Technique - whitewashing orphaned papers

On the latest DVD from Scrapbook Creations, featuring Lorraine Bate, there is a wonderful technique for orphaned papers.

You know the ones! I am sure I liked them when I bought them (although the postage stamps paper kinda surprises even me! What was I thinking!!!) but now they just don't cut it any more.

Well this technique will rescue them.


On both these pages for a Kind Gesture swap, I've used nine squares of paper from my stash of scraps. Each piece was chosen because it was pink or blue. There were no other criteria.




Here's how.

You will need:
Scraps of patterned paper in one colourway eg all pink-ish
A square punch
White paint (I used Heidi Swapp)

Tools:
Paint brush
Pallette
Water container
Newspaper to spread beneath the squares whilst you paint them.

Here's how:

1. Punch nine squares out of the papers.
2. Lie the paper down on the newspaper.
3. Mix up a very runny wash of white paint and water. Don't go too far though - you still want a definite white look to the paint.
4. Paint each piece of paper.
5. Let dry and then apply further coats till it looks just right. I used two coats on some dark pink and brown papers but only one coat on a light spotted blue.
6. The edges will curl slightly. If you don't like this look, iron them slightly face down on the board. I personally like the curled, hand made look.

For the page above I:

• Painted a light wash of paint over Bazzill cardstock.
• Adhered the paper beginning with the middle square and working out to the sides.
• To work out which paper goes where I looked at the colour or the pattern. So bright pink went next to bright pink OR floral next to floral OR stripe next to stripe. This gives a more cohesive look to the page.
• Added three large mulberry flowers and several small Prima flowers.
• Glued buttons on the big flowers using Pritt Power Gel and made French knots on the small flowers.
• Stitched flourishes until I liked the look of the page.
• Stamped out the title of bits of cardstock and adhered them. One of the flourishes looked a bit dodgy to me so I simply adhered the title over the top.
• Put a few stitches in if needed to further embellish the page.
• Handwrote a message on the back.

You can find a sketch here.