Alison Bomber Project #2 One TWO Three ....

"Hi everyone, Alison (butterfly) here with my second trio of the week, and - although we’re still botanical - it’s all about the neutrals this time. I started with - what else? - some corrugated cardboard.  It’s from the box my PaperArtsy goodies came in (oh, happy day!) and I have to say: even the PA packaging is well-made... very hard to do the ripping and tearing I wanted to, but I got there in the end".

I covered three manila tags in old book pages, and gave them and the corrugated card a wash of Snowflake Fresco Paint.  Since Snowflake is opaque, I had to dilute it with a spritz of water, or I might have lost all my lovely print. 

For the corrugated card, in the end, I decided I did need a proper undiluted coat to get the look I wanted... but it’s still just a rough coat.  I’m not looking for perfection here... 

I added the lovely birds and grasses from HP1009 to the foot of each tag - I may be in love with this stamp, I think!

HP1009

This time I stamped my botanicals onto the fantastic Heavyweight Smoothy Stamping Card, using Coffee Archival.  I did try out the Versafine Sepia for comparison’s sake... and apart from preferring the warmer tone of the Coffee (on the right), I think it slightly edged the Versafine for clarity.  I know that’s pretty much heresy round here, so I’ll continue to experiment!

The flowers are from the following Hot Pick Stamp sets:

HP1109

HP1203

HP1204

I tore around the edges for a rough and ready look to match the background.  

I blended Gathered Twigs onto the torn edges, and darkened the very outside with Walnut Stain.  Using more than just one ink colour for the distressing seems to me to give added depth and life to a piece.

I did some classic spritz and flicking, trying to get the water droplets to land on the inked parts of the paper (with somewhat limited success), but it does give a lovely extra texture to the distressing.

Then I sploshed some Distress Stains onto the craft mat and used a paintbrush to suck up the fluid ink - you want the tip nice and saturated - before tapping it against my finger to flick ink onto the stamped images.  It’s something Tim Holtz did on one of his 12 Tags, and I love how it adds a spontaneity and life to the images.

I also inked and distressed the edges of my book page tags, and started assembling things on the cardboard backing.  It needed some thing extra, so I added some crumpled Crunchy Wax Paper to the mix.

And I remembered the little tiny tags Leandra had included in my stash, so I pressed some of those into service too.  They got a book page covering, and then I added partial stampings of some of the insects from HP1109 and 1203, as well as adding the teeny-weeny tag images also from HP1109.
 

I do love the effect of stamping on book pages!

By now, I was pretty happy with my layers, but the corrugated card still lacked definition, despite having had some Distress Inks blended over it.  In the end, I used the CoffeeArchival pad, swiping it directly onto the edges and ridges of the card to give it a bit of oomph.  Much better.

There was still a bit of juggling of layers and elements before I got to a final composition which pleased me, but eventually I got going with the glue.

Of course, you lose a bit of dimension once you start actually sticking things down, so I used padded tape to mount the little tags.  I also like that this means you can slightly peek underneath them...

I used some twine, not only to decorate the tops of the tags, big and small, but also to create the mechanism by which to hang up my hanging triptych.

I’ll leave you with a picture of each panel, with the sun to warm them up.  If only I were a horticulturalist, I could identify them for you by the names of the flowers - but here’s the left...

... the middle...

and the right (pretty sure this one’s an iris!)...

... as well as some favourite little close-ups:

So, that’s trio number two... and I’ve one last threesome to share with you tomorrow.  Hope to see you then!

Leandra Says: Ohhh how fantastic. So effective with a few browns, a bit of distressing and neutral colours to create great impact! Like you, I'm a sucker for old pages, but yes, they do need a good whitewashing first to tone the writing down.... OMG I did have a bad experience in class one day where I innocently handed out a rather raunchy book to them which didn't go down well for everyone! Particularly as the task was to create a poem out of the words on the sheet!!! So I do try to glance at the content first now before kitting up or using !!! oops

Gillian Says: Another beautiful trio Alison, I love your neutral colour palette which is perfect with your corrugated backdrop.