Each week we’re taking a new look at an old technique or product. This week we asked our new girl Danielle Quarmby and Kathie Link to come up with some wonderful ways of using masks and templates.
For this layout, Danielle began with a set of ‘Winter Trees’ glimmer masks from Tattered Angels and a photograph printed on matte photo paper. Tracing the masks on to the photograph, she carefully cut them out and outlined them in black pen to add contrast. She then set them aside to use later as embellishments on her page.
When creating her layout background, Danielle once again used one of the ‘Winter Trees’ masks to help out. Placing the mask on a sheet of Sassafras patterned paper, she sprayed over the entire page with Tattered Angels Chalkboard mist in ‘Firefly’, a gorgeous bright yellow. Using her fingertips, Danielle added splotches of gesso to the wet chalkboard mist, combining gently to add texture to the page.
Danielle combined a variety of cardstock stickers from Sassafras and Jenni Bowlin with rub-ons from Hambly Screen Prints, Prima alpha stickers, hand-cut photos, her own handwriting and Cosmo Cricket tiny type alphas to create a warm and arty layout centred on the tree images of the Tattered Angels mask designs.
Kathie usually associates masks and templates with making pretty background effects using misting and inking. However, when she saw the new Crafters Workshop Butterfly Meadow template recently, she was inspired to use it in a completely different way and create a piece of fabric wall art.
To begin, Kathie painted a simple background onto a canvas using acrylic paint and added some fun layers by painting through dot templates by Heidi Swapp and Crafters Workshop, and adding some stamped patterns. Using her own hand-drawn cloud masks, she’s added subtle shading to the sky background by sponging around them with white paint.
Kathie’s created grasses and a number of brightly coloured flowers from Michael Miller fabric by tracing the images from the Crafter’s Butterfly Meadow and Botanicals templates onto the fabric and cutting out. The template has been used as a guide for the placement of the grass, stems (string) and flowers on her final scene.
Finally, Kathie cut a butterfly from the fabric, and also used an embossing tool to trace a butterfly onto a sheet of transparency. Misting, painting and stickles added colour and sparkle to the fabric and transparent butterflies, which Kathie’s shaped into three dimensional shapes before adhering to the page.
