Part 2 of More Foiling Awesomeness!

Hello my friends!  Welcome back for some more foiling fun.  If you saw yesterdays post, you may recall how excited I was to find some new ways of foiling.  I had not heard of the new Minc reactive paint and foil reactive spray.  I was delighted to discover that Heidi Swapp metallic embossing paste and screen ink were also foil reactive.  Especially since I had some of both.  But it got my mind turning and I wondered if other pastes and mediums would work, which happily they did!  If you didn't see yesterdays post, you may want to have a look at it because this is a continuation of that post.  I tried several different things and of coarse, I couldn't stop!  So here are the results of the other products I tried and my own reactive spray!  Everything I tried was successful, although some did give better results than others.

I have a lot of different products on hand that I use.  I realize that some of you that don't paint may not have most of these products, so I thought I would try godd ole Mod Podge as well, since that is something a lot of crafters use.

I ran the various gels and pastes through a Tim Holtz stencil and let them dry thoroughly before foiling.  I just use a regular laminator to do my foiling, I do not own a Minc.  I use a folded sheet of copy paper as my carrier .  

Starting from the top left:  Liquitex Pouring medium, Golden Regular Gel, Golden Soft Gel, Golden Coarse Molding Paste  (bottom left)  Golden Light Molding Paste, Golden Molding Paste, Tri-Art Gloss Gel Medium, Tri-Art Molding Paste

The foil clung to everything I tried!  I found that it adhered best to the gels, the pastes seemed to have a more distressed look, especially the coarse molding paste.  Depending on the end result you are looking for, this is also a very cool effect.

I also tested Liquitex Pouring Medium, Liquitex Gloss Medium/ Varnish (painted on with a brush) and Mod Podge..  All of these worked very well

Until I saw Kate Palmer;s video, I didn't even know that there was a foil reactive spray on the market.  I decided to try my own spray.  I used 1 part Pouring medium and just less than 1 part Air Brush medium which I shook together in a spray bottle.  This gave me a pretty fluid consistency.  This worked very well and gave an interesting effect.I think next time i may try using a little less air-brush medium to see what effect I will get with a little heavier texture.

I also dribbled some of the spray mixture onto the card and let it drip as well.

Then i decided to try something else.  I don't want to waste a bit of my foil so I decided to try and make use of some of the leftovers that had a good  image. I painted a coat of Liquitex Gloss Medium onto some card and used the reverse image in the left over foil to foil another tag

This also worked very well.  Mod Podge also works (I did try that as well)  But please note, any area that is coated with the medium, or mod podge if you choose to use that, that is exposed and not covered by foil WILL stick to your carrier sheet.  I use copy paper as my carrier sheet, but take special care if you are using a good Minc carrier.  You could also use paper, but either way, make sure it is entirely covered so that you don't ruin your project!

I am going to share an accidental bonus with you today.  I used  Faber-Castel Gloss Gel Medium through a stencil onto one of the tags I had made during my play with spray and stencils.  My intention was to do some foiling, but when it dried, an interesting thing had happened.  The darker spray from underneath, leached up into the medium and gave it a very interesting effect.  So I decided to leave it as it is.

Thanks so much for joining me once again.  I hope you found this information fun and useful and will give it a try.  . You don't need a lot of fancy equipment and products to do foiling, just a regular laminator and products that you may already have at home. I am already making good use of this new  knowledge, which you will see soon!  My mind is still whirling with ideas, so there may soon be a Part 3 to the Foiling Awesomeness.  I have some more experimenting to do. Thanks again for looking at my blog,  Please share if you know any foiling fans that would enjoy trying some of these options!

Have an awesome and artful day!

Be sure to check out some of my other foiling posts

More Foiling Awesomeness! (part 1)

An Awesome Foiling Technique

Foiling tid-bit Bonus

Crinkled Tissue Textured Foiling

Try Something New

Book Page Challenge

Here is a link to Kate Palmer's video

More Foiling Awesomeness!

