Book Study and B is for Beeswax Collage

On NGS group were doing a Book Study of Julia Andrus' book "Paper Transformed". This week we're looking at the section on Beeswax Collage.
She recommends having all your components ready as the wax hardens very quickly. I found a colorful napkin to be the background and added some stamped branches with brown StazOn ink. Julia also recommends using a paint brush that will only be used for beeswax.
Not sure if I'm slow or if it's the beeswax I used, but I found the wax hardening much faster than I could work with my components. Solution: place piece on foil in a craft use only electric fry pan. This kept the beeswax melted and allowed me plenty of time to add and move the different pieces.

Julia also mentioned the dry mica powders and Perfect Pearls could be added to the hot wax, so I added two different ones I had in my supplies. Also inked a stamp with silver Color Box ink and stamped it into one corner while the wax was still hot. Removed the stamp once the wax had hardened.

Here's my first beeswax collage:

B is for Book of Background Techniques

I've signed up for the "B is for..." swap on ccswaps. As I was doing the various "B" named background techniques, I enjoyed the Little book of Techniques that Trish B sent me at Christmas. I'm hoping, since I enjoy it so much, maybe my swap partner will also enjoy receiving a little Book of Background Techniques, focusing on the "B" ones, of course.
Decided a Butterfly would be a good embellishment to add to my Bargello cover for the front of the book. Butterfly made by cutting small pieces of light blue Angelina fibers, placing them between 2 sheets of Mother of Pearl Fantasy Film, laying it on Purple StazOn inked butterfly stamp and heating with a hot iron over a sheet of parchment paper.
Finished front with Bargello cover. Used jump rings to bind the book together, in case the recipient wants to add more background pages later.

Used Black Pearl Background Papers for inside covers and embellished front with a quote on vellum and a larger butterfly made with Fantasy Film scraps and Angelina Fibers between two sheets of Fantasy film like the process on top, just a different stamp.

Inside back cover, added a strip of the bubble wrap background, a mini row house and another Fantasy Film Butterfly.

Back cover, image stamped with black Archival Ink and heat set on Brayered Pearl Background.

Swap partners won't be posted until the end of the month, so I can add more background pages if I think of them.....

B is for Bargello

I made a bargello card last year when we were doing a study of Nancy Curry's book "Textured Effects of Rubber Stamping". I wanted to make one today for a book cover. Started with one of the Brayered Pearl Backgrounds I made earlier this week. Stamped butterflies with black Archival Ink and heat set.
Ran the card stock through a Zyron to make the back sticky. Cut the card stock into strips of varying sizes and started to play with design options

Adhered the strips to black glossy card stock. Stamped a large image with silver Color Box ink and embossed with detail clear embossing powder and heat set.

That's the basic Bargello, now to think about embellishment options.

Black Pearls Background

I did this technique before using paper towels as the base. This time, I tried it on a napkin. I like the thinner base.
Place napkin or paper towel on to foil or plastic. Sponge black (or other dark color) acrylic paint on to a napkin.
While the paint is wet, used a baby wipe to dab on metallic paint. Here I used Copper Lumiere Paint.

Once the paint has completely dried, remove it from the foil/plastic layer.

Also did this technique with a mixture of two Lumiere metallic paints, Super Sparkle and Pearl Turquoise.

Result:

Bubble wrap backgrounds

Another fun "B" technique is to use bubble wrap. I inked up the bubble wrap with a rainbow dye ink pad.

Flipped it on to a piece of coated card stock and ran the brayer over it.

Result:

Reinked the bubble wrap and this time used an acrylic block to press the bubble wrap on to the coated card stock.

Result:

Brayered VersaMark Resist

Brayer dye ink on coated card stock (I like the ranbow pads).

Stamp an image on to the inked card stock with VersaMark ink and heat set.

Brayer a darker colored dye ink over the surface, I used a dark blue dye ink.

Wipe off the extra ink over the stamped image with a tissue or paper towel. Here's the result:

And another one:

Next a set using a darker rainbow ink color for the first layer, and again stamping images with VersaMark ink and heat setting.

Used the same dark blue ink pad for the top layer:

and another:

Brayered Watercolors

Another fun brayer background technique. Place a small amount of two or three colors of watercolor paint on a craft sheet or other plastic.

Dampen brayer with water and roll into the watercolor paints, be careful not to get the mixture too mixed and muddy.

Roll onto card stock. This is one watercolor paper:

This is on coated card stock:

Another one on coated card stock, a bit more careful not to muddy the colors as much: