Video Tutorial: How to Colour Your thread for Bookbinding

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Since this months The Virtual Crafting Challenge features the Letter B, it seemed a good time to gather my bookbinding tutorials together for you. If you are new to bookbinding you will find this series a great place to get started.

How to Colour Your Thread for Bookbinding

This film shows you how to colour your thread. Sorry the lighting is a bit dark, it was the first video tutorial I made.

Natural coloured linen thread is widely available, if you are on a tight budget or short of space, then colouring your thread is the ideal way to go. You can co ordinate your thread to your projects, without the need for many many threads on hand.

If you have enjoyed this film or have any questions, do leave me a comment

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Art Journal Pages, for TVCC January 2010

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The theme for January’s Virtual Crafting Challenge, is the letter A. So here are a few of pages from my art journal. 

Art Journal Pages

Art Journal Page about Robin my budgie

This year I’m going to devote some quality time to my art, I’ve found a wonderfully inspiring tutor in Julie Prichard and her online classes are amazing. I took her Layer Love class last year, and I need to catch up with the Art Journalling classes I also signed up for. Fingers crossed our new internet connection will let us stay connected this time. 

Recently I have also signed up for Julie’s latest class Colour Basics which she co-hosts with Chris Cozen. I’m really looking forward to this class as it is getting into colour theory. I want to increase my collection of Golden Fluid Acrylic paints and hope this class will help me choose my colour pallet wisely. 

What will be your main creative focus be for 2010? 

Links

Julie Prichard’s Online Worksops Follow this link to find out more about Julie’d excellent classes.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon 

Billie

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My Altered Art Piece for TVCC Jan 2010

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As regular viewers know, a damaged back has seriously hampered my creative endeavours this month. Rather than start too many projects from scratch, this one was more of a development for a project that began before Christmas.   

My Altered Art piece for January 2010 TVCC is as follows   

Altered Baubles…the next Generation    

Before Christmas I shared these pictures of baubles that I had altered using alcohol ink. So far so good for January’s ‘A’ theme    

Blue & Purple Altered Bauble

 

Gold, browns & green Altered Bauble

 

Gold, browns & green Altered Christmas Bauble

 

Although I was pleased with the results I got, using the combination of alcohol ink and baubles, the finish was a little dull. They only look shiny thanks to flash from the camera, they were quite dark and not as bling as they could be. I had a chat with Julie Prichard to ask what to use on them, to add a gloss, and she suggested Polymer Medium Gloss, made by Golden. I gave them all just a single coat of the medium and I’m very pleased with the result.   

Alcohol ink can be a little fragile on hard surfaces, in that if it is scratched, it will scratch off. Adding the gloss medium has perfectly sealed in the ink, and also left a nice shine. The baubles now reflect the light beautifully. This is however quite tricky to capture in a photograph.   

Silver Bauble, coloured with alcohol ink and then glazed

 

Here is how one of the brown toned ones turned out   

Gold bauble altered with Alcohol inks then glazed

 

Thanks for your advice Julie, they came out really well.   

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon.   

Billie

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The Virtual Crafting Challenge Themes for 2010

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While thinking up ideas for this years Virtual Crafting Challenge, one of the biggest challenges for me, is to create themes that will be accessable to creative people of all abilities. Something that someone new to creating can join in with as well as something that season crafters/artists will also find challenging.

This year I’ve decided on a slightly different concept, a continuing theme running, but with plenty of scope for people to take the challenge in many directions according to their current skills. I think your going to like it

The ongoing theme is

The Alphabet

Here’s the twist though, this challenge is more about exploring new ideas rather than having a finished piece at the end of each month. Each month will have a letter of the alphabet assigned to it, but how you interpret that is personal choice. I’ll suggest a few colours, products and techniques that begin with the letter that you could try. Everyone’s creative journey is different, there are plenty of challenges where the design of a finished product is given and you just fill in the blanks, but these are everywhere.

With The Virtual Crafting Challenge it’s all about where YOU want to go. I may suggest some ideas to get you started, even if you don’t have the tools to actually create something, have a look around the internet on the techniques mentioned, you may just discover it is something you want to try later on. You may wish to choose your own subject based on that month’s letter, great go for it, that’s just the sort of thing this challenge encourages.

At the end of the month if you have created something you wish to share, leave me a comment. I’d love to see where you go with these ideas.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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6 x 4 Challenge: November 2009: Winter

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The theme for our Six By Four challenge for November 2009 is;

Winter

 

Feel free to interpret this in any way you choose. Here are few ideas to get you started

Wintery colour scheme, blues, greens purples,silvers. Any cool colours.

Images used; Wintery trees, seasonal holidays

 

Create a finished piece on the surface of your choice, the only limitation is the size 6 x 4″, any orientation is fine. You could do this as a journal page, a card, a small scrapbook page, or a painting, even a 6×4″ book, the choice is yours.

 

Have fun

 

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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TVCC November 2009; Lacquers & Glazes

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This month the theme for November 2009, for The Virtual Crafting Challenge is;

Lacquers & Glazes

Crystal Lacquers

Crystal Lacquer is sold by various companies. It can be used as a dimensional glue, or on top of images to create a 3D glass bead style of effect.

• Mix with a dry mica product to enable you to use it on a wider selection of surfaces
• Use on top of stamped coloured images to give a dimension to the finished image
• Use coloured lacquers to colour stamped images
• Use to create embellishments for your cards

Glazes

You can create clear or coloured glazes to change the tone or appearance of your original images

• Use a sepia glaze to give a vintage style to your projects
• Use clear glazes to add shine to colours or images
• Mix colour with your glaze for a whole new look.

 

The idea behind this challenge is to encourage you to use long forgotten products from you cupboard, or to try new ways with them. Try a product for the first time and see if you like it. There is no pressure to create a finished piece at the end of the month, more to encourage you to experiment and play with your products.

Links

This site has tips for using Crystal lacquer
http://www.rubberstampsclub.com/tips/crystal-lacquer.html

 

Have fun

 

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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My ATC October 2009; Music

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Today I would like to share a picture of the ATC I created for the Stamping Mad Forum’s ATC swap. The theme for October 2009 was ‘Music’.

'Music' ATC; October 2009; for Stamping Mad Forum Swap

Stamps Used; Crafty Individuals, Katzel Craft

Ink Used; Ranger Adirondack, dye based.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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