Purple and Teal – another colour challenge

This colour combo is one of my all time faves. So rich, so deep, so…regal! Add in gold and it is a winner every time.

I began with a selection of colours and a butt-ugly piece of scrapbooking paper, one that was not quite 12×12. The reverse was a nice two-tone turquoise that I must have used on a layout sometime.

I know the steps aren’t super informative but they might help if I explain. I love the PM Artist Studio stencils because they always give you the surrounds and even the bits from inside as well. I like the edges for helping create a border, even if future layers obliterate it, mostly. And a layer of a much lighter colour always lifts things when I let them get a bit too dark.

From there, I added in the teal, straight and lightened with white. Numbers, mark-making, and just lots and lots of layers.

Always something metallic at the end, and it has to be gold, doesn’t it? Wish I knew where I got the symbols for this stencil. I cut it AGES ago and can’t find it on my computer anywhere. No idea what it is called. I thought something like RUNES, but nope. Nuts.

I do want to add the SCAN of the final piece, because really, there is a world of difference between the PHOTO and the SCAN. Crikey.

The deep rich colour in the scan more than makes up for what you lose of the glimmer of the gold, catching the light. Love it a lot. It feels like…November! Maybe.

Resticking my S&C mat and cutting sentiments

I used one of the tips online for re-sticking the mat (spray adhesive) and it worked OK. Honestly, the more I read about how crap the Brother mats are and the more I use them, the more I agree. I am tempted by the tutorials that suggest using a Cricut mat cut and stuck to the brother one. I suspect you would need to do a test cut to get the pressure right but it sounds like it might work. I designed and cut a sheet of sentiments for cards using the Red & Green paper from last week. I think these will end my card-making or the holidays. I should have enough. These used the actual paper, not a scan. I really wanted the texture and painterly feel to be there, showing them as actual physical art, not an image of art.

In one area of the mat I had some bubbles from the spray adhesive, and that sentiment cut perfectly but would not let go of the mat. Not bad to have only one sacrificed to the cutting Gods. The big sentiment looked good on the background and there was enough to cover four cards

Simple enough. I designed the MERRY to be straight across, and used that to keep it aligned nicely.

It can be really hard to get them straight sometimes. Anyway I added a trio of gold sequins as well, just for that little bit of extra bling

If this had been a die, I might have cut a fun foam duplicate to pop it up a bit, but these might well be mailed (yeah, takinga chance there, given the state of the global post services lately) so lat is where it’s at!

There are some strips trimmed off to get to the 5 1/2″ square chunks I wanted to fit the card fronts, so I will play around with them to create a 5th card, I think. Might be OK, I’ll have to see. I did make a woven background from strips of the white-on-white scan and I really liked that a lot, so if I can, I may try that. I’ll share both if it turns out well. If not….crickets!

Dithering over what I will do over the holiday week between Xmas and New Year. I might go dark, I might bring back some old posts, I might have a massive spurt of creativity. I honestly don’t know. This year more than recent years, with Dear Son in residence, I feel like it will be precious family time to enjoy together. Between that and surely a ton of family Zooms or Facetimes, arty time might be in short supply. Not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to chilling out with a ton of sappy holiday movies (and Die Hard, much to Darling Daughter’s chagrin LOL!) and getting some cat cuddles in front of the tree. One more skating event before the big day, a Teams meeting for DD about a new project she might work on, a Holiday lunch with friends and a Dr. phone call. so not the most restful week.

Enough moaning. Cards!

A useful storage item from trash

I used that packing paper in a useful way. I had an old box, one of the ones with an insert for bottles, and I thought I had enough in that long strip to cover the whole thing. I got the box covered

but when I looked at the insert and what I had left…oh dear. Not enough! I reinforced the slotted together compartments and had a good think about it. Should I use other paper?

To be honest, unless you were looking down into the box from above, you are not going to see that not ever inch is covered, so I thought how best to cover as much as I could, In the end I cut the last piece into three strips and covered the top only. It covered enough of the insert that except from this angle, looking downward into the box, you don’t see it isn’t full coverage!

Washi tape neatened up the rough edges

and it makes the perfect storage for my rolls of embossed anaglypta wallpaper – a great texture tool for gel printing!

I used to have these tucked up on a high shelf and often forgot about them, but now they can stay out, neatly stored, and used a lot more. Win Win!

I did a bad job on WOYWW last week, very late. I am so hit or miss I am happy to let others claim the top spot. I’d feel awful if I was at Number 1 and didn’t get round for days. Tomorrow, who knows? Darling Daughter will be off at a skating event again (only one more after that between now and Christmas) so with luck I will be primed for desk hopping and ready to go!

That packing paper from my desk

You may recall seeing some paper on my desk last week. I never shared how it got to what it is and what I used it for.

