Happy Textured Background Video Tutorial

Hi crafters! Today I have a video tutorial to share with you for a fun and easy background. I turned my background into an art journal page, but you can also use it for cardmaking, tags or scrapbooking. I am going to try to do more videos. It is mainly a time problem, but I am going to try to do a technique video now and then.

Here is my finished art journal page. I worked in the large Dylusions journal and the main element of the page is the Large Outline Happy die by Simon Says Stamp, from the new Let's Connect release. The background was done with gesso and Distress Paint and it is a great neutral background that works great for many different projects. It has enough texture to be interesting, but without overwhelming other elements and it looks great combined with both bright colors, as here, or with neutral colors.

The project started with a pile of scrap papers, most of them being tests for watercolor paints and combos. They might not look much to the world as they are, but they are great for die cutting.

Die cut the Large Outline Happy from various scrap papers. You can also use scraps of patterned paper.

Die cut it five times from white cardstock and once from black. Save the left-over letters for later.

I also die cut the Leafy Branch from scrap papers. The die is from the Send Happiness release.

Coat the paper with gesso using a palette knife. Leave some texture marks and don't let the gesso go all the way to the edge. I forgot to say this part in the video. At this stage, I decided that it was a cool effect to see on video, so I moved outdoors where the light was better and recorded the video. 

Hands stained with blueberries! You might also spot a little craft injury. I burnt myself pretty bad on the iron while ironing one of the boys' huge Pokemon Hama bead figure. 

If you want to see the tutorials for the two tags and the art journal page that I showed in the video, you can find them here: Elephant Art Journal Page, Mixed Media Bird Tag and Kindness Tag.

Here's a close up of the texture. I love the fact that you can't completely control or plan how this background will end up. The texture of the gesso, together with the paint and water gets a life of their own.

And more texture.

Stamp the background with the Woodware Craft Collection Make Art stamp. I partially planned the placement of the sentiments from this great stamp and tried to avoid the areas where I was planning to place the die cut. Stamp the rest of the page here and there with the SSS Good Reading stamp.

I added a black outline letter to each die cut, spelling out the word HAPPY, starting with the H on the top die cut panel.

The letters on this panel were die cut from a piece of watercolor that had been white embossed with the SSS Spring Flowers Background and then painted. See the nice texture from the white embossing. You could not guess it is in fact flowers.

The stamping was on purpose done in an imperfect manner, since it fitted with the background. Here you can see the difference in color and texture where there is gesso and along the edge where there was no gesso.

I also added three strips of Tim Holtz Label Tape.

Draw along the edges of the white panels with a black pen to make them stand out better.

Die cutting from scrap papers gives you lovely randomly colored die cuts.

I hope you enjoyed this happy tutorial and that it inspired you to try the background technique and to use your scrap papers for die cutting.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog today! Have a great weekend!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

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