Well, obviously, because it would be very sad if a librarian didn’t love books.

I brought home a bunch of artsy books from the library recently, and I am enjoying leafing through them for inspiration.  Amplified Art: Dynamic Techniques for High-Impact Pages by Kass Hall does not disappoint.

The first project, Making Your Own Collage Pages had me at hello.  I’ve been wanting to play around with my stencils, and I often think about using my tools to create original art.  This project is the perfect combination of these two ideas.  When the project is complete, I will end up with original art that I can copy over and over and change and morph into backgrounds for cards, notebooks, canvases, whatever I want.

First step, trace stencils in pencil, be sure to overlap and fill in the whole sheet.  I used a 12×12 piece of white cardstock.  In retrospect, I probably should have used 8.5 X 11, but it worked.

Next, trace over all your pencil lines in pen.  I used the Project Life by Stampin’ Up!  Journaling Pen in 05.

After getting all your lines traced over, making sure to think about what images will be in front of which, erase all your stray pencil lines.  My ink faded a little during this process, but, that’s fine.

Then, make copies!!!

Finally, get our your favorite mode of applying color, I used Distress Markers, and get to work!

The book goes on to recommend filling in all the background with black to really make your images pop.  I think I will try that on another copy of my collage.

I learned a few things from this process:

1. I don’t have enough stencils.
2. Make sure you keep your original so you can go back to it again and again.
3. It’s super fun to color your own, hand made coloring pages.

Other suggestions in the book are to doodle in some of the blank spaces (cool), and use patterned paper to cover some of your stenciled images (super cool).

I am looking forward to exploring more of Amplified Art by Kass Hall. The step-by-step photographs are great quality, and really show the processes explained and the author writes with a simple and inspiring tone, making the projects accessible and fun.  I recommend this book, see if you can get your hands on a copy.