A Challenge from Tiffany O'Grady (DTM @ SYS) - Using Acrylic Paints on Layouts ...Her Happy Place

Hello Everyone

Today's layout is a challenge from Tiffany O'Grady.  Her challenge was to use acrylic paints on a layout.  I have a nice collection of acrylic paints that I purchased a while ago with the intent on coming home from the craft store and using them.... as a lot of you I'm sure can relate ... that didn't happen.  I put them on my shelf above my desk like a photo frame.  Then with Tiffany's challenge I knew it was time they (ok a couple of them) came off my shelf and onto my 12x12 stark white card stock.
I had seen a technique that Corrie Jones had used a while back.  I used a little lit of Gesso on my plain card stock as a base.  I then took some acrylic paint and put some on three areas of a piece of wax paper.  I added Gesso to two of the three globs to get a light, medium and dark shades of my acrylic paint.  Using an old gift card I dabbed it in the paint mixture and tapped them on my card stock as shown below.

Once I was happy with it I left it to dry and moved on to my second paint technique which I saw Tim Holtz do on a demo for his distress paints and stencils.  I used a scrap piece of white card stock with a template and white paint.  I dabbed the paint with a piece of foam over the template onto the scrap piece of white card stock.  I let the paint dry and then with a foam applicator and distress ink went over the painted on image.  Once I did that I took a damp cloth and wiped over the white resisted image from the paint to make it pop a little better.

 I completed my layout with 6x6 scraps of paper and little stamping and a few drops of shine mist.

Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY SCRAPPIN'!

  Mandy Reedyk
  Creative Team Member of SCRAP YOUR SCRAPS 

Acrylic Paints 3 Ways : Updating Older Supplies

Hi everyone! Tiffany O'Grady here with some ideas to use those acrylic paints you might have hanging around your craft room. Watercolors are really popular and trending right now, and I absolutely love them, but that means the acrylic paints I already have are more likely to be forgotten and neglected. I don't want that to happen, so I challenged myself to pull them out and get them on a page. At the same time I pulled one of my oldest collections - Seen and Noted by Pebbles - and decided to pair them together to breathe new life into both supplies.

If video works better for you, you can also see the whole process on myYouTube Channel.

Supplies: 

Your choice of patterned paper and photos. I am using papers from Seen and Noted by Pebbles, Everyday Eclectic by Echo Park and Daydreamer by Dear Lizzy)

Acrylic paint - craft quality is just fine. I am using white and black 

Paint brushes - one wide flat brush and one narrow round brush. I am using a 3/4" flat brush and a #2 round brush that I got in an inexpensive variety pack.

 

1) Create a "base layer" for your photo cluster and tame a busy background
Choose a background paper that is bright and busy. This technique will work with a more subdued background, or even plain colored cardstock, but I thought it would be a fun way to use a piece of one of my favorite papers from this collection ("Memories" from Seen and Noted by Pebbles).
I'm going t create a base layer for my photo cluster by painting a messy rectangle in white directly on the background. Before grabbing my paint, I put all of my paper layers together to make sure the paint is the right size. No sense doing the work and then completely covering it up. I then laid the cluster on the background, marked the area with a pencil, and painted a rectangle with white acrylic paint. I wanted the background pattern to show through a bit, so I did a light layer with lots of visible brush strokes, but you can make it more neat or more opaque if that looks better for your project. Painting is fun because there aren't any rules!

2) Update a collection by making your own trendy design
Ombre is one of my favorite looks right now, and I love to use it to make my own embellishments, but this line didn't have any ombre papers because it came out before that trend was really popular. I could have cut into an ombre paper from another line, but because I wanted the painted look on this layout, I just made my own. You could absolutely do this by mixing white and colored paint, but I don't have any teal acrylic paint. It's all about using what I have on hand, so I used mist (specifically Dylusions Vibrant Turquoise). I mixed a spray of color into white paint, to create a pale teal.

Then I painted horizontal strokes onto a scrap piece of white cardstock. I added more spritzes of mist to the paint, mixed it into a medium shade of teal and continued to paint he horizontal lines. As I went down the cardstock. I added more and more mist to my paint, blending a little and leaving lots of brushstroke texture to create an ombre effect. After it was dry, I punched big stars out of it, but you could also use it like any piece of patterned paper.

3) Splatter it like mist or ink
When I had my basic design finished, I took some black acrylic paint and added a few spritzes of water to thin it out a bit. Then I dipped a small paintbrush into the thinned paint, held it by the end, and tapped near the brush end to splatter droplets across the page. My favorite part about this is that if you leave the paint a bit thick, it leaves dimension on the page when it dries. It's also really opaque and matte, which I love!

4) Bonus! Color wood veneers
Lastly, a fourth tip for you. I had a lot of the black paint left over, so I used it to recolor some tiny star wood veneers. Again, it's really opaque and matte, and if you were using a color other than black you would know it matches your other elements. It's also less messy than ink or mist and you only need one application to get full coverage.

Layering, ombre, splatters, and wood veneers all worked together to make an older collection seem fresh. I also added Thickers in a brush script (the Kal Barteski font in white) to maintain the painted feel. I originally planned to do my own brush script title with the black paint, but I just don't like my handwriting well enough and I couldn't make it work.  It's a fun idea for you to try though! The other main elements are cameras which I detail cut out of Dear Lizzy Daydreamer paper.

I hope you give one of these tips a try, or that I've sparked some other idea that encourages you to pull out those acrylic paints and get them on a project.

If you make something inspired by this post, we'd love to hear from you, so leave a comment!

  Tiffany O'Grady
   Creative Team Member of SCRAP YOUR SCRAPS 

I've been meaning to get around to bringing out my acrylic (or as I always called them, tole) paints ever since I started watching different scrappers, and now that Tiffany has shown us some fantastic techniques I decided to give it a try too!
For my layout I just went with the simple technique of white washing the background with paint. The background was a very busy chevron so I figured this would tame it down a little and give me a good base for my photos.
I watered down my paint just a little as I was going so that the background would still show through a little.  I also added a little bit in the corner so that I could journal right on the paper without needing a journaling tag. 

  Hope you enjoy!

  Cathy Martin
   Creative Team Member of SCRAP YOUR SCRAPS

Use Your Leftover Thickers

Hello!  My name is Carson and I'm currently a SAHM of two boys, 4 years and 9 months.  When I'm not chasing the rugrats around Washington State, I can usually be found in my craft room, creating cards, plugging away at Project Life, or wasting time on the internet.  I became primarily a card maker six years ago when I was simultaneously introduced to papercrafts by my sister in law, Jean and my good friend, Dianne.  That year, 2008, was the year I discovered that I could be a "creative type" and I've tried to feed my creative soul ever since.   You can find me and my creations over at my blog pineandplum.com or in the forums and gallery at Studio Calico.

I'm super excited to be guest designing for Scrap Your Scraps today. I'm new to this blog and have been hunting back through the archives and have found some great ideas and inspiration. Today I'll be sharing a little trick I have for using up those extra Thickers and maybe even finishing a sheet! As you can see from the picture above. I have a few too many thickers currently in my stash. I keep my collection in a 12x12 plastic envelope with a snap closure. I'm almost to the point of not being able to snap the envelope shut and yet I still have a strong, sometimes uncontrollable, urge to add to my collection. Because of this, I've been on the hunt to find ways of using up my thickers, and fast. I thought I would share one of my favorites with you today.

I saw this technique online awhile back and I've been using it ever since. The basic concept is to surround and highlight your title/sentiment with a contrasting color or font of Thickers. It's a fantastic way to use up all those random Qs and Vs, as well as the punctuation marks that languish forever in their packaging. I made a few examples below, two pocket scrapbooking cards and a valentine.

On the title card you see below I wanted to show how you can make a general shape using the letters. I think the gray letters below look a bit like the continental US minus Florida. I was going for an organic look and it's US resemblance was a happy surprise, but you could lightly trace a heart, a star, any shape you want and suggest that shape with your letters.

On the 3x4 card below, I wanted to show how you can go over the edge and trim the excess letter pieces away to make a very graphic and dimensional filler card. You could certainly have a word as the focal point, I decided to keep it minimal and use a heart to convey the message. Some Thickers obviously trim away better than others so keep this in mind when you are choosing your supplies.

And finally I wanted to show you how you can translate this technique into card making by using it to cleverly illustrate your sentiment. I cut the heart from the wood grain paper using my silhouette, but if the shape is a simple one you can certainly free hand this technique. I then lightly traced the heart onto the base cardstock as a guide of where to place all my Thickers. Once I had the Thickers in place I used foam pop dots to adhere the wood grain paper over the card base. I then embellished the front as I would any card.

