Hi there, Sanna here again ! Thank you so much for your kind comments on my previous post beginning of May – they really made my day! As promised, here´s my second post for May. This time I wanted to play with stencils by creating a unique background for a layout.

I started by layering the “Aztec” stencil over a 30×30 inch piece of water color paper (taped it down with masking tape to keep it from moving) and then borrowed a white wax crayon from my kids . I covered the open spaces with wax crayon for a resist effect.

After that I flipped the mask around and stamped with an acrylic stamp (that was just big enough to fit into the open mask area) some stamp images onto the paper for more interest. When the ink dries, it looks much lighter.

Now I went on and sprayed a reasonably big amount of water onto the water color paper to make it wet. See how the wax keeps water from soaking into the paper?

Before adding spray inks I mixed them with water to create a lighter tone and then just went along and brushed the colors over the paper.

Since I added quite much water, the colors will need a while to soak into the paper, but I like the effect it creates, so I let it air dry.

After the paper is dry you can wipe over the page with a baby wipe to remove any residue ink from the wax areas. The parts that did not get totally covered with wax, will absorb color, so now you´ll see how carefully you have worked with the crayon .

You can leave the paper like this or add even more details and layers. I stamped around the edges with a background stamp to give them more interest..

..and then continued by adding even more layers with crackle paste.

I wanted to create a grey crackle paste, so I mixed some grey acrylic paint with the white paste.

Then just applied it over the “Tiny Circles” stencil with a palette knife. Depending on the medium you use, it might dry quite fast, so remember to carefully clean your stencil after using it, if you don´t want any residues left on your stencil (rinse with water)!

Next I mixed some yellow spray ink with the paste to create a light yellow tone. After that just applied it over the “Diamond” stencil and let it dry.

Now the background paper is done. You can go on adding media on it, if you like. You might notice that I added some white and black ink splatters in the end (just can´t seem to do anything without ink splatters lately..).

Finally just built up my layout by adding embellishments, stickers, stamping, rhinestones, chipboard and a photo.

Hope you have enjoyed this step-by-step! I sure have had a great time preparing these tutorials for you and playing with these stencils – thanks TCW & Jaime for having me here!!! See you around!!

Happy scrapping,
xoxo, Sanna