2015 #8 Keepers of the Keys {by Alison Hall}

2015 Theme 8: Sprays

Hi everyone Alison (Craftytrog) here, joining you this evening with a post about using Fresco Finish Paints to make paint sprays. I love making backgrounds, spraying with watered down paint, and creating lots of lovely drips. My background was inspired by a circular panel on the set of my favourite quiz show, QI...the one behind Stephen Fry :-) I thought that the lovely new Lynne Perrella ladies would look perfect in this setting.

Step One: My base is a sheet of Heavy Grey/White Board, measuring 5x7 inches. I gave the board a base coat of Snowflake Fresco Finish Paint, then I used Ranger Archival Ink in Coffee to repeatedly stamp the text and keys border from LPC032, all over the board.

Step Two: I took a couple of Small Spray Bottles, filled each bottle halfway with water, then added Yellow Submarine Fresco Paint to one, and Autumn Fire Fresco Paint to the other. The amount of paint I added came about halfway up to the level of the water. I shook the bottles well, and first sprayed the Yellow Submarine as a base, then sprayed the Autumn Fire, holding the board vertical to get some lovely drips. I added a little Brown Shed Fresco Paint to the Autumn Fire bottle, to create a darker shade, then spritzed this to the top of the board, then holding it vertical to get more drips.

Step Three: Next, I base-coated three little Tando frames with Brown Shed Fresco Paint. I then embossed them with some Frantage Aged Copper embossing powder. I repeated this step a couple more times, then whilst the final layer was still molten, I inked up the script from the Ink & the Dog Backgrounds - Plate 6 with Versamark Embossing Ink, and stamped into the molten EP. I added some Spanish Topaz Treasure Gold highlights to the embossing. Below you can see the three stages.

Step Four: I mixed some Haystack and Vanilla Fresco Paint together, then painted a piece of Smoothy Stamping Card with it. Using Coffee Archival Ink, I stamped the head & shoulders of the two ladies from LPC032, and one of the small images from LPC034.

Step Five: I cut the images out, and glued them behind the frames. I sprayed a little of the orange paint mix onto my Craft Mat, then added some colour to the ladies' faces with a paint brush. I later decided to add a little watered down Bora Bora Fresco Paint to their crowns, as a contrast colour.

Step Six: I added some Aged Copper embossing powder to the edges of my board, and also sprinkled a little over my background. I embossed some little metal corners, rubbed some Spanish Topaz Treasure Gold over them, and glued these to the four corners of the board. Finally, I glued my framed ladies to the background, adding some metal keys to finish.

I really love how my drippy background turned out, it was just the effect I was going for. And, stamping into embossing never fails to delight me. I hope I have inspired you to mix up some water and Fresco Paint, and make some drippy backgrounds of your own for the 'Sprays' Challenge. Please link up to the Challenge, as I'd love to come and see how I've inspired you.

Thanks for following along,

Alison xxx  

Blog - Craftytrog's Inky Adventures

Twitter - @craftytrog

Facebook - Alison Hall

Ohhhh Alison, your rusty drips look fantastic! Stamping into Embossing powders like that always looks so gorgeous, and it sets off those little frames a treat!!! Beautiful project, thanks so much for sharing with us! ~Leandra

We would love you to join in with challenge #8: Sprays If you are inspired by any of our guests who blog with us over the fortnight, then please join in and link up your creativity HERE. 

All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The Sprays link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, May 10th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.