Flying Unicorn Kit BAP

It's my turn to host the Build A Page tutorial this month at Flying Unicorn using the September 50 Shades of Summer kit.  Today I'm going to take you through the process of making this layout:

Supplies Used:

- 13 Arts - Faces of Spring - Natural Beauty and Only For Girls (from the Main Kit and Patterned Paper Add-On)
- Super Heavy Gesso
- palette knife
- Kaisercraft Rock stamp (from the August Mid-Month Muse kit)
- Lindy's Stamp Gang mists: Buccaneer Bay Blue mist, French Lilac Violet
- 13 Arts: Sky Blue Pearl mist and Yellow water ink
- Shimmerz Coloringz Lime In Da Coconut
- Splash Of Color/Luminarte Twinkling H2Os
- Chipboard flourish
- Prima Chalk Edger Black Coal
- Flower and Embellishment Add-Ons

I saw a tutorial recently by former CT member Adrienne Ford on making an awesome mixed media background using Clearsnap products.  I am a big fan of the "use what you have" mentality and set out to create something along the same lines with the products I have on hand, with my own touches.

1. Apply a thick layer of Super Heavy Gesso where you want your background work to be.  The advantage of the Super Heavy is that it is much thicker and will keep impressions better.  You want it thick enough that you can make a good impression and that you have a little working time.

2. Stamp into your wet gesso using whatever stamp you have.  I have left mine on the protective film but have not mounted it on an acrylic block - I find my stamps easier to work with this way and the edges of the impressions are less defined/more natural.

See what a great impression you get?

3. Continue stamping across your background.  I stamped several times in every area so that I would have a smaller, less defined pattern.  When your stamp gets loaded with gesso, simply stamp across the un-gessoed parts of your background to continue the pattern and make things look more organic.

4. Allow to dry.  I left mine to dry a good 24 hours while I worked on other things.  If you want to hasten drying time using a heat gun, be mindful that if you hold the heat gun too close you will get bubbling, which may add an extra element to your background, you decide which root you want to take.

5. Because I wanted to build on the base color of my paper, I started misting with a Lindy's Moonshadow mist.  The beautiful thing about the Moonshadow Mists is that they are a brown ink with a colored sparkle so you get more of an antiqued look.

6. Next I started building up the color, starting with Sky Blue Pearl Mist from 13 Arts.  I sprayed it liberally on the gessoed areas and moved the paper around to allow the mist to build up in all the crevices. You can blot off the excess spray if it is too dark in some areas (since the gesso acts as a resist while the mist is wet), but keep in mind that it will appear lighter once it dries.

7. While the mist was still wet I added some Yellow Water Ink from 13 Arts to the middle of the page, then held the page up and rotated it so that it would run through the crevices.  Notice how it mixes with the wet mist to create green as it moves farther from the center.  This is a great way to get more from the colors of mist you have, however one thing to keep in mind is that if you mix colors that are opposite on the color wheel (like red and green) you will get brown - fine if you want it, but really upsetting if you don't.

8. I wanted to continue the green gradient coming up the page, so I added some Lime In Da Coconut Shimmerz spray from the top and let it run down.  I also added in some purple with Lindy's French Lilac Violet.

9. As you can see from the center of the photo below, the mists lighten as they dry.  I wanted to bring some of the vibrancy back around the edges of the page (the areas that are shiny) so I came in with some Twinkling H2Os on my finger and rubbed them around the edges of the page at the top left and bottom right corner and along the left side and over the ridges of the gesso in some places.  If you haven't worked with Twinkling H2Os before, they are something else - compressed watercolors with shimmer, you add water to them and let them sit until they come to a honey-like consistency.  Just brilliant.

10. I like to add color to my layers to make them blend more with the background.  To add some texture to this piece from the Only for Girls paper I ran it through my crimper (my poor, underused crimper) to give it some texture then randomly wiped Twinkling H2Os on it.  I don't take a lot of care with how it looks - most of it will be covered and the parts I don't like I will rotate so that they are covered.

11. Begin building your layers.  I don't glue anything down until I am completely happy with it.

12. Once I am happy I glue everything down, then add a couple of sprays of mist to my embellishments.  I also rubbed Twinkling H2Os on the resin pieces from the Main Kit.

And here is the completed project once everything is glued down:

A couple closeups of the rocking texture:

 I hope that you enjoyed this BAP tutorial, and can't wait to see what you create - maybe something for Tammy's Make A Mess And Clean It Up challenge, which runs through September 30th?