Ombre ~ Stamps and Stencils ~ New Challenge

 Happy July everybody ! School's almost out, the sun is shining and holidays are on the horizon. What could be better? Well, how about adding another Stamps and Stencils challenge into the mix! Our lovely host this month, is the very talented Ruth, and she has called it 'Ombre'. This is what Ruth has to say.........

Ombré has been in fashion for a while now and not just in art...or even hair! It's a french word meaning 'a colour that is shaded or graduated in tone'...so for this challenge we want to see projects or part of your project that has one (or more) colour that graduates from it's lightest pastel tint to its darkest shade...got that?? simple...ooh and with a little stamping or stenciling of course!

I've often admired the ombre effects I've seen in other peoples work but have never incorporated the technique into a project of my own. Ruth's challenge presented an ideal opportunity to have a go. I've made a sea themed journal, using the very popular Eileen Hull Travel Journal die. It's super easy to use and when you treat the mount board covers as your 'canvas', the possibilities for embellishment are endless. I started off by stenciling the front and back covers with modelling paste.

I then started to build up the 'sea floor', using gel medium and Prima Art stones, I also added a few Art Pebbles and sprinkled the finer Art Stones over the top in order to fill in the gaps. I find using the Art Stones a little tricky, as they tend to stick to my always glue covered fingers ! worth persevering though as I love the texture they create. i then left the covers to dry completely, before adding a coat of white gesso. If the surface is not completely dry, the Art Stones will come away. 

 after more drying time, I started to paint the covers, using Imagination Crafts, Starlight paint in Turquoise, mixed with a little Deco Art Media paint in Pthalo Turquoise. I used it neat at the bottom and then started adding small amounts of Deco Art tinting Medium as I worked my way to the top of the cover. This is the back.......

I put the covers side by side as I painted them, so that the ombre effect matches.It was fun to see the colour gradually fading  from dark to light.....

I also added a little under sea plant using some painted garden twine.I then turned my attention to the sea horses. These were cast in something called 'Multi-Morph'. This is rather amazing stuff which I discovered accidentally, when searching the web for Friendly Plastic. The product consists of a bag of tiny plastic 'beads' which when placed in hot water clump together to form a mouldable plastic which can be pressed into a silicone mould. I was able to achieve a lot of detail on the sea horses by working the plastic into all of the tiny recesses of the mould. It hardens quite quickly and can be reheated if things don't quite work out. DO NOT, however use in a plastic mould as I ruined my plastic heart mould as the 'friendly' plastic got completely stuck! I should know better.

 I painted the sea horses with Deco Art Media Acrylics. I was pleased to find that the Multi Morph plastic took the paint easily......

I brushed a little mica powder over the surface before the paint had dried completely. I constructed the book  and added the signatures,before adhering the seahorses to the front. I used plain drawing paper, with patterned paper wraparounds, for the three signatures.....

I found some strong elastic hairbands in my local Asda and used these to hold the signatures in the book cover. They work really well and hold the booklets snugly. To finish off the front cover, I used Glossy Accents to attach the sea horses and left them to dry overnight. I also weighted them down so that they are really flat on the surface of the cover.Whilst I'd got the Glossy accents out, I also added some to the surface of the die cuts I used on my sea plant......

I think they look great on their lovely ombre background. I think I shall be revisiting this technique again! If you would like to try your hand at ombre, then why not join in with our challenge. You can make anything you like as long as it includes some stamping or stencilling or both if you wish. Just hop over to the Stamps and Stencils blog with this link and you'll find all of the challenge details, as well as some gorgeous, inspiring projects, by Ruth and the rest of this fab team. hope to see you there! I'm also going to hop this journal over to the Mini Album Makers Challenge blog x