Scrappingclearly Papercrafts & Mixed Media: My Here + Now by Belinda Spencer

Friday 5 February 2021

My Here + Now by Belinda Spencer

Hello Scrapping Clearly fans!!

It's Belinda here today to share one of the layouts I created for the Australia Day Cyber Crop. I created this one for Challenge Four; My Backyard and used some fabulous products from the Scrapping Clearly store.

'My Here + Now'

I used a photo of my backyard which is actually the front yard of our home. We use the back door as our front door though so our house is kind of back to front. That is what you get with a quirky old farmhouse built in the 1800's. We even have an outdoor dunny that you can see in the photo. It gets so cold in the hills in winter so I would not have wanted to go out at night to use that dunny especially with the amount of redback and white tail spiders as well as brown snakes and red belly black snakes we get! Thank goodness for indoor toilets!!

I started my layout by cropping a sheet of the Paper Arts Bubbles 3 patterned paper. I love this paper. It really doesn't need too much mixed media on it as it is quite lovely just as it is. But of course I did add some! I had some Prima Finnabair Art Extravagance Icing Paste in Vintage Gold to play with for the first time. I have to say how impressed I am with this product!! I used it with a Vicki Boutin stencil and applied with a palette knife. It gave a really crisp edge and was quite quick to dry. I am going to be using this a lot and think I will have to invest in other colours.

Next I spritzed the page with some water and dropped in some Prima Art Philosophy Concentrated Watercolour in Marigold. I used a paintbrush (and my finger!) to push the watercolour around a little. Aqua and yellow are such a beautiful combination and the yellow co-ordinated so well with the yellow leaves in my photo.

I added some Peacock Concentrated Watercolour too for a more intense aqua/teal colour.

And because I LOVE stamping I added some stamped leaves to the background for added interest. I am totally in love with the little Inkadinkadoo Cling Stamps. This one is called Branches and has the sweetest little stamps. I used Jet Black Archival Ink which is my weapon of choice when it comes to stamping. It is waterproof and gives a lovely crisp image.

Next, I added some layered patterned papers and my photo.

I stamped some flowers and leaves onto book paper using stamps by Vicki Boutin and the Jet Black ink. I coloured the flowers with the same watercolours as used on the background and left to dry. I added double sided tape to the back of the book paper before fussy cutting each piece. This essentially creates a sticker and reinforces the paper to make it easier to fussy cut. Then all you have to do is peel off the backing and stick the fussy cut piece onto your layout.