Beer Mat Art?

Hello all...  Lovely to have your company for a while here at Words and Pictures (especially if this is your second trip today!  If you're looking for the new Fun With ATCs challenge, you'll find it here.)


I'm here with another design piece for eclectic Paperie, and it's one of the projects I've been mentioning which uses the new Donna Downey hedgerow stamps from Unity.


You may already have seen the first tag I made with them, and now I'm back with something a bit more substantial.








As usual with an eP post, you'll find links at the foot of the page to take you to all the ingredients I've used.


I created this mini-album out of beer mats (or coasters, if you prefer), some paint and some stamps, simple as that really!


I love the projects where you go from a few unassuming ingredients to having a whole book, or whatever it is, in your hands - it delights me to create something out of nothing.



I've got an insanely busy and exciting week coming up (watch this space!!) so I'll try really hard to keep this fairly brief... though there are, of course, plenty of photos.










I gave each mat a rough coat of Ice Blue Fresco paint (though any acrylic would do) leaving plenty of the white surface showing at the edges for a slightly rustic look.











I added some of the Tim Holtz tissue tape from the Hobgoblin set for texture.  Snap'em up - they're in the eP Clearance section at half price!  Click the picture link below to go straight there.















I then used a piece of card to add strokes of dark brown paint.












They're sort of intended to be a little bit 'grassy', but really I just like the dynamic look of them!














I used Coffee Archival and Memento Teal Zeal inks to stamp the Delicate Flowers and the Wayward Blooms by Unity.  On sides where the DFs are in Coffee, the WBs are in Teal and vice versa, creating variations on each double page spread.











The quotes are selected from both the Empowered Words and the Art and Possibility set, as I wanted each of them to include a "handwritten" word.

They're stamped in Coffee Archival and mounted on dark brown cardstock, randomly torn and inked.  Lots of fun arranging these so that they made the best use of the backgrounds I'd created.













Obviously there's lots of inking with Gathered Twigs too, but pretty much my favourite part of this project was adding highlights using the Inkssentials white gel pen.


It's remarkable how therapeutic it is dotting in all the blossoms on the flowers - you enter a kind of Zen trance state!


That's also how this little book feels to me... 







Since there's relatively little variation from page to page, it really foregrounds the quotes, and allows the mind to soften and contemplate. It's very calming.

I've no idea whether what I'm doing is art, but it certainly makes me happy!






The front and back covers got some extra inking to "weather" them, and I used double strands of twine to bind my little book, and that was pretty much that.









As this consists of beer mats altered to make a book, I'm going to offer it as some extra inspiration to join the current eclectic Paperie Get Altered challenge - Altered Books.








All the details of the challenge are here, and there's a prize voucher, generously sponsored by Kim at eP.  It would be great to have you play along.

For now, thank you so much for your time, and I hope you'll be able to drop by later in the week when all sorts of excitement is going to kick off!!  Happy Crafting in the meantime!

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.
From I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

Learn to be silent.  Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.
Pythagoras

I'm going to make this a second entry into the colour challenge Blues, Browns & Beige over at the  Flonzcraft Vintage Stamping Challenge.  Well, if you will pick my favourite colours as the theme...



Click the picture link to go straight to the product:

Unity Stamp Company - Wayward Blooms (Donna Downey)	Unity Stamp Company - Delicate Flowers (Donna Downey)	Unity Stamp Company - Art & Possibility (Donna Downey)	Unity Stamp Company - Empowered Words (Donna Downey)	Chipboard Coasters - 10-Pack - 4"x4" Square - Lightweight
Paperie - Hobgoblin Tissue Tape	Inksessentials White Gel Pen	Archival #0 Pad - Coffee	Tsukineko - Memento Teal Zeal	Distress Ink Pad - Vintage Photo