2020 #5 Mark Making: Infusions Tag Book with ESA {by Autumn Clark}

2020 Topic 5: Mark Making

Intro
Autumn is having a blast of late with the PaperArtsy Infusions. If you have not tried these, they are water activated pigment powders, but they have 2 unusual features: 1. they are permanent once dry and 2. they contain walnut crystals which activate more slowly than the colour powder (because a crystal is larger, and takes longer to dissolve in water). Result is that you get a colour pop with a vintage brown effect. 

Learning how to control the balance of colour to walnut makes for a lot of fun! That is why with just 2 infusions, Autumn still gets a range of colour and some super-interesting effects, and she makes plenty of marks with the fabulous stamps from Seth Apter's line. Take a look!
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint with you today, and I'd like to share with you a fun little tag book I made by marking up a sheet of Infusions dyed paper with loads of Seth Apter patterns.

I truly love playing with Infusions pigment powders and thought it would be fun to mix the two "blacks" in the collection together.  I was instantly amused by the combo of Black Knight and Blackcurrant.  One thing led to another and I ended up creating a little scrappy tag book with black and white photos of my darling girls...

More than anything I enjoyed I enjoyed the spontaneity of creating this project.  I let one color indicate the next and then the ink colors and even the shapes I used.  And there's nothing like a pop of black and white photos against pink!  My girls are mad about star motifs these days so I loved adding such elements to my design.  

I usually choose to apply my Infusions over very wet paper.  I love watch the magic as the colors bleed.  I dyed a full sheet of 12x12. 

I wasn't sure what I was going to do once I started, but this year I am adapting the principle of "striving for my flow state," where I take more time for creative abandon and pure play.  I cut the paper with a tag die and got eight pieces from the sheet.  I mounted them onto black cardstock one on the front, one on the back of four finished tags.  Since my water flowed to the center of my paper as the colors ran, it left me with sort of a striped effect, which I kept on the horizontal when I cut my tags.  It would be interesting to see how they would look with a more vertical swaying...

Now it was time to make some marks!  I pulled out some Distress Oxide colors that would coordinate with the magenta, grey/blue and blacks from my backgrounds and set to stamping my tags at random.  

I used PaperArtsy Eclectica³ {Seth Apter} Collection (EM35), (EM41), (EM45), (EM48) and (ESA09).  For the largest pattern from ESA09 I used Cloud 9 Fresco Chalk Acrylic Paint to bring in some contrast.

The concept of making one's mark made me think of my sweet girls and my hopes and dreams for their future, so I pulled out PaperArtsy Eclectica³ {Alison Bomber} Collection (EAB07), the "Dreams" stamp collection. 

I fussy cut portions of each quote to pair with my photos.  To create some dimension, I added some die cut elements with Seth Apter dies.  I embossed those in Ranger's "Punch" Mixed Media Powder.

Then the joy of building my layouts with my photos, pops of pink embellishments and these delightful sayings was found, all from the simple start of making a few marks...

I can't encourage you enough to have a play with Infusions.  There is something truly magical about the randomness of the colors.  I've shared a couple of video tutorials recently on my YouTube page HERE and HERE, so take a look and get to playing...  It's time to make your mark!

It's been a pleasure to share with you today.  Make sure to scroll through the PaperArtsy blog posts for more mark making inspiration.  Hugs, Autumn

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