2015 #9 Home Decor {by Paula Pascual}

2015 Theme 9: Words

Hello, my name is Paula Pascual, born and raised in Spain and for the last twelve years i have been living in the South of England. I have always love paper, so when the opportunity came to work full time in the papercraft industry shortly after moving here, I jump right in. Since 2005 I specialized in die cutting and it is rare to find a project of mine without any of it. But I love stamping and paints, as I have been using acrylics since childhood as my father is a professional artist so paints were always in large supply.

I love typography, a clean and contemporary style, but also incorporating a distress look or textures within that clean feel. I have loved PaperArtsy products for a long time, because of their quality and style. So I am really excited to do a guest blog post here!

Words were something of a challenge at first for me, as English is not my first (nor second!) language and I didn’t really incorporate words in my early projects. However, my love of typography made me fall in love with using words in my projects and now I rarely make a project without them.

I am often inspired by sentiments, so when I saw a set of stamps [ E Lin Brown 05 ] by Lin Brown - one of my most admired crafters, I must admit! - I was really inspired to create a piece of Home Decor.The sentiment that I wanted to highlight was “flowers whisper what words cannot say” such a powerful and truthful message! And then I saw one of the newest Jo Firth-Young’s releases [  JOFY 32 ] and had to use it too.

This is the final artwork, a frame ready to hang proudly in a wall.

As I mentioned, I like a contemporary clean look, so for the background I chose to do a technique which consists on adding chipboard die cut elements and then paint them all white, still visible but very subtle and clean.

I die cut the individual letters to spell the same sentence of the rubber stamp using one of Tim Holtz Block Alphabets for Sizzix. They fit in the frame but there was a gap at the bottom which I cover using one of his Framework dies, the Chevron.

Once I was happy with their distribution, I glue the letters down on to a piece of Smoothy Heavy Weight - white stamping card. Then, I cover it all with just a coat of Fresco Snowflake, making sure that all the letter edges were painted. The key to this technique is that they all blend with the background.

Once the paint was dry, which was pretty soon, I stamped the flower branch from JOFY 32 using Archival black. The image of course is broken because of the height of the letters, but those uneven lines is all you need for now.

JOFY 32

For the flowers I used another one of the E Lin Brown 05 sentiments. I stamped it first on to the Smoothy Heavy Weight, then the flowers and buds over the top.

ELB05

Using a waterbrush, I colour them in using Fresco Banana, Tangerine Twist,  and Bougainvillea, from the Lin Brown Limited Edition {set 3}, By using the waterbrush I was able to dilute them enough to create a rough watercolour effect. Finally, once dried I cut them down individually.

I added them to the the frame and used a brown thin wire to reinforced the branch lines.

On a piece of  Fresco Snowflake painted card, I stamped the message, then trimmed the lines and then attached them to the frame.

This close up shows better of the dimension of the background, subtle but certainly there.

The centres of the flowers benefit with the contrast that bring dimension and shininess of the dots.

I hope this inspires you to look out for words, no only as the sentiments but also as the custom made background. And why not try this technique with other colours?
Paula.

You can find me online here:

blog.paulapascual.com

twitter.com/paulabmpascual

facebook.com/paulapascualdesigns

pinterest.com/paulabmpascual

instagram.com/paulabmpascual

Thanks Paula for joining us this evening. I am sure many people will have seen you around blogland and in magazines and it is a real treat to finally have you here. This is a beautiful piece of home decor, fresh and modern, perfect for today's homes. The subtle text in the background is a brilliant technique. Genius!

We would love you to join in with challenge #9: Words 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 Words link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, May 24th, winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.