A Special Saturday {video}

Its time for another technique video. This is an idea I have been meaning to explore since we first released Grunge Paste, but have never found the right moment. So last week, when I was demoing at Stevenage I remembered, and it worked even better than I expected.

Basically we use a stencil, grunge paste, fine detailed stamps and then paint it. lastly we sand it back to reveal the fine detail of paint trapped in the stamped texture.

I made a background exactly like this, only onto a tag. This stencil is called Circle Grid, by Crafters' Workshop, you can see from the picture how sharp each circle is when you use grunge paste. It's such an easy texture to apply to stencils (be they  ultra-fine detail or bold like below), and will not seep under your stencil, as its not a particularly wet formulation, and has good 'body'. It's almost clay-like in it's formulation.

And then I turned it into a sample for Helen.  Aka stamping by H, @stampingbyH , who has stood and watched me demo at shows every year for the last 10 years. I remember her coming to Ally Pally (Alexandra Palace, The Great Stamping and Scrapbooking Show, North London) when we got our first  6 metre stand; we were opposite Rob and Gord from Once Upon a Stamp, we would laugh all show long with those two opposite!

Since those early days I have go on to demo on various other stands (when we did not exhibit) and she would track me down, and Helen still comes to watch at all kinds of local to London events that I go to! So she must be our longest and most loyal groupie. So it's nice to give her something when she visits the stand. I'm not sure if fish was what she was expecting, but that is what it ended up being!

I went on to stamp the fantastic fish from Hot Picks 1201EZ onto and altered book background that was painted green, and then used translucent shades of Fresco paints to add depth to the fish. I also added a touch of Treasure Gold (Brass) - you can see how the light has caught it on a couple of spots at the front.



For today's video, I have made the sample below in shades of blues and purple, and gave it a bit of oomph with Pumpkin Soup and Claret. The stencil is the mosaic squares. For this technique you need a stencil with decent open areas.

The stamps I used were fine detail stamps that will fit in the small stencil spaces. The Japanese writing and postmarks are ideal from Hot Picks XT01EZ and the fine script from Sara Naumann ESN03.

So check out the video below to see the nitty gritty on how to achieve this effect, and you still have time to have a go yourself, and upload it to this week's challenge draw here too. That closes Sunday (tomorrow) at noon London time.

 

Oh an update on the #MonsterMonday boxes ...they are flying out like hotcakes. At 60% off retail, they are full of embellishments, stamps, surfaces to work on, and all kinds of weird and wonderful things. Comments coming back to me on twitter are that people are really, really pleased with them. We do  try to give you a wide variety of stuff that you would use for card, scrapbooking, altered art and so on.

Read the T&C's before ordering, and once you have one in your basket, you need to proceed to checkout as fast as possible, otherwise the box you have in your basket will get nabbed by someone already paying in the 'queue' ahead of you. Crazy I know, but it happens when there are lots of people online trying to buy the same item at the same time. 

I release the product online here at 6pm Monday evening, both weeks so far they have sold within 30 mins, so you need to be quick! I keep adding more each week, but you guys are scoffers! Good luck!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Leandra