Riikka Kovasin - Paperiliitin: Eccentric - Seth Apter Creative Team

Heippa! Today is a part of an ongoing series of posts for the Seth Apter Creative Team! As before, I started on Wednesday, continued on Thursday and I'm finishing today on Friday. 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.

This time my theme is to use the same 15 supplies in three projects. No extras allowed except glue and double-sided tape. OK, I did use a black gel pen in one, too. But no extra mediums! As when you have limited means, you want to get products that you can use in various ways and maybe in the colors you love or that go well to everything. I hope that my project and choices give some ideas and tips how to start building your stash. Or if you already have a big stash - how sometimes limiting your options is good and opens new doors!

Here's the link to the first post (link) with a little bit more about the mediums I chose and why I picked just them. And in case you want to check the second post, too, before catching this finale, here's the link to that, too (link).

Like I've been writing across the posts, I chose to make three different project types. The first one was a card, yesterday I shared a layout and today I'm blogging an art journal page. But the ideas and techniques I use in each one naturally go to other project types, too. I just wanted to cover a larger base with the project types, too.

I chose the colors of the sprays so that I could make some changes in the color scheme. Instead I used all of the three colors in all of the projects, but I could have used just the "Honey" in one background for example and color the focal point with "Blue Moon" for an instant pop.

You can see especially well how the opposite colors mute each other in this project. When the warm orange brown mixes with the blue and purple I got this beautiful almost olive green color. You can see that in the bottom of the art journal page. If I'd only used the analogous colors, like I often do, I wouldn't have gotten that splendid tone. But even with the analogous scheme I would have gotten more tones than with just one color. To me, an easy way to add interest to a background is to use two colors and let them mix on top of the surface. Well, this only applies to fluid colors and preferably on top of a surface that doesn't absorb them immediately. Like spray ink or watercolor on top of gesso. If you premix the colors you might get three colors - color A, color B and then mix of the two. But if you leave it to chance, you get almost an infinite number of variations of the mixes as the colors pool differently.

Again, let me gather some points you could take out of the video. First of all, think about masks or stencils in a broader sense. There's a huge variety of commercial stencils out there, but if you are stretching the penny, maybe you could start with the items you already have. Remembering of course that they might get painty and colored. Spray inks are easier maybe with the inventive stencils than ink pads as you don't have to touch to the stencil so it doesn't have to stand the rubbing. But just think about different mesh and net you might get from food packaging, kitchen utensils or just cutting a piece of paper to a stencil. Or then combine the two - purchase a stencil but then use it with your own stencils and found objects. Like stamps, the beauty of stencils, at least of the bought ones, is that they handle the use and can be used over and over again!

You could also think about washi tape as a pattern and texture maker rather than just a piece of decorative tape. Years and years ago, back in 2013 it seems, I actually had a whole mini album workshop concentrated on the different uses of washi tape. It was the same year I posted my tutorial of washi tape feathers (link), which became popular. So, if you are like me and have a bunch of pretty tape rolls, try using them more than just a piece here and there as a small decoration. I should do that more often, too!

Fun thing about these Carabelle Studio stamp characters - I see the circles on the sides of the head as the eyes of the character whereas my husband sees those as cheeks and the two little dots as the eyes. To me those little dots are eyebrows or hair. Which way do you see it? Does the character above have white eyes or cheeks?

Thank you so much for following the series again! I hope you have found some new inspiration out of these posts! Have a great and hopefully creative weekend!