Hello my friends!  Are you a fan of foiling?  Do you love that shiny goodness?  If you do, you will be interested in this post.
I was watching videos on You Tube the other night and I ran across one that mentioned foiling.  I am always looking for new foiling techniques, so I was anxious to watch it  And I am glad that I did.  Just for the record, in case you ever visit my post and read this, Kate Palmer, it is your fault that I went to bed so late last night!  But all for a good reason!  Kate was doing some experimenting with some Heidi Swapp mediums.  I didn't realize that now there is a foil reactive paint and a reactive spray.  She was testing how these mediums worked with foiling over some sprayed backgrounds.  Here is a link to Kate's video She referred to watching some videos by Heidi Swapp and discovering that the Heidi Swapp metallic embossing paste and her metallic screen ink were also reactive with foil.  I don't know why it never occurred to me to subscribe to Heidi Swapp's channel to get info on foiling, but I have corrected that now.  You don't have to own a Minc to get some useful information, it all works with a laminator  as well, which is what I have.  I didn't have the spray or reactive paint, but I did have the embossing paste and I also had the screen ink, purely by accident.  I thought I was buying embossing paste and later realized that the great deal I had gotten was for screen ink NOT embossing paste, lol.  I had resolved to use it in a similar fashion as the paste, but this was great news if I could use it for foiling. The gold ink and paste were specified, which I didn't have, but I thought I'd give what I had, a try.. Who needs sleep anyways?  My mind got going and I thought, I wonder if any  paste would work, I do have other gold embossing pastes, so I thought I'd try those as well.  Then I thought I'd try some gloss medium, too.

I had some Gelli prints that I had cut down to try and make some ATCs, so I thought I would use them to test the various inks and pastes.  I ran the various mediums through a Tim Holtz burlap stencil

I got out my laminator and my foiling scraps once they were all absolutely dry.  I just use a folded piece of copy paper as a carrier.  I started feeding them through the laminator.

I was so thrilled to discover that everything I tested, worked!  The gel and the embossing paste seemed to work a little better than the screen ink, but I will still be using the ink for foiling, too.  This just opened a new foiling world for me! 

I used Heidi Swapp embossing paste through a stencil on my tag today, and it worked beautifully

 I have been doing some experimenting with toner to try and make something like a toner paint  and ink, with some success,  but now this may take me in a different direction.   I am wondering if I actually need toner. at all .   So I have some more ideas and experimenting to do!.  In the meantime though, I thought I would try  using some other pastes and mediums  So stay tuned, and tomorrow I will share the results of the other products I am trying to see if they are also reactive with foil. .  I am an artist that loves to paint wit a lot of texture, so I have several different pastes and mediums to try.   Hopefully, there may be something that you already have on hand that will work for you

Thanks so much for letting me share some foiling fun with you.  If you think there may be other foiling fans that will find this useful, please share! 

Thanks again and have an awesome and artful day!

If you enjoy foiling, be sure to check out some of my other foiling posts!

Part 2 of More Foiling Awesomeness!

An Awesome Foiling Technique

Crinkled Tissue Textured Foiling

Try Something New

Book Page Challenge

Glue Resist Technique MMM #4 #onelittletag

Hello my friends!

Today Ii am doing a glue resist technique which will become (eventually) a background to some of my tags and my take on MMM #4.  Cat Hand, of Mixed Media Morsels used a regular school glue  to draw some designs on her page.  She let it dry and used it as a resist. She watered  down some paint, painted over the glue and could just wipe the paint off of her design. She also ran her ink pad over the top (once dry, the glue had some dimension) to highlight it, and it looked pretty cool.   It reminded me of a similar technique I had been wanting to try.

I used rubber cement as my glue, drizzling it all over my page (watercolour paper).  Once dry, which didn't take long, I also watered down some craft acrylic paint and painted my page

Once the paint dried, I rubbed the rubber cement away, leaving the white paper underneath

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed my technique today!

MMM #11 Torn Paper Strips Mixed Media Morsels

Welcome to my blog!

This is a background I created using torn paper strips, a prompt from Cat on the Mixed Media Morsels FB group.  Cat Hand posts weekly videos with different mixed media techniques to try.  She calls them "morsels".  I have been doing my morsels in a random order.  Sometimes they might work with a tag challenge that I am doing, or sometimes Ii may have supplies out that will work with a particular morsel, or sometimes there may be one that I am just in the mood to try.  I did join this group a little late, but there is no pressure to get anything done by a specific time and they are all just suggestions.  Everyone does them their own way.  But again, as in the One Little Tag Craft Challenge FB group that I participate in, it's all about staying creative and inspired.  Keeping it fun is a big part of the creative process, in my opinion anyways!

