Friday, 23 March 2012

Messy but sweet

 By Anna Dąbrowska


Hi again! i hope you all have a great creative time! I surey had a wonderful time with new Tim Holtz Decorative Strip Die, the one with Harlequin pattern: 657825 - Sizzix Sizzlits Decorative Strip Die - Harlequin Border. I love the design of this strip - it goes perfectly both with grungy and artsy projects - and you can cut it into pieces, smaller strips, tear it, crumple...or use it both as a mask and important part of composition - just like I did here:



You can see harlequin strips peeking here and there  - there is a lot of layers on this page! The other important element is black masking done with the same harlequin strips... here is how I did it:


First I took strips of different patterned papers from "Songbird" collection from Prima Marketing and the Decorative strip mentioned above.


As you see I cut out a lot of strips for this project - I knew I want to tear them into pieces and they may get damaged during the masking process too.




Using sprays, paint and stains (mostly Ranger products - from the Distress collection) I made my messy, watercolor background. I used the heating tool to have it dry perfectly. Then I could start my masking: using ink blending tool, Distress Ink - Black Soot and Decorative strips I added pattern in the 3 selected areas of my project. I made sure it was dry again.




Finally I added many smaller harlequin strips to repeat the pattern not only in the background but also in the layers of my  paper. This made a perfect match to the masking - and gave pretty shapes surrounding the photo. These strips simply can't be boring!


Finally I had everything ready: colorful, messy project with interesting elements:




I hope you liked the idea of using the Harlequin decorative strip this way. If you don't want to damage your paper during masking process you can make a "reusable mask" for yourselves using the selected strip die and a piece of very thin acrylic - just like the one you usually have in your acrylic stamps packaging. They will be easy and fun to work with and possible to clean with baby wipes or water. How cool is that?
xoxo
Finn



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