2019 #18 Shaving Foam: Some Experimenting with ETS {by Lucy Edmondson}

2019 Topic 18: Shaving Foam

As we bring our shaving foam experiments to a close, Lucy works with dark and bright reinkers in shaving foam to create this canvas using Tracy's stamps and stencils ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Lucy from Lucy's True Colours with you today, and I'd like to share with you a canvas board made with Tracy Scott's stamps and stencisl and some techniques with shaving foam.

When I first started papercrafting back in 2003, but before I started stamping, I dabbled with shaving foam as many of us did, but was not very happy with the effects. I had some marbling inks which were only available in primary colours and so I found the end results not very subtle. Now we have such a huge range of options available to us that we can float and marble to give so many different looks. in 2014 (and I couldn't believe it was so long ago!) I did some experiments here on the blog with Fresco Finish Paints and really enjoyed using shaving foam again.

So today I knew I wanted to do something different and to do some further experimenting, and had immediately decided I wanted to use Distress Oxide reinkers. I wanted to see if I could dip and swipe with a number of different materials using the foam and Oxide combo. I had mixed results. I knew that because Oxides are chalky they show up on black so I thought I would introduce black backgrounds into my project but I don't feel the nuances of the different colours show up as clearly as they do on white. I quite like the rather dreamy quality it gives though. I felt other aspects of the experiments were more successful.

I started off in the traditional way with my shaving foam and drops of Distress Oxide reinkers in Twisted Citron, Seedless Preserves, Dusty Concorde, Picked Raspberry, Broken China, Abandoned Coral, and Shaded Lilac. I like to use a baking tin covered in foil to make clean up easy. You can then lift it out of the way to clear your work surface so you have space to do your scraping.

I made a feathered pattern with a wooden skewer, making sure to break up any dots of colour.

For my substrate, I painted a piece of canvas board with Fresco Finish Little Black Dress.

I then dipped it in the shaving foam mixture and scraped across once with my ruler. If you're not happy with it, you can repaint your canvas with Little Black Dress.

I did a piece of black cardstock at the same time, to make a matching greetings card. Well, really it was just part of the experiment! The markings seem much more distinct. I don't know why.

I then gold embossed the stem from the large flower from Tracy Scott Eclectica ETS29 onto the canvas.

I dipped pieces of pink tissue paper into the shaving foam mixture. The colours are glorious! You need to take a little care when pulling the ruler across as the shaving foam is a little soggy and the tissue paper is delicate but it's not too difficult to do so.

I then used my pieces of tissue paper to gold emboss the small and large flowers from Tracy Scott Eclectica ETS17 concentrating on the areas where there is most colour, and cut them out and layered them together.

I scooped up some of the surface shaving foam with a credit card (yes, it's buried under there!) and scraped it through Tracy Scott's stencil PS111 onto pink tissue paper and once the flower circles were dry I cut them out. 

I just love this versatile stencil. I cut up pieces of these circles and applied them around the edges of the canvas in a random fashion using gel medium. I love the translucent, veiny look.

I did the same thing onto a piece of canvas sheet from a pad, cut around it, and used my scissors to distress the edges so there were lots of cotton strands. This was one of the bits of the experiment I liked! I used this as a base for my layered tissue paper flowers and positioned it above the gold stem.

I used some of the remaining inky foam on the credit card to scrape across some canvas paper and once it was dry, I gold embossed the word 'Bloom' from Tracy Scott Eclectica ETS29 and roughed up the edges. I positioned this at the base of the flower stem.

To finish off my canvas I added some white text from Tracy Scott Eclectica ETS28 using Fresco Finish Snowflake, some white paint splatters, and some white lace at the bottom which I pleated. 

I took a silver bulldog clip and painted it with Fresco Finish Little Black Dress which adhered beautifully to the metal. Whilst the paint was a little wet, I added some random flecks of gold embossing powder for some rough texture.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my creative process, what worked and what maybe didn't work so well, and that it has given you some new possibilities to try. I made such a big fat mess along the way I wasn't sure I would manage to get a successful project made at all! You could say it was a close shave!

Blog: Lucy's True Colours
Facebook: Lucy Edmondson
Twitter:@CraftyLuce