Tag Archives: template

Basic Masking Techniques for Art Journaling, Scrapbooking, Card-making

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Please welcome my friend, Alice Boll! She is graciously doing a guest post for me, and you are going to enjoy the information on masking which she is sharing with us today! You’ll see in coming episodes, that her information on masks will tie in so well as we learn about all the things you can do with Gelatos and many other things!  So, here’s Alice!

Alice Boll from Scrapbook Wonderland

Hi! I’m Alice Boll from Scrapbook Wonderland. Thank you, Kristie for inviting me to share my passion for scrapbooking with you.

Scrapbooking is a wonderful hobby! I’m always surprised at the creative ways I can play with art supplies on my layouts. One technique I find myself using over and over again is the use of masks. I hope I’ll inspire you to use the wonder of masks for your next artful adventure!

Masks have two main purposes.

The 2 purposes of a mask:

1. To apply an art medium TO a specific area.

2. To prevent an art medium FROM being applied to a specific area.

What is an art medium? This sounds so technical! It’s simply the kind of material you are using or playing with. Examples of art mediums are:

  • ink
  • paint
  • spray or mist
  • modeling paste
  • glue (to add mica flakes, pearl beads, micro beads, confetti, glitter, etc!)
  • gesso

*This is not an exhaustive list… get creative and use your imagination!

Art medium ideas to get you started using masks.

The 2 Kinds of masks:

  1. Masks you buy. You can purchase pre-made masks or templates. Some of my favourites are from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. A great thing about a mask you purchase is that it is easy to wash it up and use it over and over again.

Here I used spray ink with a Balzer Designs template as a mask.

Here I used modeling paste with a Donna Downey template as a mask.

Close up of the modeling paste texture.

2. Masks you make or find. Create your own mask. Use a die-cut machine or punch to cut shapes out of paper or plastic. You can also use a ‘found object’ like a bottle cap or jar lid as a mask.

Here I cut scraps of chipboard with a punch before misting a background.

If I cut a custom mask out of lightweight plastic I mark the size and save both parts… now I have 2 masks to play with!

Once you start experimenting with masks you will find many more creative ideas!

Fun Idea! Use a mask to create a shape when clustering embellishments.

The large scalloped circle in the background was made, and stamped, with a mask!

Want to see a creative use of masks? Watch Chris Sebo, a spray paint artist in Hawaii. I was amazed when I saw him perform his spray paint magic on Waikiki beach in Hawaii.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcsogbWzd1c

I hope you have fun exploring the artistic wonders of masks! I welcome you to visit me at Scrapbook Wonderland for more great tips and tricks!

Happy Scrappin’

St. Patrick’s Day Digital Printable Jazzed Up

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Thanks for joining me again this week!  Our Artful Adventure today continues with ideas to jazz up a word art digital download. Digital downloads can make quick word of creating something special, whether you want a piece of decor or a card to send.

Here you can see the original version of the template.  Since this version is able to be quickly transformed, you’ll see that it was easy to tweak the color just a wee bit.  Only the green has been changed.  This makes it such an easy way to personalize it in a way that best fits your color needs.

St. Patrick's Day Template

Original colors of download

St. Patrick's Day Template Color Change

The green color was tweaked just a wee bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One way to change up your printable is to print it out and then use a fine tip marker to outline some of the words.  If you don’t really feel confident with your hand lettering skills, this is a perfect way to have a little practice.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect.  Note to self, don’t have so much caffeine before you do this again!  Some of my lines are less than desirable, but that’s okay.  I was rather pleased with the outcome.

This was meant to show you a quick project, so I only did some of the larger words, which I knew would be much easier to outline.  When you try something like this, you’ll begin to notice the little nuances of the particular font of the word you are working on.  That is what lettering is all about, the little things that each letter has in common.

St. Patrick's Day printable enhanced by outlined letters

Pick some of the words with larger lettering to outline! Glad this isn’t under glass yet, I see I forgot to do part of the “k” in “lucky.”

As long as you are going to print it out, why not make a smaller size and create a card?  Here is a card that was created from the same template.

