Altered Address Labels - Tutorial

Do you get so many address labels in the mail that you don't ever use them all? Or, in my case, I keep receiving ones for my daughter who hasn't lived with us or in Texas for ten years! I was about to throw them away but then had an "aha" moment and decided to alter them! I used a few in one of my recent weekly spreads and promised to share a tutorial. So here goes:

1. Cover the label sheet with one or two coats of gesso. You can see that they aren't totally covered but the following steps will take care of that.

2. Paint with two colors of acrylic paint with a paintbrush or old key card or your fingers. (I used a hot pink and light blue which combined to make a violet.)

3. I added more pink.

4. Then more blue.

5. "Stamp" with white paint and bubble wrap.

6. Stamp with black permanent ink (I used a chevron roller stamp).

7. The black stood out too much so I applied more white paint with bubble wrap to soften it. (Can you tell that this is a back-and-forth process? Put something on, add something to cover that, add more, etc...)

8. Add small dots with pink paint and a piece of shelf liner.

9. Add more white with corrugated cardboard (a coffee cup wrapper).

10. Stamp script randomly with black permanent ink. Finished - or just keep going until you like it!

 Here are a few of the labels from the finished sheet. Each one looks different, but they coordinate.

And here are a few more I have done.

Sometimes the labels are bigger and you could even punch shapes from them.

The possibilities are endless and you can recycle and use something that would have been thrown in the trash! I hope you will give it a try!