Masking with Misting and Stitching

A few years ago I hosted a blog post on the SCT blog about masking with mist and stitchery.  I just happened to see it linked on Facebook and realized I never did post about it here so thought I'd share since this trend seems to be coming back again.

Originally posted on the SCT blog September, 2011:


I decided to play with the ampersand mask for this layout.  I’m going to creating a mask with the ampersand and spray over it with Mister Huey mist.  So to start, I needed to determine where on my layout I’d like this element to be.  Then I put my base paper in a box, to help contain the spray, and layered the mask over it.

After doing that, I stood back with my spray, and lightly spritzed it over the ampersand.  I wanted a monochromatic look, and for the mask to stand out just a little, so used the color Clay over this mask.

Remove the mask, and you’ll see the ampersand shape, with the misted color around it.

I still wanted to maintain a monochromatic look, but I wanted my ampersand defined, so hand stitched around the edges.  To do that I used the same needle that I hand stitch with, and pierced holes around the edges of my shape.  Its hand stitching and I don’t want it to look perfect, so it was okay that each stitch wasn’t evenly placed.  You’ll also notice that the piercing was closer together on corners, etc., without being too close or you’ll perforate the paper.

I then took my DMC floss, which comes in 6 strands, split it into 3 strands, and hand stitched around the edges of the shape.  This created a fun detail to this element on my page.

For the rest of my layout, I created layers to add more texture, and a fun photo of my daughter with one of her chickens. 

A year and a half later and I still like this layout.  :)  That's a good sign!  Sunshine is still clucking along in the coop too as Morgan's favorite chicken.