Messing About with Masking Tape, Mists and Gelatos

Hi Everyone!  Danie here with you all today.   Recently I have been playing creating some backgrounds for my ATC's, Cards and Art Journal, so I thought I would share one of my techniques with you which I love.

For these backgrounds you need some of your favorite colored mists and your Gelatos.  If you don't have any premade mists, you can make your own with your Gelatos.  The Gelatos give a more subtle effect then some of the premade mists such as Dylusions, Glimmer Mists etc. 

For my above photo I have used mists (Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabios) I already owned, but for the example below I have made some using my Gelatos.

To start I chose my desired color of metallic gelatos and then some contrasting bright colors gelatos to be used to make my own mists.  For my mists today I am using Orange, Green and Yellow and these will also be used to add color and pattern with my stencils later on my background also.

 Scrape off some of your Gelato and place in a mini mister/spray bottle

Top up with water & mix together

Repeat for all three colors.

Taking a piece of water color paper, I then tear off and lay masking tape down across in a random pattern 

Taking my sprays I then spray color randomly over my taped piece of watercolor paper.

At this point I grab another piece of paper and lay it over my sprayed piece to blot up any excess spray, these blotter pieces also can be used as backgrounds as is or added to further.

With my piece now blotted I remove the masking tape which reveals white space.

I then do another layer of masking tape, but this time overlap slightly over my sprayed areas.

You can repeat and add more colors if desired.

I then take my chosen Metallic Gelato and draw over the white space and taking my finger and wetting it a little or my water brush and/or a baby wipe I blend it in to cover in the white space. 

 The Metallic Gelato adds a beautiful shimmer.  It's just a pity that my photos don't show it well.

Next you further add to your background with stencils and stamping of your choice. If you don't own any stencils such as the ones sold at Altered Pages, you can make your own.   For my background today I am simply using ones I made myself by simply punching out circles from a piece of cardstock.  I used two different sizes.

  

You can then take either a gelato and draw and blend it around the stencil or use a mist and spray it over the stencil.  I've gone with the blending my gelato for this one.   I repeated with my third color (orange) over a piece of punchinella.

  

Taking a Big Brush Marker I outline some of my circles and add further marks/pattern with some stamping. Again if you don't own any circle stamps look at the bottom of a jar or toilet roll.  For my example the larger black circle is the bottom of an embossing powder jar and the smaller circle is the lid of my Gelatos.  

To finish this background off I decided to some more vibrant color so I added some more yellow mist and colored in my larger stamped circles with a red Gelato.  I then also took a text randomly stamped across my background with a text stamp.

Here's a card made using this background.

This technique also makes great backgrounds for your art journal. 

For this one I have used a Dylusions Border and Sentiment Stamp.  Have you heard that Dylusions will soon be available at Altered Pages?  I am excited, they really have some fabulously fun stamps and great color mediums!  

My nature inspired stamping on this page is using stamps from Dark Room Door which is one of my favorite Australian Stamp Companies.

Don't forget if you are creating with products from Altered Pages we'd love to see it, so be sure to share a photo or two with us over on our Facebook Page here.

Have a great week!

Danie xx