@erinmcrafts: August 2023

Hi, friends! Finally prioritized some post-pandemic crafty time! Today I’m sharing this minimal — yet dramatic! 💥 — piece I made to hang in my creative space. It’s one of my fave phrases (Tim Holtz also has a wonderful sign in his studio that has this quote on it, you can see it here on his Instagram)… so, consider me inspired! 💡

Let me show you some of my steps for this project…

The Background…

Started by painting two pieces of mixed media heavystock paper with a red/orange/yellow blend

Stamped one sheet with the Bubble stamp in clear ink, then sprinkled on black embossing powder and heat set

Glued the paper down on an 8x8 art panel with collage medium

I added some extra definition to the bubbles with Black Soot paint, then trimmed the excess paper with a razor blade and smoothed the edges with a sanding block

The Letters…

Cut three sets of letters from the Theories font set

Glued together and painted with Black Soot

On the other painted paper, I used the Bubbles stamp with clear ink again, then sprinkled on the matching distress glazes + heat set, and cut into strips

Then cut another set of letters from each strip and glued on top of my black letters

The Strips…

Next, I wanted to add some dimensional black ‘strips’ for my letters to rest on, and realized two bracket trim chipboard pieces were the perfect height… I trimmed off the middle bracket part with a razor blade

Then I painted with Black Soot and glued together, using a paper reinforcer on the backside for strength

Once I had my strips and letters glued down on the panel, I trimmed the strip flush with the edge then added some thicker collage medium on top to hide the seam