It makes stamping up so much easier. Did you see this LP shrink bracelet that Lin (Yours Artfully) made in autumnal tones. She stamps, and uses the paints to colour in the image, but it is not UTEE sealed, I think she may have used satin glaze instead.

Gillian Says: Stunning, I so love this bracelet. (can I have it lol). Definitely need to try this project. I prefer the embossed look which looks fab with the edged Liquid Leaf.

Carol Quance #3 Box Canvas ....

Canvas – One woman, Many Faces

Tonight I want to show you a mini canvas.  I used one of the PaperArtsy 6 x 6 Box Canvases for this project and these colours. 

I used the Mini Ledger Stencil and pushed some Grunge Paste through it and left it to dry.  The whole canvas was then painted with Nougat. 

This is an opaque paint and acted as a base for the transluscent colours I had chosen. Once dry, I painted the canvas with London Bus, Smoked Paprika and Pumpkin Soup.  Although I pretty much dried one colour before changing to another, I managed to blur the edges of each colour by having a wet brush brush and brushing the area where the colours changed to combine them. 

I also used the Mini Harlequin Stencil on the sides of the canvas.

At this point the cat decided to pay me a visit!

{Leandra says: Wow s/he looks just like our cat Milo, lucky that the paws still look to be black!}

I decided to decorate the 2 sides with the key stamp from LPCO13 – a lovely detailed key.

Applying keys:  I stamped the keys onto tissue paper with Stazon Black. I painted round the image closely with a water laden brush and pulled the tissue to give a frayed edge.

I then painted a wash of Fresco Smoked Paprika on the reverse side. Smoked Paprika is translucent so you will not lose the image. 

Once dry, I brushed a layer of Fresco Satin Glaze on the back of the key images and applied them to the side of the canvas.  It’s the first time I’ve used Satin Glaze and having previously used PVA to apply my tissue stamped images, this is way better and it’s much easier to apply the tissue, leaving you with a smooth image. As Leandra says in her YouTube video (even though she’s referring to Crackly Tissue, it seems to like being picked up and stuck back down as you smooth out any air bubbles. 

Once the keys were stuck down, I continued painting Smoked Paprika on top of the image and round the edges and eventually you build up enough layers so that you can’t see the edges of your tissue.  It doesn’t take long.  I tended to water down the paint slightly to make it flow more. It’s amazing how the tissue disappears.

I very carefully used a piece of Cut N Dry foam to highlight the stencilling with Liquid Leaf across the front of the canvas.

The main image on the canvas is from LPCO01.  It was stamped twice on card with Stazon and also on Shrink Plastic. I coloured the card images with pens and gave them a coat of Fresco Satin Glaze which gives a lovely smooth finish.

For the top left image,  I initially painted the wings (a TH die) with a  base coat of Fresco Stone and added a layer of Blood Orange mixed with London Bus to make them quite dark and then I thought – ooh what about a Crackle Glaze.  So I started again and re-painted them in stone, added a layer of FrescoCrackle Glaze and then a layer of Blood Orange and London Bus missed together again.  It is REALLY important to make sure that each layer is dry before adding the next one because otherwise your crackle won’t work properly.  You can use your heat gun to help the drying.

I edged the wings with Liquid Leaf.  My gold Krylon pen has finally given up the ghost and I’ve found the dipping it into the Liquid Leaf works just as well. 

The words were printed onto acetate. I couldn’t think how best to apply them to the canvas.  As an experiment I put some eyelets through the four corners and carefully dripped some glue through the eyelet holes.  It actually caught on the canvas and held in place – sorted!

For a change I thought I’d have some feet.  Nothing in the stash so I raided the local DIY and bought a couple of stainless steel door knobs.  To match the colour scheme of the canvas, I coated them in a mixture of gold embossing powder and gold UTEE.  It created this wonderful knobbly texture. 

I super-glued the doorknobs to the bottom of the canvas but my plan is to get the other half to help me screw them in to secure them more firmly.

I hope you have enjoyed the projects this week, I will be back next month with some more PaperArtsy projects.

Leandra Says: Well I am totally loving your feet, but Ive got to say, the colour combo is particularly striking! How cool does that ledger look in the background! A fantastic stencil, and superb once accented with the liquid leaf!!!

Gillian Says: Love this project Carol, my fav of the week, from the rich warm tones of the paints used to the textured feet = one fab canvas. x

Welcome Carol Quance #1 Beaded Hanging Board ....

                                                                                                      

To be honest I often don't have any idea what I’m going to make when I start. I knew I wanted to make a hanging so I started by pulling out the hanging board from my stash and then started to look at my PaperArtsy stamps to see what would fit well on to the board. 

Next up was colour scheme and as I hadn’t yet tried out my "mauve" Fresco shades it was a good opportunity to try them out. 

 I painted the Hanging Board with Pansy to start as it’s an opaque colour and gives good coverage.

 I chose the long stamp on the LP09 plate which pretty much exactly fitted the length of the board and left room for some extra embellishment down the other edge.

LPC09

I wasn’t sure how my image would look on the tissue wrap I used – especially as it was very screwed up as you can see (!) I tried a couple of different inks and decide to use Versafine Onyx Black in the end as it produced the most crisp image. (the one on the right).

Versafine can take a while to dry as it is slightly oily so you can speed it along with a heat gun.  Once this was dry I painted it mainly on the back. Leandra has some very good YouTube videos which explain how to paint with the Fresco Paints.  

The opaque colours work well as a background on the back of tissue to make the image look more solid. I used Nougat for the face with the help of Moonlight and Pansy to add to continuity of the colour theme. This was put aside to dry. 

To fill the blank space beside the picture, I decided to add some stencilling using Golden Fibre Paste which gives a good texture. I also added some stencilling up each side edge to match.

Whilst the fibre paste was trying, I had a rummage and came up with this bead edging which fitted with the colour scheme and I thought would make a good edging.  The trim was too wide so I very carefully glued it in half with some fabric glue.

I then carefully attached the tissue to the hanging board with Ranger Glossy Accents smoothing out any creases as I went.

To seal the edges of the picture I painted over a light coating of Golden Polymer medium which as you can see gives off a light sheen.

      The whole piece looked a bit flat so to start adding some highlighting, I edged the whole frame with black paint and then carefully rubbed some IndigoTreasure Gold across the top of the stencilled diamonds.

                                                  

To keep up the theme, I removed the string hanging (but saved it in my stash for later!) and decided to add a bead hanging. I used a mattress needle to carefully thread some invisible sewing thread through the holes used by the string and very carefully threaded on some beads cut from the edging.  This was VERY fiddly even for me who loves fiddly lol.

Still need more pop so I carefully tapped on some Gold LiquidLeaf.  This is gorgeous but needs careful handling – less is more!

And finally the finished piece.

 

Leandra Says: Ohhh it all works so well together. The bead trim is the perfect colour combo too....or should that be the other way wrong ... that you perfectly matched your frescos, treasure gold and Liquid leaf to the beads! Love it, that fibre paste is so dimensional too. Thankyou!

Gillian Says:Love this beaded hanging board Carol, I'm not normally a "purple" person but these colours together look great along with the textured areas.

To join in with Carol this week, simply click HERE to upload/share your artwork. Carol will be back on Wednesday evening with project #2.