Happy Mother's day

It's Mother's Day in Australia where my mother lives. 

I wanted to try my hand at a fancy shaped card for something different so here's what I made:

Happy Mother's Day, mum xxx

Another Image Transfer technique

Last weekend I made two projects using image transfer techniques. This One which I showed last Tuesday, was a gel transfer. I have done quite a few gel transfers now. I love doing them, but I wanted to try something different this time.

So I printed an image of my daughter onto a transparency. I has already collaged a piece of chipboard with a variety of papers. So I misted the collaged background, pressed the ink side of the transparency onto the collaged background, and burnished the ink onto the background. The result was rather impressionistic, and may work better for a different type of photo-maybe a garden, rather than a portrait. If I was doing the same technique with a portrait again I would probably paint or collage a plain spot for where the head was placed. As it was, there is print coming through Emily's face, and it doesn't look very nice. Also Emily was not really standing out against the background, so I used some watercolours around her to add some definition and shadow.

Finally. I added some stamping, inking and rub ons. Overall I'm pretty happy with the result.

It's nice and  grungy and textural.

What do you think?

And I have some more backgrounds waiting for images to be applied this wet and miserable weekend!!

Misting, masking, and making a mess...

On the weekend I had the urge to do something a little different, so I decided to do some image transfers. The previous weekend I had taken some photos at Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh. Edinburgh has the BEST graveyards, full of sculptures, grand monuments, carving-all sorts, and they make for interesting photos.

So I selected three photos and  printed them on a laser printer. Our laser printer only prints black and white, but since these photos were pretty much monochramatic anyway, black and white was OK. I used gel medium to transfer the images, onto a collaged background of music paper, book paper, and some old scrapbook paper too. Then I used watercolour and acrylic paint, stamps, bronzing powder, and texture paste (not necessarily in that order!) to build up layers.

This is the result:

 And some details:

The gold bronzing powder adds a subtle sheen that is very difficult to see in a photo.

You can see how the bronzing powder highlights the brush strokes here. This photo was taken in the sun so you can see how the bronzing powder glows:

The texture paste through a stencil:

Sorry about the variations in the colour-some of the photos were taken in shade, and some in the sun so some look warm, and some cold.

Anyway, I had fun doing this project, and it's something different to do with photos.

I will post another project I did using  a different image transfer technique later on in the week, so if you enjoyed this post, pop back later to have a peek!



Sketch layout

So I was blog hopping the other night, and came across a challenge site, Scrapfriends, and there was this fabulous sketch. The sketch, and the Design Team interpretations of it, caught my imagination and I decided to use it to make a layout.

Isn't it a great sketch:

 

  I had fun with this layout- masking, inking, stamping, lots of lovely textures, and small details.

This is what I came up with:

I loved making this page, mainly I think because I have done lots of pretty girly pages recently, and it was great to do a page featuring my son for a change.

I also used up some old stash, which is always a good thing! The background paper is a woodgrain, although it's a bit difficult to see here. I think it's Dream Street, so that shows how old it is. And the other patterned paper is old American Crafts.

This mask is a piece of plastic mesh that came from Gauche Alchemy.  I sprayed through the mesh, but then flipped it over to stamp the ink onto the page as well.

The bigger squares on the right hand side of the page are a Prima mask.

The sprays are either Dylusions, or Ranger colour wash sprays.

 The journalling spot is a transparency from Kaisercrafts, stuck on with acrylic paint. The acrylic paint also makes it easier to read the journalling. Most of the stamps and rub ons are also from Kaisercrafts, as are the decorative brads.

The corrugated card, and hessian add some great texture to the layout! And I love how the hessian weave echoes the masked grid squares too.

So there you have it, one layout inspired by a great sketch!