Off the Rails Scrapbooking: Grungy and Romance Tutorial with Elisa

Hi Everyone,

Elisa here from the Design Team for Off the Rails and I am so excited to share with you my first tutorial post for Off the Rails Scrapbooking Blog. I thought that I would share a different way of using chipboard to create a mixed media background for your layouts plus share a tip of using tissue paper to add texture and dimension.

Here is the February Challenge mood board that I used as the inspiration for my layout.

and here is the layout I created for the February Challenge and my tutorial, I don't usually work with pinks etc having two boys but I loved the idea of creating something a little grungy yet still within the theme of the mood board 'Romance' hence all the love hearts and xoxo and the recent photo of my husband and I.

Alright its tutorial time !!

Instructions are under each photo.

Step 1 - Add Gesso to your page (can be messy and bumpy) with a palette knife and dry well with a heat gun.

Step 2 - Once dry lay some smaller chipboard pieces (or wood veneer, or die cuts etc) onto the page and use your favourite colour sprays, spray directly over the chipboard pieces using them as a mask, it may seep under a little bit but don't worry!!

Step 3 - Keep spraying over the top of the pieces with another colour, I used black and white as well as bright pink. Doesn't have to be a fine mist can be larger spots and splats. Dry thoroughly after each spray of different colour leaving your last spray (of black in my case) still slightly wet.

Step 4 - Once dry take the wood veneer or chipboard pieces off and place your larger chipboard piece on the page and wet your brush with gesso, paint all over the chipboard piece making sure you go over onto your page, using your piece as a mask again, the gesso will blend with the spray and create multi tones of greg, white and black once you lift off the chipboard piece after painting on it and I made sure the laden brush went through the gaps onto the page. I also used a small spray bottle filled with water and gave it a little spray here and there to make the paint a little more fluid. AND YES it gets a little messy, don't worry!!

Step 5 - As you can see from the close up above, the chipboard 'mask' has created a textured pattern as part of your background.

Step 6 - I repeated step 5 a few more times around my page, added a few more black sprays (especially some larger splats). Also at this stage I sprayed white onto the page and created drips by tilting the page.

Step 7 - The tissue paper!! I folded my tissue paper into a few layers and punched out flower shapes (to bring out the flower elements of the mood board), I separated the flowers into singles and stuck them to the page whilst the white spray was still wet, they soaked into the background quite well.

Step 8 - I stuck down my larger piece of chipboard and added more splats of colour using my bright pink and black sprays, leaving space for where my photo was to go. I just undo the lid, grab the top with the inner tube attached and just lightly tap on the tube with my finger, it creates awesome splats using the ink left in the tube.

Step 9 - Stick the smaller pieces of wood veneer back on in almost the same position as they were but not quite so that you get an almost a shadowed effect. I also added a few more elements to the page including my photo and paper layering and black thread. At this stage I also used a white pencil or you can use a white pen to trace very lightly around the tissue paper flowers just to make them stand out a little bit.