2021 Topic 10: My Favourite Colour with ESC {by Ellie Knol}

  2021 Topic 10: My Favourite Colour

The plum-russet shades contrast beautifully for these 2 journal books that Ellie has created. I think turquoise seems to be one of those colours that can go with everything else so easily. Ellie has made an autumnal option with mushrooms and a Spring option with flowers using the beautiful stamps from Scrapcosy -  this colour scheme looks perfect for both!
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Ellie Knol with you today, and I'm here to share with you the making of two easy-to-make notebooks; basically it's folding 10 white copier paper sheets for each notebook in half, 3 holes for the binding and some awesome covers. That's easy isn't it? To emphasize the teal I added some teal beads to the waxed thread.  

As I chose teal (Fresco Finish Paint Beach Hut) to be my favorite color I decided to use one other color (a brownish red: Fresco Finish Brown Shed) to make the teal color pop.

I must confess, I have several favorite colors; I'm sure you can relate!

I have created 2 journals: Mushrooms, Birds & Flowers.

To begin with I had a look through my stash and found 2 gelli prints that spoke to me. Both have the teal color and also the moody red color (which was quite difficult to photograph as my camera changed it to a more reddish color). I used ESC22 mostly for this journal.

To be able to stamp onto these backgrounds I needed to think of a solution to make the stamped images pop. This technique forms the core of both projects, so I will explain it here and then go on to show you pictures of each journal.

A stamping platform comes in very handy. I stamped the image with a dark brown, then added watered down Snowflake Fresco Finish Paint within each of the images. After letting the paint dry, I then stamped the image on the surface again; I had to ink it up twice. {Tip: if the surface is not smooth after painting the white, you can sand it back a little first before stamping, just take care not to nudge the position of the paper}
You will understand that you have to leave the project in the stamping platform for all of these above steps; one stamp at a time as you add more colour to the image.

  

OK, so now you understand how the colour was added, let me show you the 2 projects in more detail.

 

Project One: Mushrooms Journal

 

I used the beautiful (quite new) stamp set ESC26 from Scrapcosy.

 

 

I fell in love with this stamp set right away! Autumn is coming up soon here in the northern hemisphere, and toadstools are popping up everywhere. 

 

The teal on this background is so splotchy, and moody as far as I am concerned, and these stamps are just right for this project. This picture shows the depth of the red as well.

I will love using these notebooks, or maybe somebody else will... 

 

The beads added to the waxed thread adds to the feel of it, it makes the book classy.

 

The words 'JUNK JOURNAL' were heat embossed in white. It's an easy way to add detail to a dark background as well. 

So that was project one. Onto the second one... 

 

 

Project Two: Birds and Flowers

 

 

I used ESC22 for the cover of the second notebook. 

I did not expect this second one to turn out this beautiful. 

I started both projects to be able to have at least one to show, but they both had to end up in this post as I could not choose just one!

 

Using the same steps mentioned earlier these flowers got a beautiful underlayer of muted color from the background. 

All the stamping being one layer : it's pretty amazing how much depth one can achieve by using this process. 

 

 

 

To create the pattern in the background I used stencil PS096.

 

I've added stencil PS096 to my collection quite recently and have, and will use this one a lot.. it is so versatile!

 

Even the back of the notebook has been stamped on with a stamp from set ESC26.

A close-up of all the beautiful detail : the pop of red from the Brown Shed Fresco Finish paint is very nice on the berries too! 

 

To add color to the images I used watered down Fresco Finish Paint, Brown Shed and Beach Hut.

I assume I don't have to mention that all the stamping and coloring on the dark backgrounds has taken a while, but I enjoyed every minute! It's been rainy the last few days, so lot of time to play.  I certainly like this technique, and for that matter, the colors too!
Have a go yourselves; try something from this post you were inspired by; at least tell me about it.  

Take some time to be creative today, every day... happy creative play. 

Ellie Knol

Blogs: http://elliecreahoekje.blogspot.nl/
and     http://ellieatcs.blogspot.nl/ 
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