June team training ...

Welcome to our June edition of Team Training brought to you this month by wonderful team member Phillis Walrath.

Each month one of our team will inspire you with a little tutorial, tip or trick to help you in your scrapbooking pursuits. 

Working with Gesso by Phillis Walrath

Sometimes I want to add something to my background paper to make it stand out or to give it some depth.  Today I am going to show you some easy ways to  add some depth to you background paper.  

I have been using Gesso on my pages.  Gesso is  a white paint binder that you can use as is or add color to it.  You can add it thick or thin to your page.  I often use it with a stencil as seen below.  I put my chevron stencil on my paper and then just apply the Gesso, with a paintbrush,  on top of the stencil.  here I used white Gesso on my white paper.  It adds depth to my layout.

If you don't have a stencil you can make your own or use ordinary materials you have around the house.   I usually put the Gesso on in random places with.   For the layout I worked on recently I used a toilet paper tube, an old prescription bottle and a straw.

I poured some Gesso onto some plastic that I had left from a paper pack.  I dipped the tube in the Gesso and then randomly added circles to my purple paper. 

I then used the open end of the bottle and finally the straw.  Use the biggest object to the smallest object.

 Once these dried I added some pink paint to more Gesso and mixed it with my straw.

I used a stencil and with my paint brush I painted with a stencil.   It has  neat effect if you put the stencil in different places on your page and sometimes overlap onto some scrap paper as you will see below.  You do not need to cover the whole stencil and as you may have different thicknesses of Gesso on your page.

 

If your stencil moves a little that is also ok.  you will have a blurry effect, which you will also see on my page.  You can also just brush the Gesso onto your page.

Here is my finished page!  If you don't have Gesso just go ahead and use your paint.  Get messy and have a some fun!

Wonderful techniques Phillis - can't wait to give this a try.

Don't forget to have your entry in for our challenge this month.  Some lovely prizes on offer - one prize by vote, another completely by random draw and a guest designer spot with RAK to offer one lucky entrant.  You have until 11.55 on the final day of the month to have your submission linked.