Debs Palette (Deborah Stephens) : AASG- You and Me Swap

I belong to a really great Australian Art swap group on Facebook, with a really fantastic, supportive bunch of people. I actually stumbled across them on the 'interweb' when I started googling art journals as a serious thing for the first time last year. Anyway, that's an art journal story for another time.

So.. In this Facebook group, People organise art swaps of all kinds including Digital, ATC's, Printing, DAJ's and even our kids get to take part in Junior swaps (which my son and I just ADORE!).

This post is about a swap called "You and Me." You were to pick 6 items from your stash including , textures, fabrics, stamps etc and send 2 lots of these to your assigned partner. When you get your package from your partner, you were to create 2 Index Card sized pieces of art using at least 3 of those items and anything else from your own stash you liked. Simple right?? I thought so...until I realized I had created 3 different versions of this art without adding the required amounts of received elements each time! I'm still not 100% happy with it, as it was a frustrating process,but followed my old rule "When In doubt, Bling it out" and that raised my happiness level a little.

Supplies I was given: Damask print brown paper bag, script washi tape, some metallic rubber mesh, gold ribbon, poison stamped images and a metal embellishment.

I started with student grade acrylic in purple my favourite colour.

Then using Gesso and a Prima damask Stencil to add some texture to the card.

It looked a little busy so I then used a baby wipe to smudge it a up. I took a lot off the middle as that's where I wanted to place my stamped image.

I printed my quote on plain paper and cut it into strips which I then inked up with Tim Holtz Distress ink in Bundled sage.

I then cut the strip into words and stuck onto the washi tape. I used Faber Castle Pit Pen in brown to create shadows around the edges.

Using the Tim Holtz Mixed Media Die set #1, and the Big Shot I cut the patterns on the top and bottom of the cards.

I had embossed the Stampotique Brand ,Angel image in black glitter and silver straight onto the card but because of the nature of the stamp, it all melded together to look like a silhouette instead of being detailed....so ...

I wasted more time using some clear crackle texture paste and leaving it to dry, I figures it would act as a sealer over the tape and wording as well. While this dried, I stamped the image onto CopicBlending paper...but again, way too much black showed up and the copics would only show up properly on the shadows. Then I used water colour pencils (yes.. I went there..on alcohol blending paper) and cut it all out when I finished.