Tutorial: Distressed Metallic Paper

I stumbled upon this technique while using up leftover paint, but it's so cool (and easy!) I thought I'd share it here.

I started by painting dioxazine purple fluid acrylic onto a piece of white cardstock. Oh,and from here on, assume all fluid acrylics are mixed about 50/50 with acrylic glazing liquid.



After it was dry, I sprayed it with several colors of Ranger Adirondack Colorwash until it was pretty wet. It ends up pretty dark, and it's hard to get a good photo of it.



Here are the colors I used, but you could probably use whatever you have, as they mix together to form varying shades of brown.



Then I clipped the papers to let them drip and dry:





Once this layer was dry, I sponged on fluid acrylic in irridescent gold:



After that, while the gold was still a bit wet, I added Quinacridone Crimson to the gold and sponged that on, giving it a coppery look:



Here are the exact paints I used:



And here is the result. The first two photos are taken in my studio, and the last is a scan of one of the pages, which really doesn't show the metallic quality of the paper. I apologize for the quality of these photos!

SIX New Recycled Sweater Book Bags

I've been a busy beaver the past week and managed to turn out six new book bags for the boutique. For more information on the Ojai Handcrafts Boutique, click here.

The first bag uses a blue patterned sweater with a pair of off-white pants for the lining and pockets.







The next bag is made from a blue and purple patterned sweater and a pair of army green pants:





This one would be appropriate for a guy, with it's dark, patterned sweater and army green pants pockets and hardware-ish trim:





This one is made from an awesome bright orange and chocolate brown ski sweater and pockets from another pair of army green pants. The photo of the inside lining and pockets was too blurry to show here.



This one is one of my favorites. The front of the sweater had such a pretty pattern and great colors, but it wasn't enough for the bag flap, unless I just buttoned it up and used the placket too! And the women's pants I used for the lining and pockets had some wonderful embroidery down the leg that made an interesting lining.





The last one is made from a gorgeous red and gray and off-white sweater and a red women's skort that had drawstrings below the pockets.





So that's it for the book bags for now. I'm going to start on baby sweaters next.