Monday 22 December 2014

PATWITS 3UP Challenge

Well here we are again…PaperArtsy 3UP challenge…Oooo exciting!

This one’s all about techniques, we were asked to be creative with our favourite technique. Now I love to try all sorts of techniques and can be a little fickle and just tag along with the current trend…but I do love to create backgrounds, to the point that I think it’s a shame to cover them with a focal point LOL.

I had planned to do something Christmassy with a mosaic theme and use colours that you wouldn’t normally associate with Christmas BUT then I saw this fat quart bundle which really caught my eye and it was half price to boot and everything was turned on its head!!



But what was I going to do with it, it took me a while and time was creeping ever closer to the deadline, so I just sat there for a while then thought…stencils.  A sort through of my PA stencils found PS001 PS002 & PS005, and then off to my stash of Fresco Finish paints, I wanted something that would complement the grey/blue of the fabric but also something that would jump out and shout too and used Marlin, Nougat and Blood Orange.

Firstly I created a shaded effect with the Marlin & Nougat using the leaf stencil from PS005; I was really pleased how this turned out as I wasn’t sure I would be able to create the shade on the fabric. Then came the Blood Orange with the wispy leaf from PS002, now I really liked this and as it’s transparent you could just see the fabric pattern. As it had already worked I created shading again using all 3 colours using the gorgeous flower head and just had a play, finally I filled the gaps with the PS001 and a honey combe stencil mixing Marlin & Nougat.


Now I know it’s not the British way…but I really like how this turned out and although it is simple I really didn’t want to cover it up and thought what to do next as a finished product, so I scanned it, as you do!

I scanned it producing a PDF and JPEG version and printed the PDF onto normal card but I wasn’t happy with the colours so tried the JPEG on matte photo paper and that was much better, I think it might be worth putting a piece of white paper on top before scanning to get a more ‘true’ colour but I’ll try that later.

Luckily it’s my brother and sister in-laws wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks so I thought I’d make a quick card. I used a section of the scanned fabric as the background (you can always add more stamping etc... here if you like it a bit busier!) and stamped the hearts from Darcy’s EDY01 with the Blood Orange onto an off-cut then mounted them on some rich velvet paper and adhered them to the card in a cluster hanging from some ribbon and sponged the edges with more Blood Orange.



So what to do with the fabric? I took some of the other fabric from the bundle and applied a thin layer of Satin Glaze to make it a little stiffer and easier to die cut, using a selection of PA Grunge Flowerdies #1, #2 & #3 I die cut various flowers and created a 3D flower to attach to the fabric which will be stitched onto a canvas bag. As you can see I haven't decided on the position of the flower yet!!



Anyway I’ve waffled on enough, hope you like the project and Merry Christmas everyone.

Happy Craftin
Rebecca