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My First 10 Distress Oxide Swatches

Hello Fellow Alchemists,

Today my lovely assistant, better known as my daughter, and I are creating Distress Oxide swatches from my first 10 colours. You saw me haul the Distress Oxides here. We are using four different methods to create the swatches and adding water to some.

We are creating our Distress Oxide swatches using manila tags, brushes, blending tools and foams and the ink pads themselves. The Distress oxides have a different effect than regular distress inks. When water is added they “oxidise” or form a paler layer on top. But that’s not all, because Distress Oxides are both a pigment and a dye based ink pad the more water you add the more of the dye ink wicks out the bottom. Remember the Distress Embossing powder over regular Distress Ink and spritzed with water? It is similar to that except now we have the pigment ink on top doing it’s magic instead.

Firstly my assistant took a brush and blended the colour over tags lightly? Ok well she was a bit heavy handed but she didn’t know any better, lol. Then she used the Blending Tool to do the second Distress Oxide swatch. For the third and fourth swatches she went directly to the paper from the ink pad. The first two swatches had water flicked on them from her fingers, the third had water from the Distress Spray Bottle and the fourth had no water.

We created Distress Oxide Swatches in all 10 of the colours I currently own. Antique Linen, Squeezed Lemonade, Picked Raspberry, Candied Apple, Wilted Violet, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Cracked Pistachio, Walnut Stain and Black Soot. I picked these colours to try and have a somewhat well rounded palette. Also because these blend so well it’s easy to make your own colours as well while blending. Above is the re-swatch of the black soot as the right sample is the one with the dry inkpad.

What is your favourite Distress Oxide colour?

Hope everyone is creating their own Arty Crafty Alchemy this weekend. I hope to but my daughter has part one of a science experiment due 🙁

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

#distressoxide #timholtz #swatching #lawnfawn #stampshammy #rangerink

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Huge Haul, Carloline’s Gifts!

Welcome fellow alchemists,

Today I am sharing a huge haul from a lady in a craft group I just recently started going to. Huge may be an understatement lol. The first time I met this lady was only two weeks before she gave me all these pretty things! Feeling very blessed 🙂 Thank you so much Caroline!

From embellishments to papers this gift had it all! My favourite embellishments were the cute lil shaker bunnies and the cut apart laser cut baby piece from Plaid. The Paper Pizazz Verses 2 was also a fave and I can’t wait to find some projects to use them on.

Where do I start with those papers. Of course the Graphic 45 A Ladies Diary has me swooning. There are only a few G45 stacks in my stash unfortunately. KaiserCraft is always a winner too 🙂 The rose paper with the silver? How have I never seen this before? Wow! Almost forgot about the vintage papers, from the baby ones to the old photos and sketched Pooh. Love Love Love. Oh and I have always been partial to K & Company. There are a few stacks in my stash.

On a side note I have most of my 12″ paper sorted by colour. This is not working for me. My feeling is except for the paper basics like spots, checks and plainer papers I need to organise them back into brands and series and then maybe alphabetise them as it helps keep co-ordinating pieces together. Most of my newer KaiserCraft stacks are stored like this in 12″ project folders. However I have too much paper to do this with all of it… “Blush.” Honestly I feel very daunted when I have to go find something in my paper stash at the moment 🙁 How do you store your 12″ papers? Got any Tips?

Hope you are doing some arty crafty alchemy of your own

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

#feelingblessed

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Easter Happy Mail, A Haul and an Easter Card

Happy Easter Fellow Alchemists,

Today I received my channels first happy mail woo hoo 🙂 We, my kids son in law and I,  also went shopping at Kmart, always dangerous. In the video I am also sharing my second Easter card from The Hedgehog Hollow Lawn Fawn February 2018 box. You can see my unboxing here and the other card you can see in this video here.

First up my lovely happy mail from Alexis and Melinda Art Space, you can find them here. They do arty crafty and mixed media type things :). In the package were an alphabet stamp set, a pretty Easter bag, an Easter card, and lot’s of Eastery die cuts. Thank you Alexis and Melinda!

