Making artist's papers

This morning Laura slept late so Lily and I decided to fill in the time looking at craft videos on Youtube. We looked at a whole bunch, Lily was so inspired that she wanted to craft too. The video that finally put her over the inspirational top was this one about making artist's papers from Stampington & Co. (In Week 1 of the workshop in my book, The Artistic Mother, I have directions for making background papers, which is pretty much the same as 'artists papers')



At first I was reluctant as I would have to get out all those supplies and then Laura may come down and want to do it too and then we would never get school started. But when Lily offered to get the supplies out I knew she really wanted to craft and I didn't want to deny her just cause I was being a little lazy. As I looked at her earnest face I envisioned the project I had the wave of motivation I needed.

She picked out pink and purple paint and got a large paint brush off my craft table. I found a piece of bubble wrap conveniently stored on the ground in my craft room and tore a few pages out of an old journal for the background. Lily choose a few stamps. I grabbed my favorite Staz On ink and a piece of yesterdays local newspaper and we were good to go.

A few weeks ago in nature class we studied flowers and we pressed a few (sadly, not grown in our garden, but bought from the florist). I remembered them and suggested she use them in her artist's papers. Everything was was coming together smoothly and easily.



Step One:

Here she is stamping with acrylic paint on bubble wrap, just as in the video.


She worked in a conveyor belt style, completing each step on each background sheet at the same time.


Step Two:

She randomly stamped a heart and snowflake rubber stamp with purple and orange Staz On ink.

Step Three:

Lily then glued on the pressed flowers. She planned out where the flowers would go first and then used regular liquid school glue to glue them in place. It was then that she decided to give these papers to her friends. I suggested that because the substrate is old paper they would need to be mounted onto something. We brainstormed ideas and decided cardboard would be best and that we could make them into wall hangings! For Christmas gifts! Way to go Lily thinking ahead.

Step Four:

She typed up her friends names and choose pretty fonts. I printed them onto card stock and trimmed them with her choice of decorative edged scissors. Lily glued them in place.

Step Five:

Later I mounted them on cardboard, covered them in scrapbook paper and layered the papers on top. I decided to do this portion as I used a kraft knife to cut the cardboard (so the lines would be straight) and then spray glue to fix the papers in place and she is too young to do either.

Step Six will be to add wire hangers. I will get to is soon, as I promised her :)