We recently moved into a house in a really nice village and I think we are all happy here. That's why I choose for this project bright colours to work with. Most importantly, I really wanted to use stamps by Elena Zinsky with tiny, cute houses. Her designs are so happy and quirky and it's a real pleasure to work with them. Also, when I saw them, I was sure they would be a perfect fit for my project. I used quite a lot of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics for this project, but you don't need as many as I used. A few bright colours will do just fine!
The second part of my project was to create an accordion book. I needed to create a book big (or small) enough to fit best the stamps I was going to use. Fortunately all I needed was to cut in half an A4 sized mixed media paper and fold it with a scoring board into three parts. But I didn't want to have just a plain white background behind the stamps, so I took back my brayer and applied with it Fresco Finish Little Black Dress acrylic. What I got was this super grungy and distressed look:
As I mentioned before, some of the houses were cut to smaller pieces. The thing is, with quirky stamps, you can do so much more than just simple stamping. Once cut, you can mix and match the parts of the stamps before adhering them onto the paper. My background was done, so now it was just a matter of putting my street together. But the details are equally important and that's why I needed to work more on them. I added some white elements with a UniBall pen to the trees, doorknobs, windows, etc. Bigger windows were adorned with Golden Leaf Adhesive flakes to give the impression that the lights are on. For more dimensional look I used Glossy Accents- again on trees, window and doors. Other extras were the small elements which I earlier stamped on the blue/ purple paper. I attached the heart to the chimney with a piece of wire, funky ball beside the trees- all those small things which make the project more interesting.
To attach my elements to the page I used Tacky Glue and foam adhesive. Some elements needed to be more in the background while others- more in the front. Putting it all together was real fun!
Here is the finished project and as I promised- my interpretation of Up My Street theme. I see my neighbourhood as a lovely, bright. place, with children running around, colourful gardens, domestic animals and neighbours talking together from behind the fences. Everybody has their particularities and way of living and we are often asking ourselves if their lives are not better than ours. If the grass is really greener on the other side of the street? After all, quite often we see only what others want us to see. There are secrets behind the fences and that is what I wanted to portray with the darker background.
