One final background

 

I am STILL unable to leave comments to anyone who uses embedded comments.  I get "failed to publish," and, even though I keep trying, I get the same message every time and have for three days. This is very frustrating, especially since I joined so many challenge blogs this week.  I appreciate your patience.

This is my final background I plan to create.  Tomorrow I will share a few bEARTHday dos and don'ts.

Supplies from left to right:

3 primary colors of your choice

Lid to roll pages

Old book pages

Raw umber (needed for technique)

For my primary colors, I chose Hansa Yellow Medium, Pyrole Red, and Ultramarine Blue.  As you can see, these are all relatively translucent.  Scrunch the book pages as tight as possible.  I had a lot of trouble with this step because of my hands and because the pages I chose were old and tended to crumble.

Place a bit of Raw Umber on the lid.

Roll the pages in the paint.  

Be sure all sides are covered.

 

Straighten pages and allow paint to dry.  The late afternoon sun was shining on my table making it hard to see these pages.

My favorite is the page that didn't crumble.

Once the paint is completely dry,

 

iron the pages.

Water down your lightest color paint to make it similar to a watercolor.  I used about 50% paint to water.  Paint it randomly on the pages.  I tried to paint in three different areas on each book page.  I loved how the paint settled into the pages after they had been ironed. 

I hadn't expected to have so much yellow left over, so I added a tiny bit two drops of red to the yellow and got a lovely orange.

Start with a new cup of red paint and water.  Add red to the pages.  You can either allow each color to dry before adding the next color, or you can let the wet colors merge.

Add your final color and fill in all the places where there had been no color before.

Although it's still wet, this is by far my favorite because it didn't crumble.

When completely dry, I scanned the two best pages:

Ruminations:

1. Use soft, pliable book pages for this technique.

2.  If the pages crumble when you scrunch them, your project is doomed.  

3.  Pick the size pages you want that will fit the proper background (i.e., if you are making cards, tags, or ATCs)

This is Day 21 of 22 and I recycled four book pages that had been removed from previous projects.

Again, I want to thank you beyond belief for joining me on this journey to recycle and repurpose items that would normally go to the trash, recycle bin, or languish in your stash for years and years.