Now it's your turn. I would love to hear your tried and true methods for using up every last Thicker on the sheet. Many thanks to the Scrap Your Scraps team for having me today and thank you all for reading! Have fun scrapping!
  

  Carson
   Guest contributor for SCRAP YOUR SCRAPS

I was SO inspired by Carson’s ideas for leftover Thickers.  I just recently got hooked on them.  So I don’t have very many; but I thought this idea could work with regular letter stickers, too.  So I took out my pile of letters and here’s what I came up with.  I used some black Thickers to make the letter FUN in the middle.  Then I just surrounded that with some regular letters I’ve had around for years.  

I liked Carson's idea with the heart.  So I did something similar on a 3x4 card; but again, I used regular letters instead of Thickers.  I really like how this one turned out, too.  

This was so much FUN (pun intended) to do that I will definitely make some more.  It gave me great satisfaction to finally be able to finish a couple of pages of letter stickers!  Thanks for this great idea, Carson! 

  Sandi Chromey

   Creative Team Member of SCRAP YOUR SCRAPS 

 

 

Hey all!  I was so inspired by Carson that I decided to whip out an old OLD pack of K&Company ( I think!) chipboard alpha and use 'em all up on a layout.  I ended up finishing off the pack, which is great, because now I can make room for more Thickers and other fonts!

I love the dimensional look they provide, and they take the place of just using some patterned paper, which gives the layout more depth and interest.  I have even more sets of letters that I want to break out now, so don't be surprised to see another layout like this pop up sometime.  Thanks so much for the terrific idea Carson!

  Cathy Martin

  Creative Team Member of SCRAP YOUR SCRAPS

One Sheet Mini Album

Hi Everyone! 

Today I want to share with you a project I first made at Archiver’s when they had one of their “make and takes.”  This is a mini album using one 12" x 12" sheet of double-sided paper.  It’s super easy to make and the resulting mini album can be used in different ways. 

I use these in my scrapbooks to gain space for more pictures.  So it’s basically a mini album within an album.  Just use adhesive to secure it to another piece of card stock and add it to your album.  Of course, it’s great just as a mini album all on its own, too.  Just add your own embellishments and pictures to make it and give as a gift. Here are two that I made for my Hawaii vacation album.  In this picture, I've already adhered them to another piece of card stock to insert into my album.  Notice I tied a ribbon on top of the one and used raffia cord on the other.  You can use whatever you like. 

The paper I used for both of these was rather unique in that it was double-sided, but it also had four squares on one side with different patterns.  So it looks like I used multiple pieces of 12 x 12 paper but not really. Here's what it looked like on both the front and back.

 When you flip open the album, here are the first few pages ready for you to add your favorite pictures, journaling, and embellishments.   

In honor of this 4th of July holiday, I want to walk you through a one sheet mini album I made using a plain white sheet of textured card stock.  You're probably thinking, how boring!  Why not using something brighter?  But I want to show you how much fun it can be to take a plain white sheet of paper and make it into something bright and colorful.  

To make this I used a 12" x 12"  sheet of textured white paper.  Cut the paper in half so you have two 6” x 12” pieces of paper.   Then I scored one piece of paper at 6 ½” and the other piece at 7”.  I don’t actually have a scoring board.  So I don’t know how accurate this is, but what I did was to lay a ruler vertically at the 6 1/2” mark and run the back edge of a knife down the ruler to make a score mark.  I did the same thing with the other sheet but only at 7”.  This works well for me, and you don’t have to actually buy the scoring board.    

 Once you have the score marks, just fold them along the edge and give them a good crease.  Insert the one sheet inside of the other so it looks like they are layered.  (See the bottom right picture.)  Then I take my punch and reach in as far as it will go to place a hole on each side.  I like to round my edges, but that's just a personal preference.  So your steps look something like this:

  

I usually wait until the end to put in my ribbon or raffia cord.  That way I can move the sheets of paper around to make it easier to add embellishments and whatever else I want to add.  Here is my finished one sheet mini album all ready to go for my 4th of July pictures.  The first picture shows the outside cover.  The remaining pictures are the inside pages. After I add my pictures, I may add some other embellishments depending on the photos I choose. 

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial on one sheet mini albums and are inspired to make your own.   It's such a simple project.  Remember to use those scraps and embellishments from your stash to make it unique and special.  Thanks for stopping by and happy scrapping. 

 

  Sandi Chromey
   Creative Team Member of SCRAP YOUR SCRAPS