Then I went to Kmart for 50% off Easter eggs and did a mini haul as well lol. Leaving the house is dangerous! Firstly I got some bargain Easter props for my channel for next year. Cute little metallic bunnies and a bunny jar. I also got some shredded paper for packing things nice and pretty or just adding volume to a box etc when needed. Lastly I got some notebooks for myself for you tube related things. There are notebooks here that I keep my video ideas and things in but I needed something to write out my card making process and other little things like my video intros! I find it helps to write them out before I film so I don’t fluff it up as many times lol.

Onto the Easter card made with The Hedgehog Hollow February box. Love the Lawn Fawn products and have just ordered a bunch more… Happy Easter to me! I used the Some Bunny stamp set for all the stamping and Copics and Promarkers to colour the images. From the box I used the Spring Sprig and Slide On Over Semi Circle dies as well as an Elizabeth Crafts Banner set. The sentiment is stuck down with Kool Tak clear foam tape so you don’t see it underneath. I used a very smooth button for the slider mechanism so it wouldn’t catch on anything and baby powder on the tape edges so it glides nicely.

What did you work on for Easter?

Thanks for hopping by

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

#broughttolifebyyou #lawnfawn #hedgehoghollow #thehedgehoghollow #copics #promarkers #stampplatform #happymail #kmart

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Hedgehog Hollow Lawn Fawn Easter Wreath Card March 2018

Happy Easter Fellow Alchemists, 

Welcome to my first Easter card using The Hedgehog Hollow’s Lawn Fawn February box. (It’s my second really but my first video is having issues!) We’ve got Some Bunnies and Spring Sprigs galore 🙂 Enjoy the video and my foibles along the way lol. You can see my unboxing of the first box here.

There were a few technical difficulties making this card too! First missing stamps that took hours to find. I’d been helping my son in-law with a project and they disappeared in the meantime. Then there was the panel that got stuck down when I should have waited lol. There was no run through before I shot the video so these things are bound to happen! The Easter card got there in the end though.

This was a lot of fun to make, the eggs in the sprigs instead of the flowers, they look really cute. I do wish I’d chosen a more yellow colour instead of the cream so it popped a bit more but live and learn.

The first card will hopefully be up in the next day even if I have to reshoot what is messed up. The main problem is I only had one of each of some of the products used so reshooting the whole video is not an option. So we shall see what can be done, it’s in the last third of the video so am hoping it’s nothing major.

Here is a list of the colours I used:

Bunnies – Copics W5, W3, W1, W0, W00 Ears WOO, RV10, R21

Eggs pairs –  R21, R10. Bg15, BG13. B00, B02. BV01, Bv02. V15 and Promarker V546. Promarkers O929, O949.

Promarkers and VCopics work really well together 🙂

Thanks for doing some arty crafty alchemy with me

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

#broughttolifebyyou #hedgehoghollow #lawnfawn #stampplatform

 

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Typo and KaiserCraft Outlet Hauls March 2018

Hello Fellow Alchemists,

First an apology, due to technical difficulties the card post I wanted to share has been pushed back a few days, sorry 🙁 But on the upside I can finally show you what I bought at the KaiserCraft outlet and Typo. Beyond excited to have finally gotten to go to the KaiserCraft outlet. Typo was just a bonus lol.

At Typo, which is a stationary store, they had a clearance table where everything was $2 but most were broken or damaged items, some were beyond repair or missing pieces. There was an articulated wooden mannequin to use when drawing figures, he just needs his foot glued back on. The mermaid pencil case had to come home with me, so pretty. If I hadn’t dropped fortune (for me anyway) at the KaiserCraft outlet I may have gotten a couple more. I also got a couple of nerdy calendars and presents for others that I can’t share…

The KaiserCraft Outlet was where it was at though. If you watched the video you’ll see I got a tonne of bargains! There was some confusion and a little disappointment when I first walked in as I couldn’t even see the KaiserCraft products in the shop. They were hidden all the way at the back. At first I only saw full price products too. Imagine my relief when I found the bargains, woo!

A whopping two hours were spent in there :O I got bargains for myself and for my sister too. I was somewhat restrained though and put a lot of the thing’s I wanted back and went for the most useful things. Though I am kicking myself for not buying the new fairy stuff even though it’s full price. I may have even sat on the floor at one point to sort out the must haves for myself and my sister, hey I had just walked all around Ikea too haha.

