Hello! It’s Robyn Wood with you today sharing a little crafty hack I’ve been using lately to make an easy to use sanding tool.
I like adding a bit of texture with texture paste to early layers in my journal pages. This usually means that once I’ve come close to finishing the page, the texture paste is well covered with layers of colour. I tried using a bit of sandpaper to the raised parts but found loose sandpaper or my usual larger sanding block a little annoying to use & I didn’t get the subtle effect I was looking for.
My Tim Holtz ink blending tools are always at hand on my desk, so I came up with the idea of converting one of the round mini ink blending tools to a sanding block. Felt discs are available for use with alcohol inks & these make the perfect substrate for an easily replaceable sanding disc.
Firstly, I punched out a couple of discs using a 1¼” circle punch. I had 400grit sandpaper on hand but you can use your favourite. An added bonus is that you will give your punch a little sharpen:)
A touch of Helmar Fabric Glue to the sandpaper disc will give a good, strong bond to the felt disc. Put something heavy on top for a little while as it dries to ensure you get good adhesion of paper to fabric.
Then you are good to go, attach the sandpaper disc to the blending handle and sand away until you get the desired effect. I like to take off random areas of paint to give a splotchy, uneven look. Brush away the dust before you move to the next step.
After sanding the background, I coloured a couple of stamped images using watercolour markers and added them with a stamped quote using Helmar Tacky Craft Glue. A hand drawn border finished my page.
Supplies:
Helmar Fabric Glue
Helmar Tacky Craft Glue
Tim Holtz Mini Ink Blending Tool & felt disc
Scrap of sandpaper
Darkroom Door stamps
Texture paste, paint, watercolour markers
I hope you have enjoyed learning about my little crafty hack – I hope it is useful to you! Until next time…
