Wow - I can't believe it's July already! I don't know about you, but for me it feels like summer is so short, it's almost completely booked up before it's even begun. But I'm not complaining, our family has lots of fun adventures to pack into the next 8 weeks. And hopefully lots of chances for Mummy to get some new scrap-worthy photos!
With the new month comes a new sketch challenge from Blue Fern Studios. This month Michele Singh has prepared another stunning sketch to inspire us all. Here is my take on it, using Blue Fern's Ombre Dreams papers. This is my favourite photo of my mom, cradling my oldest when he was a newborn. My mom has been gone for 3 years, and I really cherish photos like these I have of her and my kids. And they serve as a reminder that I need to take more photos of my kids and their surviving grandparents so they will have those to look back on.
Here is this month's sketch. I stuck pretty close to the overall design, substituting pieces of the Chunky Heart Panel for the new Seeing Stars chippies.
To treat my Chunky Heart Panel chippies, I started by applying Super Heavy Gesso with my finger, which leaves lots of texture so that when you mist there are lots of little depressions for the mist to settle in while leaving the raised areas white. I then added some pink chalk ink to the raised areas, and edged the hearts with blue chalk.
For the "Delightful" piece, from The Optimist Word Set, I started by coating it in pigment ink, then added clear embossing powder and heat embossed for an enamelled finish.
The heart and arrow from the Directions Set was given the same treatment, and I then brushed some more of the pigment ink on top of the set embossing powder.
A couple of the cut-off hearts were perfect layered together on the top corner, with a little angel perched atop them, maybe a subconscious reference to my mom?
Though the Ombre Dreams papers are soft and dreamy, it is easy to add some pops of bright colours. I chose some coordinating chalk inks and did some stamping (with the pinks) and applied them directly to the paper (with the yellow)
Other scrappers sometimes ask what we do when we "spoil" a layout using mixed media - let's face it, it's scary to put hours of work into a project, adjusting and readjusting the placement of paper, pictures and embellishments and then splash paint all over it - so I wanted to share the photo above. I stencilled on some bright yellow and bright blue paints (knowing that they would make green in some places), but the result when they dried was overpowering. Rather than throw the layout on the trash heap, which I hate to do, I put the stencil back over the dried image and applied some gesso using a sea sponge, which toned down the colour without covering it completely. I then added some gesso on my fingers to my flowers and embellies to tie everything together.
I hope you will play along with us this month over at the Blue Fern Studios blog! If you are looking for where you can buy Blue Fern Studios products, click here for a list of retailers.
Blue Fern Studios Products Used:
Ombre Dreams
Leslie's Dream
Ginger's Dream
Shannon's Dream
Charlotte's Dream
Chipboard
Chunky Heart Panel
The Optimist Word Set
Directions Set
No comments:
Post a Comment