For this technique, I took some printed tissue (that I used for MMM #5 an earlier post), some plain tissue paper and some plain white paper.  I used various different sprays, Dylusions, Heidi Swapp, Recollections Colorsplash or Boho and some Lindy's stamp gang..  I sprayed the paper and tissue, let it dry and then tore it into strips.  I collaged the strips onto the tag with mod podge.

I like the way this turned out and I have lots of papers left to collage some more tags or maybe a canvas.

Thanks for looking, have an awesome and artful day!

An Awesome Foiling Technique! Foiled borders using your Spellbinders dies

Hello my friends!  I was inspired to try this technique by a video I saw  by Becca Feakin. (I will share the link at the bottom of this post)  She used her Spellbinders Labels dies and her laser printer to get  awesome foiled borders!  I have been wanting to try this for a while and now I finally have and I love the look.  I am going to use my tag from my last post to help illustrate how I did this foiling technique (and some other ones!)

First I dug out some of my Spellbinders Labels dies

Now, I knew I would be isong these to creat tags, in this instance, so everything I did was with that in mind.  You may want to make cards, as Becca did. if that's the case, keep that in mind as you position your dies. I will probably use this technique to make some cards as well.  I chose the  dies that I wanted to use and positioned them on some blank white card.  I adhered them in place using a tiny removeable adhesive dot.  I postioned them so that I could cut them out into tags.  I should mention that if you are making cards, you could take a Card Creator or rectangle die that would fit the perimeter of your card panel and position that as well, to give your card panel a nice gold border too.

I positioned 2 smaller dies that I would use for sentiments alongside a tag on this sheet

I scanned and made a copy of these.  I think Becca just put her dies directly on the scanner, but I wanted to have copies I could use again.  Not only that, but I found that the copies weren't really dark in some areas, maybe because the dies are shiny and reflective.  So I wanted to darken them as well with a marker.

Then I got some light cardstock, some white and some patterned and all trimmed to 8.5 x 11"  to run through my laser printer.  NOTE:  You must use a laser printer, an inkjet printer will not work.  You could also use photocopies, but your copy must be toner based!

I copied my images onto the card and cut them down into tags

Now for the foiling!  I use a laminator and I find it works just fine, but if you have a Minc, you would of coarse use that.  I use a plain copy paper, folded in half, as a carrier.  I chose the foil that I wanted to use, placed it over the copied image (pretty side up!) placed it in the carrier sheet and ran it through the laminator.  I usually run it through twice just to be sure.

Now I take the coordinating die, place it over the foiled image, cutting side down.  I use some washi tape to hold it in place.  If you have a look at your Spellbinder labels die, you will notice that the cutting blade is not at the very edge of the die, but in the middle. 

Because of that, you end up with 2 pieces with foiled edges that you can use, the inner and outer die cut shapes.  If you use a different kind of die with the cutting blade at the very outside of the die, you will only have a foiled edge on the inside die cut shape.

Now, how did I do the gold foil outside border?  And the foiling on the flower embellishments?   Stay tuned for another post on some different  foiling techniques. I've been doing some experimenting and as soon as I get everything together to post, I will be happy to share.  If you like foiling, you will love it! 

I hope you have enjoyed this post and will give this foiling technique a try.    Give Becca's video a watch, it is very helpful and she is really sweet and she makes it easy to follow.

If you liked my post and found this technique fun and informative, please share it!  And let me know if you would like to see more technique based posts.

Thanks for looking, have an awesome and artful day!

Becca Feakins video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAicoQBRt5Q

           Scrappin' Great Deals (SGD)  http://www.scrappingreatdeals.com/home.php

Note:  I use ThermOweb Deco Foil and Minc reactive foil

Mixed Media Morsel #5 - Tissue paper background

Hello my friends!

Todays tag is for the Mixed Media Morsels group.  This is MMM#5, which is a prompt to use tissue paper as your background.  I used Tim Holtz printed tissue paper, mod podged it onto my tag.  I then used various  Dylusions sprays to colour it.  For the finishing touches, I used my Gold ink pad to swipe across the raised areas and along the edges and finally, some black archival ink on the very edges.  Oh, and of coarse, some splatters!  I like how this turned out.  I'm not sure how I am going to finish off this background into a tag, but I will be sure to share when I do!

Thank you for stopping by.  Have an awesome and artful day!