Sunday, August 15, 2010

Distress crackle: A Studio L3 Compendium challenge

A few weeks ago, when Linda at Studio L3 announced the Compendium challenges, I bought Tim Holtz's book.

And decided that Mr. Holtz must be one of the coolest guys alive. After all: Crackle Paint! Crackle! All of you are familiar with my love of all things embossed. Well, for me, some days the fight of Best Shit Ever is crackle paint.

I've been using crackle-type paints for more than 15 years. So, you'd think that this week's challenge would have been no problem, right?

OK, so this week has been a bit off. Nothing bad, only a lot happening at work and home and between. Then my creativity went kablooey ... and THEN I couldn't get the crackles to work correctly.

The heart on today's project is a month old -- I made it one night when I couldn't wait for this challenge to come up before trying my single tub of Distress Crackle paint.

It's the One And Only Distress Crackle project I've made that turned out as described in the Compendium. Could be the lack of any humidity here in Reno ... the paint starts to crackle before I can even finish globbing it on.

Perhaps I'm choosing the wrong surfaces (though I tried multiple papers and card stocks and metals and even wood).

Oh, and one other base ... wallpaper. That's the next thing you see here. The lid to a margarita salt tin which I wallpapered and crackle painted and grungied. Five days ago.

Well, THAT didn't work. I mean, it's crackled, but ... yuck? Yuck. Certain places on this lid look, I swear, like puss. You know your project has failed when the word puss floats through your mind. It's making my skin crawl. Crap.

Alright, on to the sentiment block. If you could zoom in on that area you'd see that the designer paper has circle stars (which is why I added stars elsewhere here ... it's a theme, damn it).

Anyway. The paper is crackled. Crappy crackled today.

After seeing all of the pieces and being happy with none of them alone or as the centerpiece to a project I said to myself, "Self," I said, "Look at all of the crappy crackling together. It's almost as if it was Meant To Be."

And here we are: A bit of gold embossing and glue and tada!

My very own Crappy Crackle Can.

It's been a long week, I have eight minutes to get this post finished and submitted at L3, so I'm only going to add this one last thing: Based on other projects I've seen and the very first distress crackle I completed, there will be more crackling for me.

I'm going to wait until winter, though, because I think the heat and dry air are ruining the crackle and inking.

After all, couldn't be me.

6 comments:

  1. Obviously, I didn't see them all separately, but together they do look good! I think the crackle effect on the lid looks wonderful.
    Hope this week is better!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Girl, what are you talking about? This looks RAD! You're obviously suffering from the ol' "I worked on it for too long and now I can't stand the sight of it" syndrome, but from out here, you've created a kick-ass work of ingenious crackled goodness! It's fab! EMBRACE the fabulousness!

    BTW, living in a similar climate, I've found that stirring a little water into the Distress paint prior to using it helps it work better.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Join the club of crappy cracklers! Although, I can at least see your crackle. Like I said in my post and took pictures to prove it, I can crackle, but did not have the best of luck with Distress Crackle! I also live in a dry climate, but the other pieces I did were done out here! Your crackle looks great!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm in the crap crackle club as well.....not happy about it but there you are.
    But yours is great so you are definitely not a fully paid up member of the club.....lol
    Annette x

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think your crackle looks just fine! I gave mine a vigorus shake, Don't know if it mattered but seems to work!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think it looks just fine.
    Have a great week.
    Hugs,
    Marie

    ReplyDelete