Christmas Paper Patchwork
On the Mixed Media group I belong to we decided to do a Christmas patchwork panel swap.
We all got assigned different dimensions for our panel and as there were 10 people in the swap we each had to make 10 identical panels- one for each member of the swap.
At the end we each received one from each person and a diagram of how they would all fit together.
I thought I'd do a little tutorial of how I made mine because lots of people have been asking about how to make the paint effects, how to use the products and how to piece it all together.
This may take a while so get a cuppa and lets get messy!
1. My panel is 4"wide by 5" high so I chose some black card and ran it through the Sizzix Bigshot in a Snowflake and a spotty Embossing Folder. It turned my cardboard into deeply embossed patterned cards and I painted them with Gold and Copper Jaquard Lumiere paints which is rich and metallic and perfect for using on fabric, card and anything you like. LOVE this paint!
I also cut some birds and reindeer in the black card with the Sizzix. I know they were all supposed to be the same but I got excited and can't make decisions when I'm excited!
I wanted the panels to look vintage, so although the bright metallics look good I wanted more depth to the paint effects. When you are making your own painted backgrounds you can choose your own colour scheme so I decided to make 3 different versions of vintage metallics.
The first one is Verdigris which is the look of copper when it has been aged by the weather. It gets lovely blues and greens mixed in with the copper and metallics.
The second is much brighter with more of the metallic colour showing through.
The third is more like an Aged Bronze.It is darker and has a white bloom on the surface.
2.You can do a mix and match of all the finishes and stop when you like the look of your backgrounds. There are no rules and it is fun to just play with the paints.
We start by putting a blob of lime green, turquoise and white on a plate. These look quite bright but we are going to be blending them and mixing them and between these 3 colours you can make all kinds of different tints, shades and depths of colour.
You can mix the colours on the brush and on the plate but it it really important to have a really dry brush before you paint so when you like the colour you have mixed rub most of it off on to a paper towel so that it looks like there is almost none left. Not like the brush above!
3. Now really lightly brush the colour onto the texture of your card. Try to brush over just the top of the textured surface. Add some patches of the other colours and mix them together a bit but make sure your brush stays really dry.
4. Wipe some of the paint off with a paper towel to make it look old and worn and to buff up some of the metallic colours and make them shine.
Time to make the reindeer and birdy embellishments! I wanted a crackly vintage finish on these. Ranger make a lovely crackle paint called Rock Candy which produces transparent glittery fine crackles with just one step of painting. I painted all my shapes with a fairly thick layer of the crackle and let them dry.
Because it is transparent it doesn't really show on the black so I needed to put something over the top to show off the lovely crackles! I used Copper glitter Stickles. I put a little bit on my finger and rubbed it over the crackles which picked up the texture really well. I also used some Treasure Gold on my finger to rub over the texture and give a bit of shine..
Before sticking my shapes on with PVA glue I rubbed the outer edges of the panels with black Treasure Gold to finish them and make them look aged. I then stuck on some gorgeous bronze metal snowflakes with Ranger Multi Medium in Matte finish which disappears when dry and holds really strongly, and some little berry wreaths which I made from a berry pick that I took apart.
Here is a closer look at 4 of the panels. Have a go at making one yourself but if Christmas is too near you can use this technique all year round to make lovely textured artwork for cards, journals and scrapbooks etc. Try using different colour combinations to make them look completely unique each time.
