Decoart Glass Stain Key Chain Tutorial.

Hi all, thanks for stopping by, Today I am trying something different, this is my first tutorial, I have been thinking of having a go for a while and a couple of weeks ago I made some key rings using Decoart Glass Stains and thought they might be a good place to start.

I hope you don't mind the waffle and a whole load of pics.

Here is what you will need.

 Decoart Glass Stains
Decoart Triple Thick Glaze
Tim Holtz Fragments
Glossy Card
Distress Ink
Key Chain's (you can use pre made, I have some with the Tim Holtz clips and some made from scratch using parts from the Bead Shop in Brighton )
Any type of charms.
Fine Sand Paper/Sanding Block
Pliers
And of course a selection of stamps.

You can find a list of Decoart Suppliers HERE

 1) The first step is to take your glossy card, I cut my sheet into half but you can go as small as quarters depending on how many you want to make and your colour choices.
I have found it best to use three colours to get a nice blended look.
Squeeze the Glass stains out randomly and quite generously across the piece of card, I have used red yellow and orange here.

 2) Take the other half of your paper and place it face down on top of the first piece, slide the paper around making sure you push the stains into all the corners as much as possible, I rotate the paper a little between my hands as well to get nice swirls of colour mixed. Do not worry too much about any small areas of white card showing through, they can be dealt with latter on.Once you have mixed them together enough you can either peal the top layer off, this leaves a more textured finish to the Stains or you can slide the top sheet off leaving a much smoother look to the blended colours.
Set the sheets aside to dry, they will probably be workable in about an hour and if you are careful you can help them along with your heat gun.

   This one has been made using Green Yellow and Blue Glass Stains

And this has Blue, Brown and Black Glass Stains.

 3) Now you get to break out your stamps,I have used black Archival ink for all my stamping and found this to give the best results. You will find some stamps  work a lot better than others, I found the stamps with finer lines gave the best results rather than larger areas of rubber. If you look at the Gent, his body is quite patchy, When you stamp on top of the Stains it is almost like stamping on to glass or acetate, be careful the stamp does not slide and the larger areas of rubber sort of suck when you peal the stamp away lifting off some of the ink. (I hope that makes sense)

 If you are not keen on the white patches of card showing through the gaps now is the time to grab some Distress Ink, The piece of card in the top left of the picture has had some Mustard Seed applied. The Glass Stains act as a resist to water based inks so can be wiped back with a wet wipe or damp piece of kitchen towel.

It is also amazing that you will pick out stamps you may not have used in a while or maybe have never used as you will only see part of the stamp.

 4)  Roughly cut the pieces of card to size, I have laid the Fragments on top of the card to give an idea of what they will look like when finished, It also helps you decide what part of the stamped image you want to use. I'll list the stamps I have used at the end, recognise many?

 5) When you have the card cut down to a manageable size grab your Triple thick. you will not need a lot for each key ring.

Apply a small dollop to your image, grab the fragment that you want to use and push the fragment down firmly making sure all the triple thick is squeezed to the edge and all the air bubbles have gone, do not worry too much about the excess that has squeezed out, you can use a cocktail stick just to pull it away from the fragment but this is also easily tidied up a little later. It is a good idea to use a cocktail stick just to clear some of the Triple thick from the fragments eye hole, this will make it easier a little later when you attach the key chain.

 Leave all your fragments to dry, it is best to leave them over night although  3-4 hours will probably be enough if like me you are impatient ;)

 6) When dry use a craft knife to cut around the Fragment as close as you can, do not worry  if there are little bits sticking out as they will go in the next step.

Grab some fine sand paper or your sanding block and get rid of those rough edges, this also helps get rid of any Triple thick that is sticking to the sides.(It is worth remembering to sand towards the fragment, if you sand away from it you run the risk of tearing the card stock.)

 7) You should now have all your Fragments ready to be added to your key chains, for some I used the Tim Holtz Key chains, I just opened the bottom loop and attached the Fragments closing the loop after, I then added some charms to the top loop, I used some of Tims Word Sticks and other tokens but you can use what ever you like.

The other Key Chains were made from scratch, the chain was cut to length, rings added to the top and bottom with the Fragment and the Key Ring clasp added as well, the charms were added in the same way.

Here are all the key chains I made from my card stock. I still have several sheets left from this make, I used one sheet of each colour.

The other sheets are ready for either more key chains, Journal Pages like THIS or for ATC's like the second one in THIS post.

I have had great fun playing with the glass stains on card, not just glass. Here are the key chains finished.with details of the stamp used.

