Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Flying Unicorn WCYDW - Distress Paints

Every week Flying Unicorn brings you a new What Can You Do Wednesday (WCYDW) tutorial and this week it's my turn.

Have you seen the new Tim Holtz Distress Paints from Ranger? They've just arrived in the Flying Unicorn store, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on them and try them out, so this week's WCYDW is all about Distress Paints.

Distress Paints are a liquid acrylic paint; they are runnier than most acrylics and are reactive to water while still wet.  I treated some Prima Resist Canvas Shapes with Distress Stains (left) and with Distress Paints (right) - you can see that the Distress Stains give a translucent coverage while the Distres Paints give an opaque coverage.  The resist images are still visible on the painted canvas, you just have to rub off the paint while it is still wet to expose the resist - once it is dry it is set.


Here is a closer look at the difference between the two.  The colors used on the pieces are the same, Broken China and Antiqued Bronze; you can see what a dramatic difference there is between the Stains and the Paints.


In the course of playing around I also discovered that if you hold your heat gun close to the piece while it dries the paint will bubble; with the Antiqued Bronze you get the illusion of rusted metal.



If you've seen Tim Holtz demo these on his blog, you know the Distress Paints can give incredible results on tags.  I set out wanting to replicate that effect, but on a larger scale, on an art journal page.  Since you can't drag an art journal page across your craft mat I needed a better solution.

I initially tried applying the Distress Paints to Saran Wrap and stamping with that, however because Saran is so flimsy all the paint tended to pool in the center when I lifted it up.  The 12.5 x 12.5" plastic sleeves that my Flying Unicorn kits come in are a perfect size and gave me a sturdier plastic to work with. (If you look closely you can see the plastic sleeve is sitting on top of my craft mat).

Start by applying pools of color onto your plastic.


Mist with water - this will make the colors wick into one another.


Pick up your plastic and place it face-down on your page.  I focused just on coating the left-hand page to start.


You can see that despite the fact that I've used the plastic to stamps all over the page, the colors have not become muddied, but have layered in such a way that each color is distinct.


Press the two pages together, and use your plastic to fill in whatever little white spaces are left.


Misting with water allows the colors to blend further.


You can dry as is; I blotted off some of the paint to create a more mottled texture, then dried.  Once the Distress Paint is dry, it will not rewet, so subsequent layers of paint that you apply on top will remain distinct.



Here is what the finished pages looked like - you can see distinct areas of blue, green and bronze - how cool is that!


 This is another background I had worked on previously to try the technique out.  Once it was dry I applied Tim Holtz Tissue Tape and drywall tape, and colored it all with Distress Stain.  Because the Distress Paint does not rewet the Distress Stain can be applied overtop without experiencing any running or change in color.


Distress Paint also dries flat and smooth, so stamping overtop is a breeze.  Here I've stamped in archival ink so that I can apply more layers of Distress Paint and water without worrying about my stamping running.


You can stamp with Distress Paint, but beware, you want to clean it off you stamp immediately once you are done.  If it dries it will be permanent, which makes it great for treating materials other than papers, such as metal and plastic.



Once I'd stamped with Broken China and Salty Ocean it was time to add more water...


And let the paint drip down the page.


And here is the finished journal page:


Look at how vibrant that stamped blue looks on top of the background!

I've just scratched the surface as far as Distress Paints are concerned, but I can't wait to expand my collection (there are currently 27 of the Distress color palette available, including the 3 metallic colors) and to play some more!  I see some painted Flying Unicorn Metal Adornments in my future.  And layouts.  And...



My May Flying Unicorn Challenge - Glitter It! & KOM Card

I love May.  For one thing, my DH's birthday rings in the month; he's a May Day baby.  Then there's my baby, little Colby's, birthday on the 17th (he'll be 2 - where did the time go!).  And May is usually the start of really nice weather around here; weekends spent at the bike park with the kids, BBQs with friends, afternoons at the playground, all those great things.  And as with any new month, the beginning of the month brings on new challenges and new opportunities to be inspired at Flying Unicorn.

