As promised...

As I mentioned yesterday, WHAT? you didn't read/see yesterdays post!? What is going on with everyone (besides the fact this blog is only a week old). Anyway, as I previously mentioned here are the instructions I promised on to how I achieved the bandana look on my ATCs that I swapped with Sid. I follow a bunch of blogs and I ran across this technique from Lori Roberts. Take any box with the weight/thickness of a cereal box and cut it to size. Use a coat of gesso on front and back (I do the back to keep the background sort of generic). I use a foam brush and rinse them out until they break/fall apart. I do them in bunches then let them dry overnight. Take Portfolio Oil Pastels and rub them over the gesso'd cardboard. You don't need full coverage. I generally use two colors and have found more success with them being in the same family (red/orange, light/dark blue, light/dark green). Rub them a bit with your finger or try using used dryer sheets to smoosh the colors together. The dryer sheets don't add any lint and were going in the garbage anyway. Add a small amount of Mat Medium (I use my finger and about 1/2tsp and NO I don't measure it!) and rub that over the colors. It blends the colors and fills in the blank spots. Let it dry overnight and you've got a great background. After that I stamp and embellish as desired. I've had my best success with either chalk inks or the Ranger archival ink. The Mat Medium makes the surface a bit slick so you could probably use Staz-On as well. After I stamped the ones displayed I used either the Inkssentials or Uni-ball Signo white pen to make the accents. They are both very good but this technique makes it a bit tough to write on so be patient.

Until my next post,
Diane