Riikka Kovasin - Paperiliitin: Follow Your Dreams, day 2

Hello, it's day two of this month's series for Seth Apter Creative Team. Sadly, this is the last trio for Seth Apter Creative Team as our term is about to end. These past nine months have been a blast! You can find Seth Apter's site here (link) and more about the Creative team here (link). I've included a list of products to the end of the post with links to Seth's own store. While this is the last series for this team, I have enjoyed making these posts so much, that I'm thinking of continuing making some kind of triplets in the future, too. Let me see, what I can come up with!

In the course of the previous posts I have concentrated on different mediums and tools in Seth Apter's repertoire - stamps (link), Izink ICE acrylic glaze (link) and Izink Texture mediums (link). The links take you to the previous series. But what tool was still unexplored were stencils! So, for this last series I concentrated on those. I thought nine ideas to include stencils to a project. Naturally there's so many more, but these nine I could easily tie to a project. Or a series of projects, in a way, as I made a set of ATCs using stencils in a multitude of ways. I've broken the process into three separate videos, which I'll share in the course of the following days. In each, I show a couple of techniques and also make some progress in the ATC set.

In this second video I share three new ideas how to include stencils into your project. First I collage the two sheets I made in the first video together and then add frottage on top. I also use the stencils to draw and to add texture paste to my cards.

Frottage means rubbing. While you might not have known this term before, I'm pretty sure you have done frottage in some point of your life. Perhaps as a child to make play money using real coins? The impression of the frottage greatly depends on the medium you use to do it. As the rubbing, mechanical abrasion brings the image to life, you need a medium that can do that - try a pencil, a crayon or a pastel for example. Each medium gives a different look and if you add a color to the mix... well, let's say you have a lot of options! If you want to know more about frottage, here's the link to the Wikipedia page (link) and to Tate Art Terms (link). Also, did you notice that I didn't cover the whole sheet with the frottage? I used it just to add a little interest to the sheet, just here and there, to add another layer.

Like with frottage, choosing a medium or a tool to do the drawing effects the end result. The stencil design also comes to play - like I say in the video, if you have a really intricate design and want to draw all of it, you need a sharper tool than if you have big openings. I used just a black gel pen in my drawing, imitating stamping as I often use black stamping ink, but there's so many options! You could even trace the same stencil multiple times with different colors and changing the position of the stencil just a little. That would be highly effective, too! As I use the drawing as a mean to add another layer to my background, I add several markings here and there. But you could use a drawn detail as a focal point, too!

In the first segment (link), I used several mediums through the stencil. In this second one I use yet another medium, texture paste. I use the same applying tool as with acrylic glaze as I want the layer to be thick and dimensional. What differs from the first video, on top of the medium, is the extent I use the stencil. Where with the acrylic glaze I was creating a bigger pattern, for the texture paste I only apply the paste through one element of the stencil. I hope this inspires you also to "break" the stencil design. Use just a small part of the design for a maximum effect!

When I was starting crafting, I think the hardest thing was to cover something. In the beginning, when I wasn't using mediums that heavily, it might have been a patterned paper I really liked or a bigger embellishment that I was fond of. When I then started to play with mediums, it might have been a segment in the background that I really liked, but then needed to cover in order for the whole composition to work. I think Seth says that you can't be too attached to your work. Because the odds are, if you are not working on the focal point, you are covering it up with another layer. So, embrace the process and just have fun! As with these cards, you can see how much of the original background is showing and also how much of the texture layer is still visible after everything is layered. But being visible or not doesn't take the fun of creating and layering away! Think of them as hidden treasures, something only you might have seen.

Thank you for stopping by today! I wish I have inspired you with this second part. Please be back tomorrow for the third and final part of the series!