Hi everyone,
Some of you probably know already that I love Seth Apter's designs as I love everything grunge and messy. This was the first thing I though about when I saw the Track theme and Seth's stamps. But today I put a little spin on Seth's designs and decided to use them in sparkly and feminine and not so much grungy way.
This idea brings a smile to my face, as this isn't really a type of project you would think to do with grungy stamps. But then again - why not? I love good challenge, so here it is; a feminine layout with messy stamps. Let me know if you think I managed to pull it off.
Before I start, let me be honest with you - it has been more than a year, maybe even two, since I created my last scrapbook layout. Why? Well, mostly because of its size- you make it, you need to store it somewhere and you need quite a lot of products to fill it up as well. So todays project will be a tiny bit different. If you, like me, are overwhelmed with 30x30 scrapbook layout size, then make it smaller! This is what I did here. Making my layout a tiny bit smaller than standard size helped me to better manage the background and to take better photos.
This is such an easy "trick" so not to get overwhelmed with filling up a big piece of paper and needing 1000 different embellishments to fill it up. If you are not a scrapbook lover, or if big projects scare you, try to create today with me and you may actually be really surprised.
Why create a scrapbook layout then? Because to me they can be a particularly feminine art form within mixed media and I thought the 'Tracks' theme would be more visible on a bigger background. It was easy and fun to create it and hopefully it will give you an idea of using Seth's stamps in a completely new way.
What's more important, while creating this project I came up across very funny way of creating your own "3D" type embellishments from stamps, so let's have a look at the process.
As I already mentioned earlier, I really love working with Seth's stamps, but I am learning to create more with acrylic paints. While planning this project, I knew I was going to use acrylics as they are all creamy, nice and perfect for a clean, romantic design. I did not have a general idea in my head, I just wanted to make a feminine layout, so I knew I was going to go for purples and light pink from the Seth's Apter Fresco paint collection (and to be honest I do not know how to work with real, bright pink- a color that overwhelms me).
But the general idea stays the same with the colors I have chosen, as they are very feminine and as close to bright pink as I could manage. My choices of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics for this project are: Purple Majesty (
FF221), Pixie Dust (
FF113) and Spanish Mulberry (
FF71).
I have chosen two Seth Apter's stamp sets 20 (
ESA20) and set 27 (
ESA27). The first one will help me to create a background, from the second one I decided to use some parts to create embellishments.
The very first thing I made was a background on which I wanted to do some stamping to use as embellishments later on. I started here as honestly I was not sure what to do on the layout itself. I needed to have some time to think and see the embellishments first and then go from that. This is a good tip if you are stuck- instead of doing things in the "right order", start somewhere in the middle and see where this 'middle' will take you.
This background was created on a scrap piece of mixed media paper by adding (with a brayer) two Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics-
Spanish Mulberry and
Pixie Dust. After drying the page (dids you realise Fresco paint dries so quickly!?), I added some splatter with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics (
Spanish Mulberry,
FF71) for more definition and interest, then let it partially dry and then cleaned the insides of the splatter with a damp cloth. This is a really cool technique which allows you to get some sort of "empty" splatter (see photo below).
Happy with the background, I added to it some stamping with different elements from Seth Apter's stamp set 27 (
ESA27). I used VersaFine (Onyx Black) permanent ink (which dries rather slowly, so be careful not to make a mess with your fingers!), if you're impatient, you can use a heat tool or emboss with a matt clear ink.
After the ink was dry, I fussy cut all the elements. The biggest 3 circles were fussy cut differently- one exactly as I stamped it, but the two remaining ones were cut with some parts missing (see photo below). This is another "trick" I like to use- altering the shapes of my stamps to add more interest to the page and really get more out of your stamp sets.