2021 Topic 3 The Creative Laboratory with ESA {by Autumn Clark}

 The Creative Laboratory - Infused {by Autumn Clark}

Autumn's on a slippery experimental slope here, and vaseline is the product she's been stamping with - yes! You read that right! Read on to find out how she used it with infusions! Mind Blown.
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Autumn Clark from SewPaperPaint with you today, and I'd like to share with you a new technique that I'm over the moon excited about, stamping with Vaseline.  Yes, you heard that right, stamping with Vaseline or petroleum jelly.  

Many of us have learned that Vaseline can resist paint to create layered effects.  This got me wondering if it could be used as a stamping medium to resist ink.  And folks, let me tell you, YES it can!  Follow along and see just how easy it can be...

Lately, I've fallen in love all over again with PaperArtsy Infusions.  I recently did a post (HERE) for a PaperArtsy stockist on using Infusions mixed with embossing ink to create embossing resists.  This got my wheels turning at other new concepts for using Infusions.  The current topic, Creative Labs, was all the push I needed.  Today I'm working with the new Seth Apter stamp designs, which are primarily background types of stamps, the perfect accompaniment to Infusions.  

My goal was to determine if Vaseline could be spread in a thin layer and used for stamping, and if it would repel ink as a result.  I find the gel plate is a good surface for spreading out mediums with which to use for stamping.  So I brayered a glob of Vaseline onto a portion of my small gel plate to use as an "ink pad".  But first I wanted my resist to show through a secondary color, not just plain white.  I colored my panel by spritzing water onto my kraft mat and adding a generous sprinkle of Golden Sands Infusions into the water.  I then dipped my panel into the wet powder until I covered it completely.  I sprayed the panel with water where needed to help it bleed.  

As demonstrated in the video HERE, I used the same dipping method over top, this time with The Sage Infusions.  The resist effect worked right off!  I let the panel partially dry, then gave it a zap with a heat tool.  Here's the magic: the heat tool melts the Vaseline into the paper's surface so that it virtually disappears, no shiny or gooey residue.  

 

I tried the same process again with Seth's new alphabets from PaperArtsy Eclectica {Seth Apter} Collection (ESA21).  It resisted perfectly, and after heating I could go in with a pen and outline the letters, without any residue to clog my pen.  I added further dimension to my background by stamping in PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylic in Concrete, and other stamping in Fossilized Amber Distress Ink.  I used one of Seth's die cuts and finished with a mop up panel, stamped with PaperArtsy {Ink & The Dog Collection} Mini Stamp 17 (MN17).

Note* I cleaned all of my tools & stamps with dish soap.  Note, any paint on the gel plate will be washed off.  It can be conditioned with baby oil after if needed.  

Of course, I was eager to try another color palette...

This time I layered using the same color, for a tone on tone resist.  For those of you who want to try PaperArtsy Infusions, here's a great way to test only one color!  I dipped my panel into watery The Sage Infusions, then stamped the rectangular pattern from PaperArtsy Eclectica {Seth Apter} Collection (ESA20) with Vaseline, then dipped my panel into more The Sage Infusions for a tone on tone resist.  After heating, I stamped more patterns with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink, spritzing with water to let the shapes bleed out, and added contrast by stamping PaperArtsy {Ink & the Dog} Collection Mini Stamp 18 (MN18) with PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylic in Concrete.  I chose PaperArtsy {Ink & the Dog} Collection Mini Stamp 31 (MN31) as my focal image.  I layered it over Seth's Letters stamp, stamped softly in the background.  I added a handwritten sentiment using a sepia fountain pen. 

It was hard to stop once I got going.  I wanted to try a really unusual color combination next.  I first used Black Knight, and atop of my resist (my personal favorite) Rusty Car Infusions.  The colors worked perfectly together.  Tip: You can control the richness of color by the amount of water you add.  Here my black is rather grey, but I kept the rust very saturated.  This is all due to the amount of water vs. pigment.  

I inked a small mop up panel with both colors, then stamped PaperArtsy Eclectica {Seth Apter} Collection Mini Stamp 39 (EM39) onto it.  I added white details with a paint pen.  The little piece sticking out beneath the staples was made by using Rusty Car first then Black Knight over my resist, the opposite of my main background.  You can flip flop the technique to achieve a wide variety of pieces with which to collage.  I like to add water to what's left on my kraft mat and mop up a shade lighter.  

 

I carefully cut out the words from the label stamp in set ESA19 with an exacto knife.  This is one of my favorite ways to make the most of my stamps.  When you cut apart stamps, like I did in "Find Your FIRE" and the label, you can use them separately but still piece them together on your block to have a whole stamp again.  I knew I would use the frame stamp a ton and think cutting is easier than masking in the long term.  Do you ever cut your stamps?  

I hope the topic of Creative Labs has inspired you in more ways than one, mainly to make some experiments of your own!  I encourage you to try a new technique at least three times, seeing how you can alternate colors or mediums each time.  These variables will often produce new and exciting results.  Not only did I discover a new way to use a household staple here, I actually discovered that I enjoy dipping panels into Infusions (the way I do with ink pads) more than sprinkling it onto my panel.  Why have I never done this before?  Perhaps because I haven't given myself enough time to experiment.  