I got a brand new 12×12 gel plate and was keen to use it but in the end I didn’t actually print as much as I expected. I collected up a bunch of paints and just started adding colour

I did use some of the PM Artist Studio stencils to add some layers

but as so often happens I got into a groove and before you know the whole sheet was full of pattern and design and no process photos were captured.

I will slip in that the one circle motif was a stencil I cut from my new Scan&Cut and I like it a lot, even if some of the closed letters have no middle.

I will have to share the project tomorrow, as the light is crap today and I have so much Holiday stuff to do, not least of which is some decoration repair (a few ornaments, the star on the tree, and the original advent calendar all need a touch of hot glue to fix little issues) so that needs to be my focus at the moment!

First Card. Forst of a few or first of many?

I have never been one to send out stacks of cards. I just never really go into the habit of it and carried on the same. Recently, I feel the draw of holiday cardmaking more than before. I have a small (and I mean very small, probably less than 10 people) list that is 90% family (and not even all of them) and a couple very very close friends. So the cards from my one masterboard will probably make 80% of the cards I need. The design is pretty simple, but with a lot of parts.

The card bases I have that I want to use up are actually embossed with a large rectangle in the middle. I am covering that with a bit of the W-on-W sheet

The sentiment is a die cut from a sheet of cardstock covered in sparkly gold tissue.

The tag has some gold stenciling then is topped with a couple of stars. The smaller stars are hand cut using the same stencil as the stars on the masterboard and the bigger ones are a punch.

That goes on top of the card front and… Ta Da!

I really like it, and while it is perhaps more time-consuming than is ideal for someone making 50+ cards, for someone making 10, it isn’t so bad.

I am still hoping to experiment with my scan, to see if I can print something that looks decent enough and embellish it. I don’t have enough of the sparkly paper the stars are cut from to make a lot more, so I need to consider altering the design. I might hold that for the weekend, and work on that long sheet of packaging paper. Still not sure what to make of it but something will reveal itself at some point – or someone will suggest something and I will slap my forehead and say Of course!

Collaborative projects are so much fun ….

WOYWW 704

Happy WOYWW! My desk is not awful, as I have tidied up a bit from the making of my White On White colour challenge piece and moved on to make a bunch of cards from the 12 x 12 sheet.

I’ll walk thru the card tomorrow. I thought I would share the scan of the paper – I haven’t tried doing it before, but I wonder if I can print the scan and perhaps add some touches of gold to it then use THAT for making more cards. I really like it so I might give it a go.

What else? I was also working on a long piece of packaging paper, but with no real firm idea what I want to do with it. I feel like it’s best use, when done (and it’s not QUITE there yet) is for covering something. Maybe some boxes? Not sure. It has been draped over the paint cart for a few days while I worked on the W-on-W challenge, but now I need to finish it and decide what to do with it!!

It is def. my usual chaotic style.

The Cat. Her most favourite spot, other than on the cushion in my sewing room while he in on his computer, is at the top of the stairs. Like Yertle the Turtle, she is the ruler of all she surveys…or thinks she is anyway!

Photo? Not this week….

Happy WOYWW to all – we are putting up the tree this coming weekend…how about you?

Shades of White – success!

So happy with the result!

I ytook the plunge, and added some of the gold to the titanium buff+white and some iridescent medium too, then pushed it thru a stencil for some dimension. I don’t get really any of the medium, and really not a LOT of the gold, but I still like it a lot.

The dimension makes the very very similar colour stand out on top of the base, so that worked out well. I mixed more gold into the same colour, and got a much more shimmery tone, but not full-on gold quite yet. I was holding that back for the last layer! Time for text of some kind, a small alpha-numeric stencil…

I had a smidge of that colour left so I dragged it across the surface with a palette knife

The trick of adding the gold TO the other colours stays true to the challenge but gave me a different shade to play with. A win!

Time for a pop of really bright white now, and as part of the challenge is to make a finished project with it (I am planning a set of Christmas cards – six or more if I can manage it) stars seems appropriate.

The light catches the gold nicely here so you can see how it shines. And that leaves the final layer, my favourite gold grid circles over the top. Woo hoo!

I love it and there is a lot of depth for such a limited range of colours! There is more difference IRL to the golds than you see in the photo. But this shot does a good job of capturing the all layers

Working from the bottom up:

• Book papers
• titanium+white schmear
• Gesso wash
• stencil with grey+white
• pen work circles
• gold+titanium+white dimensional circles
• pale gold letters+numbers
• palette knife schmear
• bright white stars
• bright gold grid circles

Now, I really have to think about the card design before I get anywhere near my trimmer! And I really need to scan this one cause I love it a LOT…

Another challenge! Shades of White?

So another member of the art group I am on issued another challenge… using White and Shades of White. She says:

Colour combination: White and shades of white .

Allowed:

• 1. One additional metallic colour (gold, copper, silver etc).
• 2. You can use dark papers to pull the prints.
• 3. There must be an end use of at least one print (so cards, tags, decorations etc).

