Hi class time for another project from me, hope you’ve all had fun playing with your Banana Frog stamps since I was last here, there’s been some fabby ideas from the froglets hasn’t there! This class I thought we would re visit a technique I shared with you in my 1st guest spot at the Lily pad back in June, remember the mirror with the crackle effect? Quite a few people have asked about the technique so I thought we’d play with it again ….. With a bit of a twist!
How does your garden grow?
This time I have created a 12x12 LO on corrugated card, and instead of one colour used in the distressing I thought it would be fun to try a rainbow, well who says distressing has to be dull?
The ingredients
Banana Frog stamp sets; Round in Circles, I heart you, Make a chain, It’s all about Hearts, Greenwich Park. Corrugated card, Gesso, Acrylic paints, PVA glue, a wide paint brush, Ink, your own photo, ephemera and embellishments.
First off I cut a 12x12 piece of card from the side of an old cardboard box. I cut a 3’’ strip away from the left side, ripped down the edge and distressed the other 3 sides of the larger piece.
After joining the lower part of the strip back to the main body with a piece of masking tape (I like the texture!) I painted the whole thing with gesso to make the application of the acrylic paint easier.
Next lets get messy, my favourite thing! When I’ve used this technique before I have always used one flat colour, this time, I painted a random pattern of rainbow colours with acrylics until the whole piece was covered.
Setting it aside to dry, I got the stamps I wanted to use ready on their blocks (the eagle eyed among you will note the unusually clean acrylic block in my picture, that’s because it’s a brand shiny new one …. It won’t last LOL!) I used a selection of stamps, and as the stamping is done in the wet glue and paint you need to be ready to go!
(As I didn’t have enough big blocks to mount all the stamps I wanted straight away I decided to work on the main section first, then the strip, also it meant there was less wet space to get stamped at a time!)
And so to the crackle technique, prepare some white acrylic with a touch of water in it and set aside. Dribble some PVA glue over your base and spread with your fingers (don’t use too much to start, a little goes a long way and you can always add more) keep spreading the glue around until it goes tacky.
Paint over the layer of glue with a wide brush, generously loaded with your white acrylic paint, and a light hand. If you keep the brush strokes going in the same direction the crackle will happen the same way, to get cracks in different directions change the direction of your brush strokes. Don’t overwork the paint as it will lift off.
Once you’re happy with the coverage start stamping and build up a pattern or as I’ve done an abstract garden.
Tip Be positive when placing your stamp, stamp straight down, but as with stamping on acetate don’t press to hard until it’s in position as the stamp will slide in the paint, also be careful when lifting the block and try and do it as vertical as possible, again to avoid sliding, you will find the stamp kind of gets sucked onto the surface!
When you lift the stamp you should see that the paint and glue has been ‘stamped off’ I continued to create the garden using the concentric circles from Round in Circles for the large flowers, one of the strips from Make a Chain for the stalks, a heart from I Heart You for the leaves, the large heart garland from It’s All About Hearts for the row of small flowers and the solid bird from Greenwich Park to complete the picture.
I then did the pva and acrylic paint thing on the strip and used stamps from Make a Chain to decorate along the edge, I love this stamp set, there are so many things you can do with it!!!
I then let the whole thing dry naturally while I went and washed my stamps in warm soapy water, they’re as good as new again! (Please make sure you wash your stamps!!) Then I watched the cracks appear. You can heat it with a heat gun to speed up the process, just remember to keep the gun at a distance so you don’t blister the paint.
With my background done I assembled my photo and embellishments distressing and inking edges and then inked round the edge of my cardboard with the same colour to tie the layout together.
I laced the gap at the top of the strip with some garden string….
… And added journaling to the cute little seed packet that I found as a free download on content in a cottage blogspot
I love the multi coloured dots, hearts and swirls on my background and the texture you get from stamping into the paint.
So why not have a go, just get a small piece of scrap card and use one stamp to get started, it really is good fun to ‘stamp off’ the paint and see the effects you can achieve with your Banana Frog stamps! Don’t be shy now, share your results with us, I’d love to see what you do with this technique. Thanks for hopping by and hop by soon to check out the all the fab projects the froglets have to share. I’ll see you in class on the 11th August until then happy crafting!
Love
M x
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