Image Transfer

The current topic over on the PaperArtsy Blog is Image Transfers.  The Challenge Post, filled with great information, is HERE.  I decided to try a small gel medium transfer and chose to use a picture of myself.  It was a color picture but I printed it on a black only laser printer.  I grabbed a large tag that already had layers of paint and maybe other things on it.  I added some Fresco Finish Snowflake in the area I was going to do the transfer - it pulled up some yellow color from below it.  I opted to leave that bleeding color and go ahead.  I put down some soft gel medium, smoothed it with my finger, laid the picture face down and burnished it well.  I tried to leave it to dry but did use a heat tool also and I think I didn't let it dry long enough as I did get a little rub off of the picture when I wet and rubbed off the paper.  Overall it didn't do bad, which surprised me.  I did wish once the transfer was done that I had done another layer of white paint so it wasn't so yellow looking but, oh well.  The color already on the tag was quite bright which didn't seem to go with the pic to me so I rubbed on Fresco Finish Toffee with a baby wipe to tone it down.  Then to get rid of the edges of the pic transfer and to kind of frame it, I put Snowflake paint around the pic using a Catalyst straight edge brush giving the look of lots of texture.  Next I stenciled leaves (PaperArtsty Jofy PS012) using Grunge Paste mixed with a little Guacamole paint.  Once the paste was dry I put the stencil back on and painted Fresco Finish Limelight and Hey Pesto on top, let that dry, put the stencil back on, stamped text (PaperArtsy Sara Naumann ESN11) with Archival Ink Leaf Green, dried it and added shading along the paste with a Faber-Castell Big Brush Pen blending it out with a small stencil brush.  Next I stamped some more leaves (PaperArtsy Sara Naumann ESN17) between the paste leaves with Leaf Green and colored them in with a Big Brush Marker.  More detail was added to all the leaves with a white pen.  On top I've added lace, die cut leaves (cut from green paper, painted a bit with Limelight, and stamped with text), flowers made from die cutting either book paper or music paper - color added with Distress Ink and Perfect Pearls Mists.  After everthing was glued on I used a silver pen to add more detail to the die cut leaves.  "Joy" is a Christine Adolf sticky rub-on... I put it on and then added silver foil on top.  To give it some dimension I went along one edge of each letter with a black pen.  Because of the silver joy I thought I needed more silver and added a silver button to the center of the large flower and then mixed some silver glass glitter, both chunky and regular, with transparent embossing paste and put it on the edges.  I added some Idea-ology rub-ons and an Idea-ology small talk sticker, yellow on the sticker done with a Big Brush Pen.  Some ribbon at the top and it's done.  This was just pure play for me and I had a fabulous time!!!!