The anniversary celebration with the Stuck?! Sketches blog and design team continues with another awesome sketch challenge, this one posted by Laura Whitaker on September 15, 2014. As always it’s a gooder! (That’s a word right?)

Here is the Sept 15-2014 Challenge and Celebration Sketch at Stuck?! Sketches:

Oh I do love multi photo sketches and this one has me inspired to create the background with paints and mists instead of using patterned paper. So off to the races I went and here is what I came up with.

Supplies: Heidi Swapp No Limits Collection; Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Pumice Stone); Martha Stewart Crafts Gesso Primer (white); Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Peeled Paint); Savvy Stamps – Long Chevron; Memory Box Stencil – Mesh; Color Box Fluid Chalk (Yellow Ochre); Heidi Swapp Color Shine (Chartreuse); My Tattered Angels Plain Jane Simply Sheer (Pure Steel); Heidi Swapp Color Shine (White); Tim Holtz Idea-ology Tiny Attacher; Jillibean Soup Mini Alpha Spicy Social Soup; Jillibean Soup Gumbo Green Thin Chip Beanboard Alpha; My Mind’s Eye Record It All Things Chalk Enamel Dots; We R Memory Keepers Enamel Shape (Neutral); Bazzill Basics Paper Textured Cardstock; green baler twine; and Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue

To create the background I … well … just … played with stuff. Yup that’s it. Pretty technical, eh? Here is a quick overview of my process, and you will see there was no rhyme or reason but I sure like how it turned out.  🙂

1. Selected a muted patterned paper as my background, in this case it was one of the great papers of the Heidi Swapp No Limits Collection;
2. Distressed the edges of the page using the Stampin Up Distress Tool (which, by the way, is an absolutely amazing tool and a definite go-to-all-the-time-in-my-tool-box kind of tool);
3. Inked the edges of the page with Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Pumice Stone) – and inked them really dramatically so the corners really picked up the grey ink quite a bit;
4. Where there is pattern paper strips on the sketch, I used a wide paint brush to stripe some Martha Stewart Crafts Gesso Primer (white);
5. Once the gesso dried I streaked some Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Peeled Paint) over the gesso by just rubbing the ink pad directly on the paper and gesso;
6. Once that dried I applied Savvy Stamps – Long Chevron again using the Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Peeled Paint);
7. Once that dried I applied the Memory Box Stencil – Mesh with the Color Box Fluid Chalk – Yellow Ochre over the gesso and the green streaks I created … but oops I didn’t actually wait long enough for the original green to dry so I ended up with a green/yellow mesh that really works;
8. Once that dried I splashed some Heidi Swapp Color Shine – Chartreuse and My Tattered Angels Plain Jane Simply Sheer – Pure Steel using the pump tube not the actual mister (just screw off the top and flick the pump tube at the paper);
9. Once that dried (there is a theme here eh!) I then sprayed the all over with Heidi Swapp Color Shine – White;
10. Then I flicked it with watered down Martha Stewart Crafts Gesso Primer (white) over where I had previously flicked the grey and the green mist paint; and
11. Added some enamel dots, some random twine secured with fun little staples, my pictures, and a title – voila!

Here is a close up of all the above play-to-create-mess.

Congrats again Stuck?! Sketches on your anniversary celebration.