Gingerbread and lots of paint

A couple of weeks ago I shared some photos of the intricate gingerbread creations we saw at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.  I scrapped these photos using techniques that are new to me via the "Dirty Fingers/Clean Design" class at True Scrap.

During our visit to Asheville, we visited a lot of art galleries including some workshops with the artists working while we browsed.  It was so inspiring.  I was delighted to play with paint and ink on this page about part of our trip   The main technique I used from the class was to paint, mask, mist, stamp and splatter on book pages.  I didn't buy any holiday paper this year so I started with one piece of old My Mind's Eye (the stripe) as my color palette.  It worked with all the busy photos.  I pulled several paints in the red, blue, green and gold.  One of my favorite things is to mix up paint colors to create a match so this was a wonderful chance to do that and throw in a little misting while making my own pattern paper.

In the class, Julie suggests using book pages as background.  This worked beautifully except for one thing. Be careful what book you pick!  It was the first time I'd ever pulled a book apart.  I had to get over that.  We get most of our books from the library so my pickings were slim.  I had a popular novel someone had given my husband he had already read.  It was a crime story and I pulled pages from the end.  After I cut up my completed pages, there were a few words and phrases peeking through that let's say were 'inappropriate' for these cute little gingerbread houses.

I'll have to look for some other cast off books that I might not have to cover words with ribbon or extra paint in future.  :-)

Here's my project in process...

The class also inspired me to look for everyday things to make into stamps.  This wasn't the first time I've heard of doing this but finally it sank in.  A trip to the dollar store yielded some white Styrofoam snowflakes that made great stamps.  I covered one side in paint and just stamped it on my background paper.

I'm still in awe of the craftsmanship of these gingerbread creations and I hope we get to go back again next year to see what people dream up.

Thanks for visiting!