If really hope you'll try this technique!  Please leave us a link so we can ogle over your creations.  I will try to add another video tutorial to my IGTV this week so you can see this process in action.  Thanks for joining, Autumn

Blog: SewPaperPaint
Facebook: Autumn S Clark

YouTube: SewPaperPaint

Instagram: @sewpaperpaint
Pinterest: Autumn S Clark

Xmas 2014 #3UP {Resists}

Hi everyone Leandra here, It's Boxing Day here in the UK, the day when you should really go for a walk to relieve some of the calorific intake over the last 24 hours! So if you've eaten your fill, had a walk with a fruity mince pie and a cuppa tea, then you must be ready for some more #3UP posts. 

3UP evenings like this highlights the creativity of our blog followers. They volunteer for this task with no idea of what they are letting themselves in for, are then given a brief, and this time they were asked to show us their favourite techniques.

Tonight is all about resists.  Using embossing powders as a resist could well have been one of the first techniques you ever learned, but oh how useful it can be when colouring in a stamped image to stop you going outside the lines. 

In a mixed media sense, gel medium, paint, gesso, wax all create amazing resists. A resist is a product that will resists or deflect the layer that sits on top. For example, wax will resist watery paint, gel through a stencil will resit ink or dye sprays, a layer of wax on furniture can be painted over, then wiped back to show the unpainted sections underneath to generate that shabby chic french distressed furniture effect. So what are out #3UP people resisting tonight?

First up it's Mariette. From the Netherlands, if you take a look at her blog, Mariette loves ink resists in particular, there are many example of beautiful backgrounds, do take a look. Tonight Mariette is using gesso resist with ink. A soft and subtle resist that creates a wonderful starting point for a card. Remember, as our paint is a chalk base you can get the same effect with Snowflake Fresco Paint if you don't have any gesso to hand.

Hi everyone. Tonight I want to show you another method of using gesso. Most of the time it is used to cover a whole background. Or perhaps used in combination with stencils. But you can also stamp with it, which will create a perfect resist on your background. 

TIP: make sure you clean up your stamp direct after you have stamped it with gesso!

Step One: 

Adhere a thin layer of gesso on your craft sheet and "ïnk up" the PaperArtsy  Ink and the Dog Mini 18 with it. Stamp this on your white background paper. Repeat this step but make sure you randomly stamp your image, we don't want to have a static background, it need to be loose and playful.

Step Two:

Once the gesso is dry you will need to wet your background again with water :-) This makes sure your distress stain colors will flow better....

So once your background has been spritzed with some water you can apply the 3 different colors randomly on your background. I have used spiced marmalade, peeled paint and peacock feathers distress stains. Let the colors mix with each other, if needed spritz some extra water on it.

Once satisfied you can dry it with your heat tool. You will see that the gesso will act as a resist, if needed you can wipe off some ink residue with a damp cloth.

Step Three:

To finish up your background stamp randomly the PaperArtsy Ink and the Dog Mini 44 with distress ink crushed olive. Ink up the edges of your background with distress ink vintage photo to give it some depth.

Step Four:

Stamp off the flower branch from the PaperArtsy set HP1009 with Versamark on a separate piece of cardstock and adhere white embossing powder on it. And heat set this with your heat tool.

Now you can start coloring the flowers with distress stain peacock feathers using a water brush. I used spiced marmalade for the center of the flowers. Once done and dry, you can fussy cut out the flower.

Finally:

On a separate piece of white cardstock stamp off only the part Happiness of the happiness text from the PaperArtsy set HP1009 with Archival Coffee Ink and create a label of it.

Now you can finish your card. Adhere the background on white cardstock and adhere the flower on it. Use thick foam for the text so that it will create some depth to your card.

I hope I have inspired you to go stamp with gesso!

Mariette

Next we have Gail from Norway, her blog is here, ionabunny  She is going to show us some embossing resists.....

Hi, my name is Gail.  I'm known around blogland as ionabunny.  I was very pleased to be selected to be part of PaperArtsy #3UP.  The technique I want to share with you tonight is using embossing powder as a resist, and particularly a technique called Joseph's Coat of Many Colours which I first saw HERE . I love the bright colours and the contrast you get with this technique and was interested to see if it would work with detailed stamps, in this instance stamps from PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1105.  

Step One: 

I coloured a piece of 160g A4 off white card with various yellow/orange distress inks.  Just smear them on there.  Dry the surface and then stamp and emboss with clear embossing powder.  I started with the large oak leaf stamp (HP1105EZ).  Then I covered everything with Barn Door distress ink.  In the picture I have half the sheet covered.  Wipe excess ink off the embossed areas and let it dry.  Using your heat tool is fine.

