Welcome New GD: Pam Thorburn #1 Lucas

"Hi everyone, Pam Thorburn here excited to be doing my first post for PaperArtsy. I love to dabble in all kinds of papercrafts and mixed media projects, but my first love is scrapbooking, so you can expect to see scrapbook related projects from me.

This week I'm going to show you how I've used PaperArtsy products to create unique backgrounds for my scrapbook pages. I do hope that you will be inspired to create your own unique backgrounds for your scrapbook pages, or any other crafting situation perhaps".

My project today is a scrapbook page featuring my niece’s son, Lucas. 

Although this photo is a tightly cropped portrait, the whole layout has been inspired by where we were when I took the photo. Last July our very large extended family gathered in our home town of Broken Hill, in outback Australia, to celebrate my mother’s  90^th birthday. The photo of Lucas was taken in Silverton, just outside Broken Hill. Silverton looks like this:

There is a lot of rusty corrugated iron, which, along with the colours of the landscape, really became the starting point for my layout. So I decided to cut a 12x12 piece of cardboard box for my layout base. I wanted to expose some of the corrugations of the card, but the outer paper layer was firmly stuck, so I splashed some water on the card, waited a couple of minutes, and then the paper was suddenly much easier to peel away. The first thing I did was scrape some Fresco Chalk Acrylic Paint (Snowflake) roughly across the card.

  

 
I painted the corrugations, rubbing some Little Black Dress into the valleys, then I painted Elephant across the peaks of the corrugations.

I then sponged Fresco Chalk Acrylic Paint (Brown Shed) over the peaks, then cleaned my sponge on the white surface.

Next came some Treasure Gold (Spanish Topaz) which I rubbed over the corrugations to give a rusty look.

I wanted to build up some surface interest so I got out some PaperArtsy stamps: firstly the brick stamp (Ink and the Dog: Mini 95) which I used to stamp randomly around the page using Sky Fresco Paint. 

MN 95

Then the netting stamp (Ink and the Dog: Frames Plate 2) which I stamped with Stazon Ink, again just roughly and randomly around the page. This just served to grunge up the page a bit, and make it sort of dirty and masculine!

Continuing to build up surface interest I got out the Reverse Chicken Wire Stencil and some Brown Shed paint. Using a chubby stippling brush and an up and down motion, I stencilled through the template. When stencilling with a brush it is important to dab off excess paint, so that the brush is quite dry. This will stop paint from seeping under the stencil.

At this stage I was going to adhere my photo, but I felt it kinda got lost on the background. To overcome this I added more Snowflake paint around where I was going to place my photo. This lightened the area and gave some separation of the photo from the background. I also added some more stamping, this time using the cog stamp (Ink and the Dog:Mini 60).

To help the photo stand out better I decided to make a photo mat from a large manila tag. I used Sky and Brown Shed to paint the tag. 

And I used the calendar stamp from (Eclectica: Sara Naumann 06)  with Snowflake Fresco Chalk Acrylic Paint.

Then it was time to start building up the other elements of my page. Again when I placed my photo onto the background I still felt something was missing-the photo just didn't seem grounded, so I  stamped some horizontal patterns using stamps, (I&D:Frames Plate 4) Love those stamps!! and adhered a strip of crunchy waxed paper. I added interest to the photo with by wrapping some twine around it, and tying it off in a bow. I saved the off cut from the large manila tag to use later.

Ink and the Dog: Frames Plate 4

The Prima Mechanicals Gears cogs were perfect embellishments for this page, but I wanted to change them up a bit so I just rubbed over them with some Stazon Ink to change the colour.

I used Hot Pick: Xtra 03 Sentiment Stamps to add some words to the layout. These were stamped onto the left over pieces of the large manila tag, and cut out. I  decided my layout was a bit dark in the bottom right hand corner, so to lighten it up I used the chicken wire stencil again, using Snowflake. I also flicked some of the paint onto the page.

Hot Pick: Xtra 03 

I adhered all the embellishments using glossy accents. As you can see I clustered most of them in the one area, and also layered them on top of each other. Finally I added the title.

So, that's how I made this background, inspired by the landscape where the photo was taken. I hope that's given you some ideas and look forward to seeing your own backgrounds for your scrapbook pages.

~Pam~ 

Leandra Says: I really love how you built up the stamped background on such a tricky surface. Sometimes the corrugation underneath affects the stamping on top, but not here. The brick stamp is such fine detail, but it created a fabulous brick shadow that works a treat. A warm welcome, so great to have you on board Pam!

Gillian Says: Welcome Pam, such a beautiful composition, loving the corrugation background along with the mechanicals that pull everything together. Can't wait to see more.

If you would like to join in this week's challenge and play along with Pam's techniques, then do link up your creativity here, and go in the draw to win some PA stamps of your choice! You need to link your entry by 17:00, Sunday February 2nd 2014.