Wednesday, 13 July 2016

Paper Artsy #3Up Infusion Fun

Before I start, I hope you've got a cuppa - it's quite a long blog post with loads of photos!!

It's #3Up week at Paper Artsy this week.... basically - a lucky few of us are picked to create a project to be shown on the Paper Artsy blog. 

I was one of the lucky few.  My task was to create a project using the fabulous Infusions and some stamps that Leandra would send to us.

Here are the stamps that I received:


I know, right!  How generous!  They were all pre-loved but in perfect working order!

So, I racked my brain and eventually decided to create a little atc book - I had some canvas atc's and thought that they would work well with infusions.

Before setting out to create my project I had a wonderful crafty day with my bestie, Caz.... we tried Infusions with lots of different mediums and in different ways so that I could choose what to use.

To start the project I gesso'd both sides of every atc so that the infusions would have something to 'grip' to and not just sink into the material.

I decided that I would cover the backgrounds using 2 Infusions techniques.

Firstly, I applied them with a brayer:


I liked this technique because it looks quite distressed!  To brayer them I sprinkled the Infusions onto a craft sheet, sprayed a small amount of water and them brayered like I would with paint or ink.

This is a close up of one of them:


For the opposite sides I applied the Infusions with Paper Artsy Satin medium:


To do this I sprinkled the Infusions direct to the atc and then brushed satin medium up and down to cover the atc.

Next I set about using the fabulous stamps.  I wanted them to blend into the background and look printed but knew that this might be tricky on canvas.  Instead I stamped onto tissue paper using Archival inks:


I also used another technique by sprinkling infusions directly onto tissue paper, activating them with water and then drying.  I then stamped in Archival ink:


Once I had created enough stamped images I tore around them and started to apply them to the canvas atcs using Matte Medium.

Following this I decided to try another Infusions technique! This time I wanted to create a Grunge flower.

I used the Paper Artsy Grunge Flower die to cut out 8 flowers from tissue paper. 



I positioned the flowers so that they overlapped and then added a brad to the centre.


Then the fun started!

I started with the top flower.  I sprinkled Infusions onto the flower, sprayed it with water than scrunched it up to the middle.  I did the same using another colour of Infusions and alternated until all of the flowers were coloured, wet and scrunched.

At this point you could leave it to dry naturally - but I'm impatient! LOL!! So I started to dry it with a heat gun and as each flower dried I unfolded it.

This is the result:


I was really happy with this and it felt like a dried flower!

(Hope you're still with me and not asleep!).

To finish I then embellished all of the pages and added my flower to the front.

The final technique was ribbon.

Here I cut white seam binding and wondered what it would be like to colour with infusions!




I sprinkled the Infusion powder onto my craft mat and sprinkled with water.

I then scrunched the seam binding into the water until it was covered. I then dried this with my heat gun:


Phew!! So - that's how I made my project!

So - what did it actually look like??

Here are the pictures of each page.....

The front:


Inner pages:









Back page:


So - that's my project!! And I really enjoyed creating it!

Pop over to the Paper Artsy blog to see the other fabulous creations from fellow #3Upers!

Thanks for being patient with my blog post!  Thanks for looking!!