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Tutorial: Upcycling Blank Newsprint

I got my Studio Calico kit on Friday.  Along with the kit, I had ordered some American Crafts binders.  So the kit came in a big box with some packing paper.  A few pieces of crumpled newsprint.  Well, I couldn't let that newsprint go to waste!  I decided to pretty it up and turn it into wrapping paper.

This is what the newsprint looks like when you pull it out of the box:

Crumpledpaper
Uncrumple the paper and grab a permanent marker.  Something that won't run when you add water on top of it.

Permapaque
I used a Permapaque by Sakura

Now, go ahead and draw a design all over the paper.  I chose to do flowers.

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You can see how big that piece of newsprint is in the first picture.  It's about 2'x3', so lots of room to doodle!

After I was satisfied with my flowers, I added three colors of Adirondack Color Wash (Butterscotch, Red Pepper, and Stream).

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Then I used a large wet paintbrush (just wet with water) to blend all the color together.  Adirondack Color Wash is water-reactive, so it blends beautifully.

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(All the water actually flattens out your paper too, which is a nice side benefit.)  While the paper was still wet, I picked out a few flowers to decorate with gesso.

Gessoflowers
I love the way the white stands out against that colorful background!

To finish it off, I flicked my paintbrush (loaded with water and gesso) to get great big white splats everywhere.

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If flowers aren't your thing, here's one on which I drew a random pattern.

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And I used watercolor paints for a bit more control in the coloring phase.

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I skipped the gesso and sprayed this one with red and then black watercolor splats.

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Here's another look at the scale of these doodly paintings:

Working
It takes up a lot of desk space!

Once your pretty doodles dry, you can roll up the paper and save it to wrap a gift later, or you can use it right away.  Wouldn't you like to get a pretty gift like this?

Packagewrapped
FlowerDetail
It's for my Dad (yes, you can put a flower on a package for a man), whose birthday is coming up soon!  The flower, by the way, is from Nat Kalbach's line of paper called eMotions.  Pretty, right?

So, the next time you get a package don't just throw away the stuffing!  Make it into something lovely!

Thanks for stopping by!

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