There are so many images that appealed to me in this month’s Grab Bag, I had some trouble deciding just which one to use.  I finally chose the cute little ballerina (the one in a frame), but since it’s Halloween, she needed a mask and some fairy wings (used the butterfly brooch) for good measure.  I sized all three elements so they would fit on my background page then cut them out.

1. I started off with watercoloring the page with three pastel colors.  Then I pasted on a transparent paper (used a page of paint on butcher paper - that I got from one of Tangie’s surprise boxes). Make sure to get all the bubbles out - I used a credit card to scrape out all the bubbles.

2. Splashed some turquoise paint all over and then added some smudges of the same color to two spots on the page.

3. Added some ephemera to anchor the ballerina.  I used some gold spider webs (yeah Halloween) and some music paper (loved that I found some with the word “ballet” to go with my little ballerina).

4. To mute down the music paper, scraped a thin layer of gesso over the paper. Pasted the ballerina (with mask and wings) to the page. Outlined ballerina with black ink and added doodles in white ink.

Just love my little ballerina!

TB&CO Grab Bags are only available for a limited time and priced on a sliding scale, for more information visit TB&CO Grab Bags. 

[Posted by:Jan Nicholas]