Hello all, Alison here with you today from Words and Pictures. I've been playing with my new botanical textures stamps along with experimenting with creating some Mattints textures.
Given these new stamp designs only launched a couple of weeks ago, I'm still exploring them, and I know we're all exploring what the amazing Mattints can get up to (answer: SO much!).
Texture is the name of the game in this tag book. Tags are the perfect experimentation substrate for me... you can make lots of them, and if something doesn't work out, you haven't broken the bank in the meantime. And with all your tag experiments, you've got the makings of a tag book ready to play.
The problem with a tag book, of course, is that it's tough to share the look of the thing in a single photo!
So I'm sharing a couple of angles here so that you can get a look at what's going on both on the individual tags...
... as well as a glimpse of the overall look of the book.
I'm really pleased with the simple binding technique I used here - you'll find out all about it as you read on.
I'm still enjoying the winter-spring transitional palette of soft blues and greens, with a touch of brown for the bare trees (and mud), so three of the Mattints I chose to work with are from the original four colours, Shark, Fern and Nutty. But I couldn't resist the allure of the beautiful Dragonfly from the more recent colours released. It adds a lovely springtime brightness to the muted natural colour tones of the others.
And I'm mixing and matching my three new stamp sets too... EAB36 Bells Edition, EAB37 Poppy Edition, and EAB38 Umbellifers Edition, making the most of the loose botanical sketches and the words, with a bit of additional texture from the background blocks.
Here's the full collection of Mattints textures I created before I added any extra layers... so how did I make them? Well, in various ways - read on!
The first batch are as easy as can be - just a little bit of simple gel-printing... brayering the Mattints onto my small gel plate and pressing my die-cut tags down onto them. I cut the tags from fairly cheap sketchbook paper, and applied more than one colour to the plate at a time (without worrying about cleaning up in between times either - I like a messy grungy look if it happens!).
For another batch, I simply put blobs of the Mattints direct onto my craft mat, spritzed them with a bit of water, and smooshed the tags down into the resulting puddles and droplets. With different amounts of water, you get different consistencies and therefore different textures, and by drying after each smoosh or dab, you can build up layers.
With lots of Mattint in the mix you get the almost tree-bark texture as you peel the tag up. With more water, you get the droplets which add lovely textural splotches. I layered some splotches over some of the gel printed backgrounds too.
And for a couple of tags, I brayered Mattints from the craft mat onto the background stamp from EAB37 Poppy Edition and stamped that repeatedly over the tag to get full coverage (that's the one in the middle of the bottom row, and the one towards the top left of the photo).
22 comments:
Superb! Love the colour choices
Absolutely gorgeous!!
Absolutely stunning! Love the colours and grungy technique. xx
Absolutely gorgeous tag book ! I love all the photos, pure inspiration and beauty !
These are beautiful!
Enchanted and inspired. It's like a written course, love it.
Gorgeous tag book Alison. Thanks for your very detailed explanation into how to achieve something similar! Stef
magnifique!!!!!
The details here encourage the reality of creation of these lovely, inspiring tags.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Helen!
Thank you so much, Etsuko.
Thank you, Mags, so happy you like it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tineke, and also for your lovely comment on the blog. Hope you enjoy playing with some of the techniques when your Mattints arrive!
Happy you like it and that you found all the making-of details useful.
Merci beaucoup!
Thank you. Happy you enjoyed it all.
This is really visual poetry! So beautiful with those texture and colors! Beautiful!😍
Margo
Thank you (twice!), Margo!
Alison x
This is so lovely, the colours are great, enjoyed the different angles on your pics 💕
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