2017 #19 Fave Things: Useful Backgrounds with EAB {by Chris Dark}

2017 Topic 19: My Favourite things

This topic is purely for you to kick back, relax and get a breathing space in among the lead up to Christmas. So no challenge for the next 2 weeks, just eye candy and our bloggers sharing what they like to do most. The entries are wide and varied, as you might expect, so prepare to be inspired!

Hi everyone, it's Chris here with you today, and I'd like to share three makes that include some of my favourite things. I was drawn to this topic because it's always a pleasure to make things with favourite things, be that products or techniques. When you use favourites you tend to become proficient with them and so the process is very enjoyable which is a great mood booster.

I always enjoy creating a mixed media background, a favourite technique which also incorporates some of my favourite products and I've used the gorgeous Alison Bomber EAB05 Christmas Sentiment set to make Christmas cards with a vintage feel to them and also a more contemporary bright styled card.

Kay Carley's lovely stamps and stencils worked beautifully for the background stamping and texture.

 

Grunge paste, well it just works so well and I've used it for the texture underneath the paint.

Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Paints are the perfect basis for a background and of course with the addition of glaze they don't have to have a chalk finish, I've used them as they are but also with matte glaze for the technique on this 'bleak mid winter' card. I've mixed my light coloured opaque paint with an equal quantity of glaze and allowed it to dry off a bit before removing some with a baby wipe to give me my snowy backgrounds, I did this on both of the vintage cards. I've found that this technique also works beautifully with the translucent paints in the range which are already glazes when I wanted a dark glaze over a light background for a more grungy finish.

My second card shows a little more of how the glazing looks when finished, this time I rubbed back a bit more of the glaze and love how it looks more patchy where it had dried completely in places. The sentiment looks great in brown and the beauty of stamping over paint is that you can wipe it off if you don't stamp straight first time which I had to do.

Something to give richness to vintage style projects is Treasure Gold gilding wax, it gives the perfect finish, catches texture better than any other I've tried and remains my favourite product for highlights together with a bit of Stickles glitter glue of course, Star Dust is my favourite in that line!

A firm favourite product this year is the range of Distress Oxide inks, I find I'm using them a lot for another favourite technique of creating distress backgrounds, they've also been good for crisp stamping and worked perfectly for the sentiments over the paint. I've created a more contemporary looking Christmas card using brighter colours and Alison's Stamps as a background rather than a focal point which is another favourite thing of mine, I like to get lots of value from sentiment stamps.

In conclusion I've scored on making some Christmas cards that I'm very happy with for some special people and I've worked with some of my most favourite products and techniques. Oddly for me there is no pen work, everything I used combined to give me a level of detail I was happy with but there is paint and ink splatter :-) .....yet another of my favourite things! I hope you'll give some of these products or techniques a go if you haven't already and that they'll become some of your favourites too!

Thanks for joining me, I wish you a very creative week and a very happy festive season.

Chris x

Blog: www.sketchingstamper.blogspot.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christine.dark.7:
Instgram: @chrisd999
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/cdark4163

I love your cards too Chris! Those distress inks are certainly a game changer when it comes to crafty backgrounds - yours is a stunner! merry Christmas, see you in the New year!

As this is the final topic of the year, there is not a challenge as we know you are all super busy, so sit back, enjoy and be inspired.

Season's Greetings and best wishes to you all from all of us here at PaperArtsy