Step Two: 

Then stamp with the second stamp (HP1105EZ) and emboss again.  I used the large heart stamp.  I tried to stamp between the leaf stamps so there will be good colour after the next step.  Then I covered everything with green acrylic paint!!  This technique usually uses black but it being Christmas, or thereabouts, I thought gold, red and green was a good combo.  I used a stencil brush which gets the paint well into the detailed embossed areas.  Paint a small area and then wipe the paint off the embossing.  This picture shows me half way.  Once the whole sheet is covered you should have a nice backing sheet with great colour contrast.

Step Three:
But wait!!  A couple of weeks ago I saw this post by Ellen Vargo where she removes the embossing powder by sandwiching the piece between newspaper and ironing. Wondering what effect this would have, and thinking this was the best use for an iron that I had been presented with in a while, I gave it a go.  As well as removing the embossing, and confounding people as to how you made your art, it also brightens the colours and increases the translucence of the paper, which inspired me to this......

Step Four:

I made a solid base by cutting a 9cm and 11cm circle of card.  Stick them together and run a score tool around the 9cm circle.  Then cut out some little wedges, approximately 1cm apart.  The score help the tabs fold easier.  Put a piece of double sided tape along one of the short edges of the backside of your paper.  Then put another piece of double sided along the long edge, but do not overlap the tape at the corner.  Leave a small gap, or it will be too sticky.  Fold up the tabs on the round base and roll it along the longer piece of double sided tape.  When you have rolled all the way you can stick the overlapping short edge down.  Add a battery tea light and sit back and admire your lanterns.  I got the different heights by cutting 4 and 8 cms respectively off the width of 2 other sheets I had coloured in the same way.

Hope you have enjoyed my project.  
Hugz, Gail

Next up tonight is Deb Wainwright. (@lilacsparkles) Deb is showing us a technique called ghosting. Check it out....

Hello, Debs here again with another project, this time using the technique ghosting, which I first saw on a video by Dyan Reavely on you tube. There are lots of videos demonstrating how to achieve this look.

Step One: 

I sprayed several colours of Dylusions Ink onto my page added my stencil by Lin Brown (PS001 and PS005) then sprayed the page with some water. I took off the stencil and waited about 30 seconds before rolling my paper towel over the page to blot.

Step Two: 
I continued to spray and remove different colours until I was happy with look. Sometime the colours on my stencil also came off too, which I really liked.

Finally... 

I used this as the background for a mixed page which you can see full details of my blog but here is the finished page. 

Take care Debs xx

Finally tonight it's a #3UP newbie (although yes she is the 4th #3UP tonight, boxing day bonus!) it's Lou Collins (@LouCollins). Lou is doing my favourite resist technique, the one with Vaseline. I first saw Claudine Hellmuth do this in her book, Collage Discovery Workshop way back when ....(2003), Claudine called it 'Peeled Paint', and it is frequently used by artists, by artists for many years, and it is also the main way you build up layers of paint to achieve that French Shabby Chis distressed furniture style, you can see what Lou has done below easily translates to furniture. Take a look....

Hi Everyone
Every now and then a technique catches my eye that I just have to try out straight away, and this one I saw on a YouTube is no exception. I usually tweak techniques to make them my own, and this particular one has remained one of my favourites for a very long time now. 

Step One:
For my wooden trinket box, I chose three Fresco Chalk Paints, including a dark and very pale colour.

First I covered my wood panels in Haystack with a stiff brush to add texture. I stamped all over the paint when it was dry with the cobblestone stamp from the JOFY12 set with Timber Brown StazOn. This adds even more texture to this bottom layer. To tone the StazOn down I dry-brushed over it with a little more haystack in places.

Step Two:
For the second layer I rubbed Vaseline onto parts of my wood panels, over the yellow, keeping it quite thick. I painted Space Cadet over the top, again with a stiff brush and dried with a heat gun. I roughly stamped the drawn grid stamp from the same JOFY12 set over parts of the blue paint. Finally I used some kitchen towel to rub away the paint where it laid over the Vaseline, which revealed the yellow underneath.

Step Three:
To finish the technique, I repeated the second step but with a much paler colour, Antarctic. When applying the Vaseline this time, I ensured I was covering over parts of both yellow and blue, so that both colours would show through when I removed the resisted paint later. After drying and rubbing down as before, I watered down some Snowflake paint and brushed it lightly over the panels to tone down the contrast of the colours a little.

I used this technique to create a trinket box. After using the resist technique on the wooden panels, I constructed the box and stamped some leaves in the corners from the JOFY12 set and coloured parts of them with the Haystack paint and a small brush.

Thanks everyone
Lou

Wasn't that beautiful! Another fabulous night of #3UP with 4 totally different resist ideas!

So, I guess, not only are you stuffed with food, but ideas too! There's more tomorrow, so don't hang up your skates just yet! Enjoy the festive season! 

Leandra

We would love you to go in our challenge draw for a prize from PaperArtsy, a voucher to spend in our online shop. Link up your creativity HERE. All links go in the draw to win a voucher to spend on products of your choice from the PaperArtsy online store. This link will close 17:00 (London Time) December 31st 2014, the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00, Dec 31st, 2014.

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