Tricky!

After mulling it over for a while, I decided I would begin with book papers. I like the idea of that rather than the dark paper background. I created an overlapping grid from a few different books, so different text, different colours, etc and tied it all together with a watered down Gesso wash.

I collected up a handful of whites and what I think are shades of white – titanium buff and a pale grey. I dithered about using other close to white shades, like a very pale blue or pink or very pale green or coral. I felt like keeping to neutrals was more in keeping with the challenge. Gold was my metallic, although generally, silver would likely be the “obvious” choice. I did add white to those shades to make them even paler.

I did a swipe of the titanium+white and then the grey+white thru a stencil

I was a little stymied as to the way forward, but I tried adding some paint pen circles thru a stencil.

It proved my point, which was that adding the bright white over the shades made it pop nicely. But where to go from here? It feels too early to add the gold, but I feel like I can mix the gold in with some of the other shades to alter it and give a different tone. So I might try that. And to be honest, I am kinda loving this as is – I mean it isn’t a finished piece, not yet, but it feels like it is going in the right direction!

After the catastrophe of the Navy + Red attempts (and no-one will convince me they were anything but fails, so don’t even try! Although try two was less awful than One was…) this is a huge relief. I don’t feel like I have to work hard to “bring it back” but I do need to be careful not to let this go off the rails!

I’ll take a breath before moving on…

Red and Navy re-do, but STILL not happy!

Had another go and while I like this one better I am still not in love with it. It feels like this is a cursed colour combo. I took step by step photos of each layer and I can see where I went wrong. The thing is, I think it is kinda the same place as the last time.

The first layer is usually a bit of brayering of the main colours, just to get a background. Then I added some leafy fronds in a lighter blue. So far, so good! Then some layered buttermilk circles to further lighten it up.

Then I went for a bit more red, in small Xs. But I also did a wonky bit, and that annoyed me a LOT. I was trying to get the Xs to look more like + signs but that didn’t work out too well.

Still, I didn’t HATE it. I added some little wheel like circles from one of my first Cricut stencils in navy, slightly transparent, and some big white circles, also from an oldie but goodie.

at this point I am liking it pretty well. But I feel like it needs something dramatic, like black. Oh dear, It went off the rails at this point, but I think it was the CHOICE of stencils here, more so than the colour.

I wish I had used a different alpha stencil because this one is too much of a jumble if used in parts. Or maybe it is the placement? Not sure. I do think I kinda pulled it back from the edge with the addition of some bright gold circles. What do you think?

I mean, it is still pretty chaotic but I don’t despise it like the other one. Especially when I hold it up to catch the late afternoon sunlight coming in the window. I think it will work for one of my monthly journal covers for sure, and I think maybe third time lucky? A scan always helps me really SEE it, better than a photo. I have been trying to scan all of my transformed papers for later use and I do find the scans often hit me different than either seeing it on my desk or seeing it as a photo. Something to do with seeing it head on, fully flat, with no angle of distortion. Do you agree?

One more? Maybe using my new birthday 12×12 gel plate will change the dynamic? Shall we see?

…

When a colour challenge goes bad…

I think I mentioned doing some colour challenges from a gel printing group I am part of. I have done a few and really enjoyed both the process and the results. But now…

The challenge was Red & Navy. Should have been simple, right? So many cases of those colours, not least the flags of BOTH my countries. But somehow it all went Pete Tong.

The first few layers were ok, ish. I was really bothered by that few slightly diagonal swipes. In a way I don’t think I really ever recovered from them LOL!

Can’t go wrong with letters or numbers, usually, and in this case, yeah, great added layer. But then, because it was an added bit of a challenge to use up, if possible, some bottles of very old Making Memories paints, I added in the colour that was closest to being finished. Lime Green!

There was no coming back from that!

I added in a few more layers, thinking each time it was going to help, but it just got worse and worse.

I cut the sheet up, added some bright green and some more stamping, and it just did not get any better

I wish I could show you some of the failed attempts to make them better, but they are all in the bin! Funny thing is, there were comments, when I shared the fails with that group, that said how much they liked it, and that I should walk away and come back and look at it with fresh eyes – all things I myself have said to people when they are weeping with despair over some bit of art (or knitting or whatever) and I am trying to help them feel better about it. And none of it DID help. It was a dog’s dinner from the jump.

On a more positive note, I grabbed another sheet of paper and on complete auto-pilot, I made a sheet that I like a lot and which will end up being another monthly journal cover. So not the worst day ever.

That sheet has a weird colour combo but I freaking love it. Now I just have to go back and make a Red & Navy one that I don’t hate, and maybe in the process try to analyze what the tipping point is. How does it go from ok, fine, kinda like it, to OMG I loathe every inch of this piece with every fiber of my being. And can you come back from that?

Maybe, but maybe not. And maybe that is OK.