2023 Topic 03: Focus on Seth Apter {by Claire Snowdon} with Seth Apter Products

Hi everyone, 

It's Claire Snowdon here with you today. 

I've been enjoying some creative time lately making smaller pieces of art for a change. This topic is all about Seth Apter - but I decided to have some fun and do a Seth Apter/Scrapcosy mash up post!  I'm really looking forward to sharing with you how I combined these two very special designers. 

I really loved creating using these playing cards as my starting point - I think they are just the perfect size to showcase these beautiful Scrapcosy flowers and vases.  I went for a slightly grungy look in the spirit of this being a Seth Apter topic!  However I have definitely managed to add in a more feminine twist on your typical grunge project.

I started out with three playing cards and used my brayer to layer up PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic in Fuzzy Cactus and Cerulean.  I always feel using the brayer is a great way to start to break up that plain white background and just get some colour down. 

Once I had the PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic down on the cards in Fuzzy Cactus and Cerulean it soon became clear to me that these two colours alone were not the look I wanted - so to inject some more colour into my project I added Lily The Pink and Yellow Submarine.

I choose the Yellow Submarine for it's translucent qualities - it adds an amazing pop of colour to any project but without obscuring the layers underneath.

I added the additional two colours to my playing cards using the brayer.  Then to soften the background and get rid of any remaining white spaces I added some water to the remaining paint on my craft sheet and applied it gently to the cards using my fingers.

The Yellow Submarine really adds that pop of brightness - and there are much more muted versions of Lily The Pink, Cerulean and Fuzzy Cactus fading into the background which I think adds extra depth.

I stamped out a couple of the images - one from Seth Apter ESA35 and one from Scrapcosy ESC39 and started to play around with the composition.

Using stamped images in this way and layering them up on a project in various different compositions is one of my favourite ways to create any project - it allows you to visualize how the project will come together and what looks pleasing to the eye.

 

From my composition experiments I decided that using the amazing circle stamp from ESA35 was the one element I wanted to use across all three cards to unify them.

I stamped all my chosen images out from both ESA35 and ESC39 and cut everything out.  I wanted tiny pops of colour - but nothing too bright that could detract from my background.  So I used watered down paint from the same four colours to give the images a little bit of colour and take away some of the stark whiteness.

Time to add a bit more interest to these playing cards.....Seth's stamp plates always have the most amazing texture stamps - and I used one of each type of texture from ESA35 on each card.  I stamped them using a drier inkpad as I didn't want a really bold black background stamp being the focus.  These are my version of tracks running down the cards - which complements the current blog theme!

To add even more layers and textures I used Grunge Paste and stencil PS271 and then smooshed more Grunge Paste around the edge of each card to create a Grunge Paste border.

Here is a closer photo to show the texture that is achieved using a combination of Grunge Paste - which gives a 3D effect - but also by using the texture stamps designed by Seth.  Building up the layers is a great way to add additional interest to a project.

So these are the finished cards!  To bring everything together I edged the cards using blank ink and added some gold splatter.

I covered the vases in Glossy Accents to give them a really glass-like finish.  Then adhered all my elements to each card - using a combination of glue and 3D foam pads for extra dimension.

The finishing touch was a sentiment added to each card using Scrapcosy ESC39.

Here are some closer photos of each card on it's own - even though they are small I still think I've managed to fill each one up with plenty of interesting features and texture! 

This was such a fun project to make - I really enjoyed creating on a smaller format.  The idea of 'feminine grunge' really appealed to me and I hope you'll agree that I managed to pull it off!  Combining Seth and Scrapcosy's stamps was maybe not an obvious choice to start out with but I feel they work well together and this mash up of designers is maybe one you could try out for yourself. 

Claire x

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