If you have any questions leave a comment xx

Thanks for stopping by x I hope you managed to stick with it. ;)

These are both from Paper Artsy

Lynne Perrella 003

Lynne Perrella 022

 De Stempelwinkel Dali
 De Stempelwinkel Diamonds and Decorations

De Stempelwinkel Dali
















Tim Holtz Papillon

This one Is a design from Rick St Dennis and is part of his first rubber set for Smeared Inks Rubber Club
















Again Thank you for stopping by, I hope this was not to painful, I think I shall be trying more of these in the future so I am sure I will be able to fine tune the waffle ;) You can find this tutorial and many more by some amazing crafters on the Pinterest page Mixed Media and Altered Art Tutorials, Hosted by Andy Skinner.

I would like to enter these into the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp And Show, their challenge is Ode to Sunshine. I think the colours of the glass stains are so vibrant and summery x these would also make great end of term gifts for your kids teachers ;)

Fun With ATC's Kitsch

Morning all, Hows things?
 We are starting a new challenge over at Fun With ATC's
the theme this fortnight is Kitsch. Now to be honest this was a tough one for me, Kitsch is one of those words that you kind of know what it means until it comes do create something Kitsch. A quick look at the definition and I was still struggling with what to make.Kitsch basically translates as something tacky but with some sort of iconic or mass appeal. Think of all those posters sold in shops like the G store or athena etc.
 I decided to go for an Icon of my childhood, The A team was my favourite tv show for years, I still like it now to be honest so I found an Image of Mr T on the net.
 I made 2 ATC's both using the same image but just changing the backgrounds.
 The first one uses the paisley stamp from tim holtz, It was coloured with distress markers and Mr T was glued down, the edges have been darkened and then the whole thing has been clear embossed twice.
 For the second ATC the background has been created from a blank ATC that I used to mop up some Dylusion sprays, I just dabbed it into the over spray and stored it till I found a use for it.
 Both back grounds put me in mind of those tacky 80's style posters you could get.
 Hopefully I have got somewhere near our theme of Kitsch, It would be great if you could come along and join in just to show me how it should be done ;)
you can enter HERE

Thanks for stopping by, Ill be back tomorrow with my first Tutorial style post. xx

The Artistic Stamper - Shabby Box final GDT piece

Good morning all, Today I am sharing my last piece as the guest designer over at The Artistic Stamper, I have had an amazing month creating my pieces for Jennie and the team and need to say a great big thank you to them for asking me. xx

My last make is a shabby chest, head on over to see the finished piece and a quick what's what.

Thank you for stopping by. 

Ill be back on Tues with a new challenge for Fun With ATC's

Smashing Pumpkins journal page - Musically Challenged.

So how is everyone doing? It has been amazing here weather wise although It has been a tad to hot for work :(
I have been having great fun playing with my Dyan Reaveley journal again and have come up with this, Its my entry into the new challenge over at Musically Challened, they are a fairly new challenge blog where every couple of weeks they pick a new song or artist to provide inspiration, this challenge the artist is The Smashing Pumpkins.
 Lily of The Octopode Factory is sponsoring the challenge and is offering a $10 prize for the winner. Being part of the DT we were asked to create something for some inspiration for the challenge, I used Chris Chriss The Pumpkin Kid from the Gloomsville set.

This page started when I had some left over modeling paste from another project, I had coloured the paste with some Decoart traditions acrylic paint and instead of wasting it I grabbed my Andy Skinner  skull mask and laid out the three images onto the page.
The back ground colour was made by applying Decoart Traditions translucent paints to the page, I used a wet brush and just randomly applied the colour starting with the yellow, then green and finally red just blending and brushing out the colour randomly as I went, I quickly took a baby wipe to the skulls to wipe the paint away.I also flicked some paint across the page as well.
 I coloured Chris with Copics and fussy cut him out, gave him two coats of clear embossing powder and glued him to the page where I wanted him.
I used a new Paint pen from Decoart, links for the pens HERE I can now say I
LOVE these, I used the black for my page, The coverage is so smooth and even and the flow is just right, no blobbing etc, I must get them all ;)
I drew the door way for Chris so it looks as though it is behind the skulls,and added the boarder, the white is a white gel pen as it is a little finer than the decoart nibs.
Next came the part I normally shy away from as my hand writing is appalling as you can see. As it's a smashing pumpkins theme I wrote all the tracks from The Smashing Pumpkins album 'melancholy and the infinite sadness'

Thanks for stopping by, all your comments and visits are very much appreciated.

There is still one week left of this challenge so plenty of time for you to let the inner rocker loose and take part.

De Stempelwinkel - Time Travel ATC and UK Summer ATC sneak peak

Just a quick post today, Its once again my turn to post over at De Stempelwinkel and I have a couple of ATC's to share, head on over to see the full pics and a what's what of what I did xx

Thank you for stopping by. xxx