Welcome Alison Bomber Project #1 .... Lucky Number 3

"Hello all, it’s finally here... semester three, and the day I can officially celebrate sharing a project with you here at PaperArtsy.  And, oh boy, what a terrifying wait it’s been, with one amazing project after another here on the blog this year - and, not only that, but fabulous work from everyone each week inspired by what’s here, as well as brilliant makes from the PATWITS with their secret ingredients... Talk about a tough act to follow!

But when I was at the Craft Barn Extravaganza, I had a lovely chat with Mr PaperArtsy himself, who said, “Just do what you do, and remember to take lots of pictures.”  So that’s what I’ve tried to do... and regulars at Words and Pictures will know there’s never a problem with the second part of that advice"!

It’s Semester 3, and 3 is also my lucky number, so I’ve pressed it into service to ward off the nervous butterflies.  I’ve a trio of trios for you this week, and here’s the first one.

I started with three of the large Paper Mache Hanging Boards, and sponged on Snowflake, Cheesecake and Vanilla Frescos with some Cut N Dry foam, just blending as I went.

 

To add some background interest, I stamped the ledger from HP1217 onto some tissue paper several times, and ripped that up to add it to my boards.

 

 

I then added some more of the same colours, but this time in a slightly diluted wash - just spritzing the paint with water on the craft mat before applying - so that the tissue paper would be embedded into the background without the stamping being completely obliterated by the three opaque paints.

 

I used some more tissue paper just to try out my planned stamping.  By chance, I plumped for OliveArchival to do it... and that started to tell me where to go next with the colours.

 

My next step was some stencilling with the Mini Harlequin, using Hey Pesto and Tinned Peas.  I sponged the Hey Pesto first, and then added the Tinned Peas to some areas, but not all, so that you get a bit of colour variation.  But my main thing here was that I wanted to keep a slightly glossy wet-look to the paint, as well as getting a bit of texture, so I clear embossed as I went. 

 

You have to be quick, since Frescos dry quickly, but I only wanted a rough texture, so I’m happy with the result.  (I’ve been playing with fabulously thick and glossy effects with UTEE - but more of that next month, perhaps!)

I added the fabulous birds and grasses from HP1009 along the bottoms, as well as some taller grasses from HP1008 at the outer edges.

HP1008

 

 HP1009
 

Some more stencilling - this time with Distress Inks - gave me some texture for the sky.  I blended through from Tumbled Glass to Broken China to Faded Jeans to get the shading.

Time to take a deep breath and get the main images in place... These were stamped mainly in Olive Archival, with touches of Aquamarine and Memento Teal Zeal, and also clear embossed for a glossy shimmer and to make them stand out from the matt, chalky background.

 

 

The flowers are from: HP1009, 1109 and 1203.

 HP1203

I used Snowflake and a very fine paintbrush to give the petals on all the flowers some definition from the Vanilla background.  Works well on some of these flower heads, less well on others, but overall I like the effect. 

 

The insects were left shimmeringly embossed rather than adding paint to them. 

I love when they catch the sun, and flash into vision, like catching sight of a butterfly or dragonfly on the wing in real life.

It felt a bit dotty up top and diamond-y down below, so I decided to balance it up by adding some dots down below too... Grunge Paste to the rescue, applied fairly sparingly and randomly amongst the diamonds and grasses.  (You can see I’d also done some inking with Broken China around and about the place by now.)

 

It was all very pretty, but still lacking something... so, another deep breath and time to change direction a bit, by adding some bold stamping in Sepia.  And not natural elements this time, but the fabulous advertisement from HP1109, as well some of the tiny text from HP1217.

 HP1109

Once the sepia stamping was there, it was inevitable that some Vintage Photo Distress Ink was going to make its way into the picture.  I did some gentle distressing right at the edges and corners and, as I did so, hit some of the Grunge Paste dots by mistake... and loved it!  So they got inked up too!

 

Of course, all of this goes over the edges of the hanging boards too... I never neglect my edges!  You can even still see the edges down between the panels if you look closely.

 

And then the three panels needed fastening together.  Any guesses what I used?  Chopsticks, anyone?!  A bit of Glossy Accents, and a bit of firm pressure, and we’re good to go. 

 

So there’s my first triptych of the week... hope it offers you some ideas to play with, and I do hope you’ll be able to join me over the next couple of days for some more treble trouble.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Leandra Says: Ohhhh I love the layers and layers, and the embossing powder introduces shine and texture perfectly! The colours work so well, but when you added the sepia and bang! Contrast and it lifts it to the next level. Correct decision, even if a scary one to enact! Vintage photo on the grunge paste too was an happy accident! Wonderful opening post, and those hanging boards are so easy to work on, both sizes! Great start Alison!

Gillian Says: Alison it was so lovely to meet you in person last weekend, now I know the lady behind the beautiful designs. Awesome start to your GD Semester with my fave substrate of all time. The layers and texture along with your chosen colour palette make this simply gorgeous. I love the inked GP dots.