2016 #2: Mixed Elements Heart {by Lin Brown}

 2016 Topic 2: Hearts

Hi everyone Lin from Yoursartfully here.

Tonight I'd like to share with you a post about recycling and Bister Powders.

My challenge was to make a project using some stamps from the Urban Snapshots range for the theme of hearts. This had me scratching my head, trying to figure out a way of tying the two together. After searching through my stash of substrates in search of anything heart shaped, it suddenly dawned on me that it really couldn't be more simple than using the iconic shape of a heart to show and share my love of trees.

With the idea in the back of my head that we should all be better at recycling, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share a project with you that uses left overs from some experiments I did with my Bister Powders. 

Step One: I gathered together some scraps of fabric that I had used for Bister Powder experiments. I had spritzed the fabric with water before sprinkling on the Bisters (I used Yellow, Blue and Green). Sometimes I needed to spritz more water to get the powder to dissolve which made the fabric very wet. Because of the amount of water involved, I laid the fabrics on paper to mop up some of the liquid. These papers turned out to be very useful as you will see a little bit later. I also used the powders through some stencils too, to try and control the patterns a little bit. Whilst the patterns were not crisp images, they turned out to be very useful.

Step Two: I drew a heart on some tracing paper so that I could use it to decide which area of the patterned fabric to use. Moving this over the fabric is a great way to help you decide. I did also stamp my tree on the tracing paper to give me insight into how it would look,but foolishly forgot to take a photo of that!!!

Step Three: Using Archival ink, I stamped the tree from Urban Snapshots Nature 1. I love how the background looks like a stormy sky. This is why it is such a good idea to use the tracing paper trick......placement is so important.

Step Four: Now for the mop up papers that I mentioned earlier. This was just cheap copy paper but look at the great patterns that were left behind. The one at the top/left is amazing. The fabric I used had a tiny pattern printed on it and this acted as a resist....so cool. The other two pieces were linen with chunkier weave which also left behind some great patterns.

Step Five: I chose the paper with the least amount of colour as I wanted to stamp other images from Urban Snapshots Nature 2 and 3.

Urban Snapshot Nature 2

Urban Snapshot Nature 3

Step Six: This final shot shows how I used small pieces of my recycled papers behind the heart and a layer of lace between the heart and background before stitching everything together.

When I make a project, I always feel that it's the small finishing touches that transform a project that you like into a project that you love. In this instance, it was the addition of the small label. Luckily, I thought to do this before fixing everything to my canvas!

I hope this project has inspired you to to use up some of those papers and fabrics that you can't bear to through away and to take a look at the stamps in the Urban Snapshots range. There are some fabulous images in this range which I hate to admit, I had completely forgotten about but I will definitely be using them more often now. In fact I think I might make two more canvases to enable me to create a triptych

Thank you for joining me this evening.
Lin  from Yoursartfully 

The subtle effects from the Bister Powders has created the most wonderful backgrounds. It is interesting to see how the powders react/take on different surfaces. The images and natural canvas background gives this project a real ethereal feel. Thank you for sharing your creativity with us. ~Gillian

We would love to see how you interpret this Hearts  topic by linking what you make to our 2016 Challenge #2: Hearts, on this page HERE.

All of our bloggers love to see your twist on their ideas,  particularly if you were inspired directly by their post. 

All links go in the draw to win a £50 voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. The 'Hearts' link will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, February 7th. The winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

NB this link is open for 3 weeks instead of 2 - all will become clear why on Jan 31st!