Lucky Printable Card

Reduce the template before you print and you can create a card!

Lucky Printable Card with embossing

Just a little embossing can really jazz up a quick card! The Hollogram Effects embossing powder combines a bit of glitter in a clear embossing powder, which will let the ink color show through!

Card Recipe

  1. Half sheet of black card stock (cut 8.5″ x 5.5″), folded in half
  2. Lucky Limeade card stock (cut 4″x5.25″)
  3. Printable Template reduced to allow some of the white border (cut 3.75″x5″)
  4. Before assembling the card pieces wipe the printout with an embossing buddy
  5. Use Versamark marker over some of the letters.
  6. Sprinkle Hollogram Embossing powder and use heat tool to emboss!
  7. Assemble card pieces

TaDah!  You are done!

Okay, now that the card is finished, I realized that the Hollogram embossing powder is no longer available!  SO….. some other ideas to add a quick bit of sparkle or shine (these are options, not steps):

  • Use 2-way Glue Pen over selected letters and sprinkle with glitter.
  • Use Clear Embossing powder
  • Use Dazzling Details on selected areas
  • Try some Crystal Effects on a few letters!

Scraplifting is Not a Crime

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In today’s episode, let’s look at a way to really save time in your scrapbooking efforts, and that’s by “scraplifting” or using templates or sketches!

You don’t have to always reinvent the wheel with every page you make.  If you see a layout you like, use the basic layout on your own page!  Using your own colors, papers, embellishments and photos will make it your own!  (If you post your page in an online gallery it’s nice to credit who inspired you.)

Templates can really speed a page along, especially if you are digital scrapping.  Page maps/scrap maps are like a blueprint to follow to create a page.  Remember that you can get a totally different look simply by rotating or flipping a template or page map!  Sometimes the orientation of the original is not a good fit with your pictures or other elements of your page.  By rotating or flipping the design, it may better fit your needs.  So, go ahead and scraplift or get a head start using a template or a sketch someone else has put together!

Here’s an example of taking an idea, rotating it to the right 90 degrees, and then flipping it horizontally so that the title could be on the left and leave journaling on the right.  You can see the original design was slightly changed to meet the needs of the new page.  The patterned paper was removed and instead of completely coming up with a design from scratch, we have a new page that will be completely different!  It’s interesting to see that by rotating and flipping it, the two embellishment represented by the circles, have ended up in the same positions around the photo, the top left and bottom right!

Pumpkin Patch 12 Photo Scrapbook Layout

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Here is the scrapbook page I promised to show you with pictures of our outing to the pumpkin patch. I have also included a video to walk you through some of the elements of the page and give you some other information about the layout. You may watch it here, or read a brief description below the video.

I decided to make create this page digitally, because I had more pictures than time to scrap them onto several pages. So I decided to go ahead and use a lot of them on a single layout. That’s one of the benefits of using digital images, you can resize them as needed!

 

Since I was going to use several photos on the page I decided I would start with a layered template that used a lot of pictures. I wasn’t sure how many I would end up with but I figured it would quite a few, so I found a layout I liked that already included 9 pictures. I have a set of layered templates from DigitalScrapper.com that are great! In fact there are 12×12 pages as well as 8 1/2 x 11 layered templates! They are called Scrap It Now, so you may want to check them out. They are grouped into sets depending on how many photos you want to use, so it makes it easy to find one to use.  (I receive no compensation for mentioning this product!)

Okay, I’ll stop here and admit I should have decided on how many pictures I was going to use before I selected the template, but I didn’t! I had to add 2 more frames, plus you’ll see I actually used one my photos as the top of the background! It seemed perfect for the overall theme of the page, and really was going to be too small if I used it in one of the frames.

There are so many pictures on the page that I didn’t want to use too many other embellishments on the page because I felt it would become too busy. After the page is printed, I’ll hand write names near the pictures or add any other small journaling very close to the edges of the photos.

If you have any questions be sure to let me know! Come back tomorrow to see a great way to get a double page layout (paper) ready for Halloween and get your pictures on it right away!