Another winter storm just hit Georgia and the southeast. Since I was iced in AGAIN I took advantage of the time to work on my tag for Tim Holtz's 12 tags of 2014. Tim's
February tag is a real beauty. It features a beautiful stamp using Tim's blackboard chalk technique. Unlike any other chalk board techniques I've seen so far, Tim uses real chalk along with Ranger's Frosted Crystal Antiquities Embossing Powder. If you love the chalk board look you really should give this a try. You can see Tim's step by step instructions and look at his amazing technique by clicking
here.
I have been wanting to try this technique every since I first saw it in
Tim's Creative Chemistry 102 online class. I'm happy with my tag but I still need to work on my technique. I think the problem that I am having is my chalk is just too hard. I am using "dustless" chalk. That's what Office Depot had. The Frosted Crystal has a tooth to it that grabs the chalk dust so I will be on the look-out for a softer chalk. In the meantime I used a little sandpaper to soften mine up some. It seemed to help.
The W is from the Swirls Alphas grungeboard set and inked with pumice stone distress ink. Pumice stone distress glitter is added using glossy accents, and the edges inked with a touch of vintage photo.
Tim's tag uses the Hearts stencil but I used the Cargo THS001 stencil, being inspired by the way my 6 month old Grandson loves it when I sing "My ABC's" and tries to sing along. I don't have any of the industrious stickers yet so I used Ranger's Inkssentials Foil tape sheets on cardstock and then die cut it with Tim's Vintage Lace Alterations 657481 die. Love this die! I used my trusty alcohol ink palette and my Alcohol refillable pen (filled with blending solution) to color the foil. As you can see I have hand sewn the foil lace on with distress twine.
I wanted to use a piece of the chalk as an embellishment but it was just too white. So to tone it down, I distressed the piece of chalk by sanding it all over and spritzing it with some Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls mist. Just enough distress to make it look like it belongs on my tag. I used the distress twine to tie it using glue dots so it appears to be sitting on the top of the blackboard.
One last thing before I go. If you have a die that has fold lines, you may discover tearing along the fold marks after die cutting. I wanted to show you the difference between using the Big Shot Premium Crease Pad and just the standard Clear pads with your Big Shot. The picture shows the easel back die cut from chipboard, first with just the standard pads and then again with the Crease Pad. Replace the top (clear) pad of your die cut sandwich (the side you cut into) with the Crease Pad and still use the second clear pad for the bottom of your sandwich. The Crease Pad is designed to create fold lines when used with these dies. You still get the beautiful cuts along the lines that are suppose to cut through, but the Crease Pad has just enough give to make those fold lines fold-able instead of tearing when you fold them.
