GESSO, GEL PENS AND EMBOSSING

 

This is a hybrid card but you could make something very similar without your computer. To make the background, I embossed lightweight black card with the Cuttlebug Owl Flourish folder. I roughly coloured in parts of the owl and swirly bits with gold and silver pens and then covered the lot with a thin coating of gesso. After it was completely dry I gave it a light sanding. I was a bit disappointed that the gold and silver didn't show up quite as well as I'd hoped, but was still pleased with the overall result. (See small picture) From this point on, I scanned the result and added the border (stroke in dark grey sampled from the image), greeting (in the same colour), moon (highly feathered circular selection filled with light gold on a separate layer so a little could be removed with the eraser from the owl) and eye highlights (oval selections filled with white) with digital effects.  You could easily achieve similar results by mounting the owl on a dark grey card, stamping and embossing a greeting, sponging on gold ink for the moon, and finally adding eye highlights with a white gel pen.

FLATTENED WINDMILL CARD

This panel is made is made from four small windmills, flattened, and stuck down flat. To make the “windmills”, fold and unfold squares in half along the diagonal (so the folds make a big X), cut from each corner half way down the fold line towards the centre and finally fold every second tip to the centre and secure (I used a little double sided tape and then a split pin, which also serves as a feature for the centres). After attaching the squares to the backing paper, add a fifth split pin to the middle for decoration. Double-sided paper usually works best, especially when its mounted on a contrasting colour.

PAPER PIECING WITH STAMPS

I'm hardly ever happy with the end result when I try to colour images with pens or pencils. If you're similarly afflicted you might want to try this alternative – just stamp the images on all the colours you want to use, cut out the pieces and reassemble them on a stamped background image. Its a bit fiddly but not as hard as it sounds. In this case the background was a pale cream. I used brown, blue and red for the books and brown, red, white, and a script-patterned papers for the little girl. The “blackboard” was just white ink on black paper. The stamps are from Hampton Art/Graphic45. (An ABC Primer 3)

Hello and welcome to my very first post - thankyou to Lynne for her motivation and practical help in this regard.

I was trying to think of a way to describe my papercraft interests.  The aspect I enjoy most of all is just playing with  paper, paint and other things and seeing how they can be used and combined in interesting ways.

In another life, I do make a lot of cards. (For folks that know me from there, please note that this is my personal blog and is not associated with my day job)  There will be a few cards and other things appearing here,but the main focus will be on a particular technique which may or may not be used to make a finished object.  My other big artycrafty interest is photography and digital art so there will be a bit of that too.

The main reason for this blog is self-interest! I want to challenge myself to move beyond my comfort zone and to play with techniques and products. and not to do it "later".  I'd be delighted if, in the course of this self-interested journey I can also provide some ideas and /or motivation to other papercrafters as well.