Wednesday, February 25, 2015

X-Press It Glues: Art Journal Cover

This week I got to play with some trusty X-Press It favourites, but with fancy new packaging!!  Clear Gel and TripleTac Glue are two of the three most used products in my creative space, behind X-Press It 6mm Double-Sided Tape… and today I put them to tried and tested use in building a cover for my latest X-Press It Mixed Media Journal.  Here they are in all of their new packaging glory:

Given this will be a journal that I will fill with Mixed Media I opted to let the cover tell of the intended contents and mixed papers, tapes, paint, ink and other odds to bring this cover to life, starting with some FabScraps Papers and vintage papers from an old cross word dictionary… which is fun to use especially if you pull out pages with words that relate to your project:

The cover of the Mixed Media Journal is very thick book board, which makes a great base for a lot of wet layers, I started by securing strips of vintage paper and Hazel & Ruby Washi Tape with X-Press It TripleTac Glue:

Then it was time for layers of little strips of patterned paper, which you can see in this picture if you look closely behind the gesso which I layered over the top:

Then it was time to build paper scrolls by rolling strips of vintage paper on an angle and securing them with TripleTac Glue:

These little beauties are great for making all sorts of flowers, but today I fashioned them into a heart, because I wanted this cover to speak of "Heart for Art":

The scrolls take on layers nicely too, so I opted for some texture paste coloured with paint and pushed through a stencil, with lots of ooze, mess is good for mixed media.  It took the stencil to the background in places as well, and also added a little FabScraps sticker for a little more texture:

Next it was time to provide a little more definition to the heart, yellow paint and black outline pen make this easy, you can see the paint in this step and the pen in pictures that follow:

The it was time for some lettering, I hunted around in my stash and had trouble finding letters in the right colours, but managed the "heart" in glossy white plastic letters, which I added texture to by covering with dabs of gesso… used gesso also on the VRT s well, to cover the lime green lettering and get it ready for the grey paint… notice the upside down V in this photo… close enough to an A, I say! Clear Gel Glue is my trusty stick anything friend:

And then for a little final touch, I made these little flower petals from some baby wipes that I used on a previous project to wipe back some paint, they were nice and crunchy and cut well to form this little circle layers which are edges with liner pen:

The flowers were pieced together and to the project with Clear Gel Glue, including the little bead centres, to finish off the journal cover… a little messy introduction to what will no doubt come when I get to test a few more X-Press It products on the inner pages:


Here are the products I used today:
X-Press It Mixed Media Journal
X-Press It TripleTac
X-Press It Clear Gel Glue
FabScraps Papers & Sticker
Atelier Free Flow Artists Acrylic Paints



So get started with your Mixed Media Journal by making the cover speak to what you hope to fill it with, use what you have, it will come to life with X-Press It Glues as the champion that brings all things creative to a finish line… enjoy!




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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

X-Press It TripleTac Glue - Transfer Medium - Canvas

Today I am going to walk you through the process of using X-Press It’s TripleTac Glue as a transfer medium.
I could have also called this blog post “turning bad into good”!
I will show you how to work through a process, even when things don’t go quite how you expect and not giving up on a creative thought.
Using TripleTac as a transfer medium is one of my favourite techniques to play with.
It is super easy.
All you need is a canvas, X-Press It TripleTac Glue and something to transfer. It could be a pattern paper print, a print from a magazine or a photo.

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Firstly the photo.
The photo is printed straight onto copy paper.
Did I mention this technique was easy?
It doesn’t matter if it’s inkjet or laser, although laser works better.
You will notice my photo is on the dark side.
I wasn’t sure how it was going to look once transferred so used the whole process as an experiment.

Once you’ve selected your canvas and printed off a photo to fit
cover the photo side of the paper with TripleTac.

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Then place this side of the paper down on to your canvas.

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Allow the glue to dry, you can use a heat gun or allow to dry naturally (which can take a few hours but best results are from waiting 24 hours).

Now the great thing about this technique is that you can use the transfer medium on all sorts of things.
Transfer on to wood, cardboard or even cardstock. Anything flat that won’t move when you follow the next part of the process.

Once the glue is dry, use a paint brush and apply some water

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Then working in small sections start rubbing back the layer of paper to reveal the photo below.

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By working in small sections you will soon see where the paper still needs rubbing back.

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Be careful not to rub too hard or too far as you will start to remove the photo.
You will see this happened in small sections of my canvas. You will see that I made this “mistake” work to my advantage.
Once you have removed the paper membrane from the whole canvas give it a clean with a damp cloth (I like to use my hand that has been dampened with a little water).
Allow to dry. Then cover with another coat of TripleTac to seal the print, making sure the coat is flat or it will dry streaky (as it did on my canvas…more on that below)

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And that’s the whole process.
Told you it was easy!
You can now add some paint around the edge of your canvas to finish it off.
For my canvas I took it a little step further.

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I have painted some layers around my photo and then covered the “white space” with some text.
I used the glue streaks to my advantage by highlighting them to emphasis texture and dimension.

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The result

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Hopefully this inspires you to give this technique a go.
Why not grab your bottle of TripleTac and experiment.
Have a creative week
Sharmaine

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