Scrap Matrix Blog: AALL & Create August Challenge

Monday 20 August 2018

AALL & Create August Challenge - 2nd post with Helen

Welcome back to the Scrap Matrix challenge where for the whole of August we are using Stamps and Stencils from AALL & Create.

If you have some AALL & Create products in your stash; or you are in the mood for a splurge on stamps and stencils, come & join us.

We're a friendly lot and will make you feel very welcome. You don't need a blog, just link your work into the album on the
Scrap Matrix album on Facebook.

These products are super versatile, as they contain lots of images and stencil shapes in each pack, i.e. lots of bang for your buck!
I may have one or two of these tucked away for a rainy day.

For the base of my layout, I chose one of the new papers from 7 Dots Studio, Garden Party Collection, "Born". It was perfect for photos of my little Grand Girl planting up a frame of Cacti. I covered the whole page with clear gesso, as I wanted to add mixed media.

I fussy cut some of the flowers from another sheet of 7 Dots Studio, Garden Party collection, "Dreamy". I added some cacti from my own photo collection of flowers and foliage which I also fussy cut.

Playing around with placement of the fussy cut elements

and allowing room to add some texture paste.

To create a soft frame, I used texture paste through a stencil,

AALL & Create #9.

Using the same stencil and some Tim Holtz Oxide inks, I added some detail to the bottom right corner and stamped a butterfly from the AALL & Create stamp set #47. I didn't have quite the right shade of Oxides, so I blended a few different colours; Peeled paint, Twisted citron, Iced spruce, Lucky Clover and Frayed Burlap. I think it worked, although I hear there's another 12 colours to be had.

Not that I'm looking!

With the AALL & Create stamp set #47, I stamped, fussy cut and coloured a Bee to hover among the foliage.

The circle and dot stamps are from AALL & Create Stamp set #10.

I tried to stamp directly onto the page and managed to stamp one of the quotes upside down! Arrgh! Hmmm! Why do I tell you about all of my bloopers? Perhaps to explain, that there is often a way to rescue the page rather than toss is in the bin, which I would have done in the earlier days. So I painted some watered down white gesso over the mess; stamped on tissue paper and added the tissue over the mistakes with Gel medium.

A bit more stamping from AALL & Create Stamp set #10.

I have tried writing directly onto a gessoed background before and it seems to bleed into the paper, so I typed my journalling into text boxes, printed them onto card stock, cut them out and splashed some ink onto them to help them blend into the background.

Thanks for calling in today, I hope you find something to inspire your creativity. We'd love to have you play along and perhaps win a prize or a Guest Designer spot, from the uber generous
Vicki Christensen at Scrap Matrix