Friday, March 29, 2013

March Guest Designer- Emma Stafrace

Hi Everyone,
This is Em Stafrace here and I am so excited to be joining 2 Crafty as a guest DT for the next couple of months. Before sharing 2 simple techniques today I thought I'd quickly share a little about myself.
This is me
I'm a SAHM and loving the chance to be... finally at 42 years old.
I love to scrapbook both traditionally and digitally the two go hand in hand for me and wouldn't survive without my computer equally as much as my honey bee scissors. I have been fortunate to be able to work from home designing custom blog commissions of which you can read all about over at my business blog 'Little By Little'.

My personal blog called Just a Girl With Ideas where you can see all my scrappy posts
and another site called 'Page Drafts' which is a fun little blog site where I share sketches every month. This has opened a few doors and I am currently on the design team over at CSI: Color, Stories & Inspiration where I am the resident 'Composite Sketch Artist' and also collaborating with Paper Stories as their sketch artist for 2013 :)
Currently I am designing for Scrap 365 MagazineScrapbook Creations and also CT for 3 digital design houses Sissy SparrowsSahlin Studio and Studio 68 which satiates my digi scrapping addiction, he he.
Today I am sharing two projects with you as my schedule day falls on the 29th and of course Feb only was 28 so I thought I;d do the two to make up the missed month ;)
Okay so lets get started with sharing a really simple and
quick fix in project 1.

 'Us...'

Technique One:
'Its a Cover Up!'

This page needed something to lift it since most of the page is fairly flat. So I decided to incorporate a chipboard title and the people icons which finished off the page with some bold & graphic elements.

 Nearly everyone has some washi in their stash so why not try using them in a less conventional way. Covering your chipboards in fun brightly designed washi tapes is a quick and easy fix to dressing up the cardboard. Carrying the same washi through out your page will help to balance your design and create some unity between the chipboard elements. Note I have only used two chipboard products in this page but they have become the hero elements because of this easy peasy technique.


Family Symbols


'Love'

Technique Two:
'Out of the Ordinary'

In this page I wanted to share some of my fave piccies from 2012 in the style of Project Life.
Although the photos are the focal point there are some subtle and fun techniques applied to the background and it was the 'Year In Summary' chipboard that inspired the whole page. Some of the techniques I used was daubed paint, misting, absorbtion, stamping and masking on the chipboards then used the main chipboard as a stencil which I will share below in a quick step-by-step.



Year in Summary

Step 1:
Daub paint randomly across the sheet of hexagons to create a blending of colour.
Leave to dry.
Step 2:
Spritz a co-ordinating colour of ink making sure there are some large pools of ink sitting on the surface.

 Step 3:
Before the ink dries quickly sprinkle rock salt on the surface and set aside to allow the pooled ink to dry. This method is called absorbtion. The salt leeches all the pigment and ink from the surface leaving some lovely motled inky textures beneath. When dry shake the salt away and carefully brush off any remaining salt fragments from the surface.
 Step 4:
Using the nozzle of your mister flick some contrasting ink on top to create some depth to the surface.
 Step 5:
Stamp  a co-ordinating image or pattern as the final layer. This can be done using any inks but I would recommend a stazon ink for a more permanent and strong impression.

Technique Three:
'Behind the Mask'
Step 1:
Using the chipboard as a template trace around the outer edge of the design. This forms the guideline for the stencilled element we'll be creating.
 Step 2:
Repeat this on a scrap piece of paper making sure the design is centered in the paper as this will act as a mask. Then cut the design out.
 Step 3:
Sandwich your chipboard between the cardstock or patterned paper and the cut out mask. Make sure the drawn outline and cut out mask are aligned then spritz over the top. When you remove the two layers you will have a clearly defined shape filled with the spritz stencilled image of the chipboard.
Step 4:
To add extra visual elements overlay the cut out section of your mask ontop of the spritzed design and ink over the top using another stencil.

So there you have 3 simple techniques that you may want to try out on your next page using 2 Crafty chipboards. Hope you enjoyed the tutorials and can't wait to share my next lot with you at the end of April!

Oh and if you like to use sketch templates your welcome to pop over to my sketch blog Page Drafts and grab yourself the sketches for these two pages!

Happy Scrapping Everyone!
Em xo

Photobucket