Masking technique

~ rachelharries ~ Leave a comment

It’s easy to take for granted techniques in crafting when they become second nature and we almost don’t even recognise them as a technique. I use masking a lot in my projects for lots of reasons and find it second nature to mask a stamped image to do a background or add layers without bulk. I thought I would share this technique as there are new crafters all the time certainly Lisa Hortons Craft group is a lovely place for first timers and experienced crafters not forgetting everyone in between. So forgive me if this is nothing new to you but I wanted to share this with those who might not have come across it before.

I thought the best way to explain it was to make a simple card so here goes firstly not all post it notes are created equally… I know, you may or may not be surprised to know there are post it notes with a full adhesive back as well as those with just a strip. I’m going to be using the ones with the strip as those are the ones most readily available.

The first thing you need to do is stamp the images you want to create masks for as close to the adhesive edge of your post it notes as you can, I am using distress oxide inks and Lisa Hortons Daisy burst stamp set. Don’t worry about your stamping on these as long as you have an outline you are good to go. I don’t stamp the same stamp multiple times I just keep a little stack of the notes together and cut them all out as a stack.You can stamp the circle design I’m going to stamp with or without a stamping platform. If you don’t have a stamping platform just lightly draw yourself a circle as a guide.

When you’re using masks for multiple stamping layers, you need to just take a moment to think about what you want in the foreground and the background, whatever you stamp first is going to be in the foreground. In this instance I’m going to put my smaller flowers in front of the larger flowers so I start with them. If you’re not using a platform you can do this by eye and evenly position your first layer, I’ve just stamped four as there are plenty to come. On the stamp platform position your first small flower stamp and then turn your paper 90degrees and repeat until you get back to where you started. then cover this first layer with the post it note masks.and your good to go with the next layer,and cover that with your masksand repeat with the third layerI used four different flowers from the set and stamped each one four times it doesn’t look like much when it’s all covered in your note masks but this is your opportunity to add any other bits or background shading etc as your flowers are covered so it won’t effect them, I added a bit more stamping and I blended a little distress ink around the edges and splashed a tiny bit of water on it to give some subtle splodging. Then comes the exciting bit, you get to peel off your post it notes and see what you have.to finish my card off I stamped a sentiment onto a circleI then stamped a few petals on the edge of the circle and matted it in the middle. I hope this has been useful it’s such a handy technique for so many projects and it’s also great for making cards that you want to look dimensional without having the bulk for postage.

Wings and things..

~ rachelharries ~ Leave a comment

So I’ve been doing some more playing with gorgeous Lisa Horton Craft goodies and wanted to share one of the things I’ve been doing with her lovely greyboard wings…I start off gessoing the greyboard, again this depends on the sort of finish you want but in this instance I want to create lots of layers so the starting layer is gesso.then I get an old book page, I have one I specifically use for mixed media and it’s been going for years keeping me in pieces of text and page texture. I start with small pieces and fold some to the shape of the base, I’m not worried about covering the whole piece as this is just the first layer.I then add another layer of gesso I don’t want full coverage as I like to see some text still.I then repeat this process.and I repeat it again for the look I want.I gave these wings a dusting of mica powder while the gesso was still wet.I added my wings to a heart embellishment similar to the one in my previous article, I added some mica and glitter in this one.

Greyboard embellishments

~ rachelharries ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been having great fun the last couple of weeks playing with some Lisa Horton Crafts products so I thought I’d share one of the things I like to do with greyboard elements.

These hearts are part of Lisa’s new range, first things first if you want your colour to have more vibrancy you’ll want to gesso the top surface of your piece, if you want a more muted less defined colour you can leave this, if you don’t have gesso a bit of white Matt acrylic will do the job.

Once this layer has dried I start with adding just a little scrap of paper from an old book I keep for mixed media projects

I then use distress oxide in a colour that’s going to match my project, that one of the best things about creating your own embellishments, you can make them to coordinate with whatever you are doing, you can use any media with them and get all kinds of effects.

Then I use a clear in pad an squish the greyboard into it thoroughly.

Then it’s time to add clear embossing powder and use the heat gun to melt it whilst it’s still warm I put another layer of embossing powder on, if it’s still warm the powder will stick without more clear ink.

I then use some glue and stick whatever bits I feel drawn to, in this instance, I used a word cut from Lisa Hortons ticker tape stamps, some stars and some Lisa Horton sisal.

Once the glue has dried I squish it on the clear ink pad and use clear embossing powder again and I repeat this another time or two, be careful as the melted embossing powder get very hot and can drip so a heatproof mat and tweezers could come in very handy.

I can then add it to my project, in this case a journal page I’m working on.

I really love this technique, I hope it’s useful to you, greyboard is so resilient you can throw all sorts of layers at it and get lots of different effects, I look forward to sharing more techniques and projects soon ❤️❤️