09 September 2010

Nook U and a painting tip

This month I'm joining in some classes at My Scrapbook Nook, and this is my first assignment:



I tried to follow all of the the design rules in the Graphic Art 101 class, and mostly I think I've got it covered - focal point, contrast, flow, balance... but no matter what I tried I couldn't quite achieve the 'visual triangle'.  Hmmm... it's not very flashy, but I do love my layout, and it's very true to my style, so I think four out of five isn't too bad.

This one is for the Typography 201 class, making a feature of the title and text elements, using at least three different fonts and two different colours:


Click to enlarge 

For the larger alphabets I used two different colours of 'AdornIt' foam alphabet stickers (pale green and chocolate brown) - but the contrast was too great between those colours so I painted them with acrylic paint (Jo Sonja 'Titanium') and inked the edges (a really, really old teal Kaiser inkpad that I think I got before they started releasing scrapbooking products):



I hope this is a suitable tip to submit to Top Tip Tuesday, because I was thrilled with the result! I don't know why I've never thought about painting foam alphabets before.  I've painted chipboard ones, and acrylic ones, but it never crossed my mind to paint foam ones.

STEP 1>  Select the alphabets - I didn't have enough of the same colour so I used two different colours. (Or of course you could mix up the fonts too).  I left the letters on pieces of the acetate backing sheet so they would be easy to handle.
STEP 2>  Paint the letters with acrylic paint. I used a small foam brush, and I didn't bother with the sides, just the tops.  I only needed one coat of paint and it dried quickly too.
STEP 3>  Ink the edges.  This gave me a better result to colour-match with my layout, and it also disguised my amateur paint job.
STEP 4> Peel off and stick to the layout as usual.

11 comments :

  1. This is a fantastic tip - thank you so much for sharing!!

    Thanks for joining in with us at Top Tip Tuesday - good luck!

    Hugs
    Leanne
    xx

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  2. Both layouts are great but I love the road trip to know where! Your colors are beutiful and the letters are a perfect fit!

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  3. This is a fantastic tip to share sweetie. Love the colors you chose. Thanks so much for joining us at Top Tip Tuesday

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  4. Great tip thanks!!!
    Hugs
    Dawn x

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  5. two gorgeous pieces of work Karen :)

    Great tip to share with us for our first Top Tip Tuesday too, good luck :)

    Carol x

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  6. These are fantastic! I really love the second one!

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  7. I can see the triangle in the first layout. Seems to me you meet all teh points!! And i think Road to nowhere is magical.

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  8. Great tip! I have to say I hadn't thought of this before and I'm so happy you shared it with us at TTT! :)

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  9. Like you I never thought to paint foam alphas. Now I am going to have to give that a try. I love your layout. I think your painting is fabulous. Very vintage.

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  10. Wow I love the gorgeous layouts, fun being back at Uni? and wow that is a fantastic tip, honestly I just read this and went, yeh, why not, I am so going to do this, I have about 4 packs that I don't like the colour, now I can paint them whatever colour I want. I have a feeling you will so win this, I love the tip. Melxx

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  11. Fab layouts, Karen! When I saw the Ginger layout over at the Nook gallery, I KNEW it was yours - I remember you guinea pig layouts from CIS.

    The visual triangle in you Ginger layout is so obvious to me: may be you don't see it because it is so obvious? If you still can't figure out, give me a hint and I'll tell you what I see.

    TYF the tip on coloring alphas. The layouts are absolutely stunning and the colored alpha realy makes it pop. I have some old, boring white chipboard alphas among my stash - I really should try this out! Once again, TFS!

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