WOYWW #643: Rust, bling and a flip-through

So I fell off the bandwagon, but I'm back! It's been pretty busy around here but things have now settled. I impulsively decided to shoot that flip-through last night that I wanted  to do three weeks ago. I normally use my little camera but it's difficult to position so I got this rig to use with my phone.  (that's a half-eaten pot of yoghurt on the left, in case you're wondering...a little mid-night snack)  

The video is still uploading, so I will share it later, hopefully at the end of this post. Until then here's some other stuff I've been working on. First up: rusting! All you need is vinegar and some metal bits - no problem if they're not rusty yet - they will rust very quickly in some vinegar! Here's my rusting tray: 

and some rusted fabric and paper:

It's been birthday season as well. My son has turned 17 and Oreo 6!!! How did that happen? It means next year my son will be an adult and Oreo a senior cat! Next up, my hub's birthday this weekend - all three birthdays bunched up within two weeks of each other - mine being the outlier in March. 

Here's a card I made for my son - I bought it back when I got hooked on diamond painting - a bit of bling never hurt anyone and he likes owls. I thought the three books could represent his three sixth form  subjects.

And of course, I personalised the inside with some scrapbooky stuff and cat cartoons as has become our tradition over the years. The whole of the back is covered in cat cartoons as well. You can find a bunch of these cartoons by Scott Metzger here. They always brighten up my day! 

Now let's see if my video has uploaded.... Here it is, my little glue book containing trial pieces, fails, left-overs, tags, all sorts of things that I just glued into a handmade journal: 

Happy #643! 

WOYWW #640: stamp carving and scrap journal

I almost didn't link up to WOYWW today but Shoshi gave me a little nudge behind the scenes, so here I am. The heatwave has returned to the UK, but thankfully it won't last long. I survived going to the office yesterday and won't have to go in again until Friday, and by then the heat will be gone. And if it rains, so be it - I'll take the rain over the heat any day!

I snapped this photo of my desk just a few minutes ago after tidying up a bit. I call it organised chaos:

Some eagle-eyed deskers might spot a stamp carving tool. I had to buy a new one as I have no idea what happened to my old one and I had some urgent stamp carving to do. This one's much better than my old tool, anyway and it wasn't expensive. I gave it a good trial run:

Then I used these bits and pieces in my scrap journal / glue book, along with some of my bleached papers from last week:

Previously I had made these pages:

My journal is quite full now - it only needs some finishing touches before I can do a flip-through:

I've also made these random pieces with more scraps and by-products of my experiments (this first one was actually on my desk last week, but wasn't yet completed - I added the fish as an afterthought):

These images came from Marta at Maremismallart as a free download in exchange for a voluntary donation. I've been using them in my image transfer trials. 

Oreo set up camp on my craft room chair again - I've found him snoozing there in the mornings for several days in a row now - he's still looking a bit sleepy here:

What else? Oh, yeah, we went to Witley Court last Saturday on our customary, end-of-summer family outing.  Witley Court was a grand Victorian manor house that sadly burned down in 1937, but even the ruins are spectacular! Here are a few photos: 

Thanks for your visit! I'll be around soon! xx

PS: The LifeBook Free Taster Sessions are back!

You can sign up here.

WOYWW 639: Catch-up, rusting, bleaching, image transfers, embossing...

I had to skip last week's WOYWW as I was super busy and I wouldn't have been able to visit everyone back. Hope you're all doing well. Where did summer go? Back in June, autumn seemed so distant and here we are in September! My son's starting Sixth Form tomorrow - scary! 

Despite being busy with other things, I still found time to create and experiment in the last two weeks. Here's a desk shot from yesterday. 

You'll notice the new TH media mat and heat tool, both of which I had been able to resist up until recently before giving in. That's the travel size mat - I hope it will allow me to keep at least that small area clear so I'll always have somewhere to create, even if the clutter overtakes the rest of my desk - that's the idea anyway - and so far it's been working! The heat tool is fantastic too - it's a gamechanger for me. The reason I hadn't got one before was because I already had a heat tool for embossing and I used a hairdryer to dry my layers (both on my head and on paper) but I always had to do those things away from my desk as everthing would get blown off - but not with this little tool! It's so quiet and I can use it sitting at my desk. It dries paint and melts powders much quicker too! Both came from Craft Stash and at much lower prices than I had seen elsewhere, so I'm happy! 

I've created a few bits and bobs in the last two week, but mainly I've been experimenting with rusting, bleaching, image transfers and embossing. I'll show you some of my results:

First off is a rusted and bleached piece of fabric - the bleach was stamped on a still wet surface and created this cool pattern - quite an unexpected and unintentional result:

More recently I've tried stamping bleach on my previously eco-dyed papers - it also works with stencils! I got more definition from my stamps on these surfaces:

The image transfer experiments below involved matte laminating sheets. Basically, if you laminate just one side of a laser print or a magazine image, you can remove the paper from the back (rubbing with water) and the image stays on the film with a semi-transparent background. And it works with inkjet prints too, if you print them on photo paper - this way you don't even need to rub off the paper, it just peels away. I'm sure it works with gloss lamination as well, but I prefer the silky feel of the matte finish. Here's a little visual summary of my results (with image credits to maremismallart and medievalmirage):

And finally, though not in this order, I've tried an embossing technique that involves stamping into melted embossing powders to create this metal effect (I also added some gilding wax to highlight the textures):

You can see some of these used in the projects below: 

There were a few other things I've made, but I'll post those next time! Happy #639! xx