Baltimore

We are teaming up with Artastic for a great collaborative case file over at CSI and I had so much fun creating this layout for the collaboration!  I have been wanting to try photo transferring to paper for quite awhile and when I found this photo of the skyline of Baltimore, Maryland, I knew it was the perfect chance to try it out.  You can see full details on the case file by CLICKING HERE.

Here is the case file:

Since the photo shows my daughter looking up (in total awe) at the tall buildings in Baltimore, I wanted to find a photo that showed the skyline of Baltimore, and the waterfront as well.  I searched some google images and once I found a photo I liked, I printed it in panoramic mode onto plain 8x11 printer paper and got to work on transferring it.  I looked through Pinterest and a bunch of different blogs for guidance on how to attack this transfer, and found tons of helpful "how-to" tutorials out there.  THIS ONE from Mixed Media Artist looked the easiest so that's the one I went with.  Here's a quick step by step.  I will try to do a video tutorial now that I have the hang of it, but I didn't think to do progression photos since I was just figuring the technique out myself.

1.  Before printing your photo, be sure to reverse the image so that when it is laid down and transferred onto your paper, it doesn't come out backwards.

2.  Print the photo on plain copy paper.  I used 8x11 printer paper.

3.  Prepare the paper you are transferring onto with a layer of Mod Podge or gel medium.  I used a matte gel medium so that it wouldn't be glossy.

4.  As soon as you lay the medium down, immediately place your image onto the paper and smooth it out well using a brayer or even a credit card or something if you don't have a brayer available.

5.  Lift/peel up the paper.  QUICKLY.  It took me quite a few tries to get this part right and to manage to get my image onto the paper without pulling up the cardstock I was trying to transfer the image onto.  It still peeled in a few spots, but nothing that I couldn't deal with.  All in all, you really only want to use the brayer for about 10 seconds, and as soon as you feel that it is flattened out well, start peeling.

6.  If there is any remnants left of the transfer paper, you can gently rub them away.  Once complete, you should be left with a nice transfer image to work with.  Here is mine.

**I tried it with photo paper and did not get a good transfer. I found that the ink from the printer transferred most easily with plain old copy paper.  I would love to hear from anyone who has good luck with the photo paper technique!**

And that's it!  It really does take a little practice but what a fun technique to add to your paper crafting arsenal.  If you try it, I'd love to see what you create and hear how it goes.  Here are a few closeups.  Happy transferring!

Aside from printing on the background cardstock, I also did a transfer of the same image on a stronger mixed media paper.  Then I cut it out and popped it out to give the illusion of layers and rows of buildings in a city.

There are those great canvas Thickers again!  A good old stick pin worked out nicely to pull the red in from the case file.

I found these little metal bicycles in the bargain bins at Michael's.  $3 for 3 bronze, and 3 silver.  Good deal!

 Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you will play along with this great case file.  Be sure to upload to the galleries over at Artastic as well as CSI if you do!  Happy Scrapping!

xoxo,

Shawna