Do you have any of the products from my haul? What’s your favourite?

Thanks for watching,

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

 

 

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Spotlight and Reject Shop Hauls March 2018

Hello Fellow Alchemists,

Today I am sharing my Spotlight and Reject Shop Hauls for this month. Spotlight surprised me by having some things I actually wanted for a change but not what I was actually after. The Reject Shop, while their selection is small,  it is dangerous!

Spotlight has been ho hum for me for a while, prices have become very high and their paper craft  range seems to have shrunk. When I was in there they had no KaiserCraft 6.5″ stacks at all and barely any other Kaiser products. On a side note some of their pricing is out of line with other KaiserCraft retailers. Ranging from a dollar or two more to five or six dollars more for a 12″x12″ paper kit. That being said I still managed to snag a couple of bargains with the Heidi Swapp products and the Zing Embossing powder.

The Reject Shop has also shrunk their art and craft sections but what they do have has been packing a mighty punch. The fanciful collection is divine, all those mermaids fairies and unicorns. Twig & Twine is quite nice with a few random pieces of paper in the paper pad that you have to wonder over like the flag signing one. I wish I had seen the Glasshouse paper pad as the die cuts are so pretty.

Having the co-ordinating packs makes crafting with the papers a lot easier as you have ready made embellishments ready to go. My current website header is a pop up box I made using the Fanciful die cuts and some of the stickers as well. I didn’t have the paper stack at the time so had to use other papers from my stash. If you would like to see more photos of the card head over to the Arty Crafty Alchemy page on Facebook.

Hope you enjoyed seeing what I bought, go create some magic!

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

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Easy Clean Tim Holtz Stamp Platform

Hello fellow Arty Crafty Alchemists,

Today I am sharing with you how to make an easy clean Tim Holtz Stamp Platform using an Inkssentials Craft Sheet, a paper trimmer and some tape. Of course if you watch the video you will see me do things the somewhat hard way but you will get the idea!

I decided to do this to make cleanup a lot easier. The plastic surface is nice but it’s very slick so things move around easier and get messy faster on it. You can also see the black smudges from some Archival Jet Black… I have found since adding the craft she I have much less movement when the magnets are on top. Some of my projects were sliding around with the two magnets before adding the mat.

We don’t need the ruler! At the time I thought I would make the craft sheet go to the edges but in the end as you see I went with the 8.5″ size. Which is the size of the measuring tape at the top, lol.

Don’t forget to make sure the tape goes all the way to corners! When you don’t do this the corners lift very easily and get caught on your clothes. They curl up and get messy until you have to redo the whole thing. This happened to me with the mat when I stuck it to a board for crafting on. However now it gets a new life on my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform.

This is a good way to recycle an old dingey mat rather than throw it out plus I have more pieces if I need them. They are not economical to buy in Australia so it’s much better for me to just use this old one than cut up a brand new one…

Thanks for watching

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

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The Hedgehog Hollow Box February 2018 with a Twist

Hello fellow Alchemists,

Guess what was in my mailbox when I got home today? My February 2018 box from The Hedgehog Hollow full of Lawn Fawn goodness. When I was watching Creativation videos,  I stumbled upon Alexandra’s YouTube channel and watched a few videos, then I saw a video for a huge announcement and had to see what was happening. So when the announcement was made for a box that would feature a different company every month I was intrigued and decided to sign up.  I thought it was a good way to try products from a different companies especially as most of them I wouldn’t buy because prices in Australia are super high for craft items.

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Scrapbook.com Haul Video March 2018

Hello fellow Alchemists,

Welcome to my brand spanking new arty crafty space :). Come join in for some arty crafty hauls like today’s video, upcoming product reviews and tutorials as well as some general arty crafty goodness. This channel has been started to get myself back into the swing of creating again as I have had over a year of not really doing much and I love to create!

Recently I did at scrapbook.com order. Living in Australia  means it takes a good while to get to me, my parcel took around two weeks to arrive! There was one thing I bought that I forgot to show you as it was mixed in with my sisters part of the order so scroll down after the video to see what it was.

Continue reading “Scrapbook.com Haul Video March 2018”