My challenge this month is to dig out your glitter.  You know you have it, languishing away in some corner of your scraproom.  If you're anything like me, you have bottles and bottles of it in all the colors of the rainbow.  Dry glitter, Stickles - I want you to pull out glitter and use it as a design element in one of your projects this month.

Here is a little bit of inspiration from the May kit.


I stamped the Lablanche fairy onto some of the stamping paper from the kit and colored them in with Copic markers.  I stamped the wings onto some vellum from my stash in embossing ink and embossed them with Lindy's embossing powder, then applied Glossy Accents and colored glitter to each section individually.


Standard Rules

1) Use at least 2 colors of glitter on your project. 
2) Project must be new as of 8pm EST April 30th.  Challenge closes at 8pm EST May 31st.
3) Winner will be chosen by random.org.  Participants can only win one monthly challenge at Flying Unicorn each month.
4) Enter up to 3 projects.  Layouts, Cards, Tags and Off-The-Page projects only, no digital.
5) Each project can only be entered in one Flying Unicorn challenge.
6) Leave love, get love - everyone likes to feel appreciated!  Have fun!

I look forward to seeing what you create!


Flying Unicorn Coffee and Muse - Part 1

I was so happy when my May Flying Unicorn Kit of the Month - Coffee and Muse - landed on my doorstep and I saw that it contained two of my most coveted releases of 2013, Prima Divine and 7 Dots Love Is In The Air.

The 7 Dots papers from this collection are very versatile; with this layout I wanted to go mixed media and play around with the Guava and White Linen sprays from the kit.  The Guava spray complemented the pink streaks in my nieces' hair.




I started by misting part of my paper with Guava spray, then coated it with Elmer's glue and Kroma crackle, following Shona's BAP on speeding the Kroma's drying time.  The Guava spray is water soluble - the lighter pink areas you see are where it reacted with the glue and Kroma and lightened; I then hit the area with more spray after the Kroma had dried; this is the darker areas.


The Dylusions White Linen spray was also on my must-have list, and I love it!  I sprayed it through a Prima Poppies and Peonies mask, and as you can see it goes on opaque, even covering up the bright, bright pink of the Guava spray.  I then traced around the masked area with a black pen for additional punch.


I used some drywall tape and corrugated cardboard along with the pink mesh and washi tape from the kit to add some additional texture.


I used some Crushed Grape Dylusions to complement the purple my niece Tyanna is wearing.


 The Dusty Attic chippy was primed with gesso.  The flower was colored with the Rose Bud Chalk Ink from the kit and the turquoise Lumiere paint, the vine with several shades of green Lindy's sprays.  I coated the whole thing with White Linen Dylusions to mute it.

I hope you had a chance to pick the kit up during the blog hop - they sold out in record time!  A very few Add-Ons are still available; be sure to pick yours up at the Flying Unicorn Store while you can!

Thank you for stopping by!



Monday, April 29, 2013

Coffee and Muse - May 2013 Flying Unicorn KOM



There are two things required when creating Coffee & Muse. As we give tribute to our paper crafting muse hopefully our creative mjo will not leave anytime soon. Our May kit is filled to the brim with so many hot products from Prima and the Divine Collection by Jodie Lee, to Love is in the Air Collection by 7 Dots and the Collectible collection by My Minds Eye. Burlap, Prima flowers, Ingvlid Bolme inks, La Blanche stamps and so much more will give your muse something to create about .

What makes us One of a Kind Kit Club is our Off the Page project that is included in each kit. This month we know your muse will be jumping up and down knowing that the Tim Holtz Configuration Book is yours to design and embellish and make it your own!



THIS IS BIG !!!
Flying Unicorn is thrilled to introduce you to our new Mixed Media Kit!
The introduction of the Mixed Media Kit is occurring this month during the Kit Release,however, it will be available on the 15th of each month commencing June 15th . There will be no signups, and again its first come first serve. The kit will include lots of mixed media items which will allow to create a main project and so much more!







Join Maggi on May 7th 2013 where she takes us step by step to create this awesome layout

The main kit and the embellishment add on has the New extra large Prima tags - so join Maggi on May 9th when she gives you step by step instruction on how to create some cool techniques and a start to finish tag