Technique Thursday - Extending your stash with overlays and brushes

Hi there!
Have a little tip for a technique to extend your paper stash today!

So you have this nice solid card stock!  Nice color, but want a little more artsy style to it?




Take an overlay you have and pull into the layer above your card stock layer and name  it 'Overlay'.  Change the layer blending mode to soft light to lighten the tint.  (You can experiment with other blending modes, just use this one for now.)

I used my Overlay from Artist's Tool Box 08.

So now you have a nice softly grunged paper.  

Now let's create a new layer above your overlay layer.  (Shift/cmd-N) and let's name it 'Brushwork'

Using your Brush Tool (B), select a texture brush you like.  I again used one of mine from my Artist's Tool Box 08.  And just stamp a few in a pleasing pattern.  I used the color black.
Change the layer blend to Soft Light again to keep it simple for now.

Now we have another nice background.  That's 3 from one card stock paper.

Now… want to have 2 more real fast, but have them coordinating with these?

 

Easy peasy!  Select your Overlay layer and click cmd/ctrl I.  

Do the same with your Brushwork layer.

This inverts the color of the layer from black to white.

Like magik, you have 2 more coordinating papers with the same hue but a different tint and shade!

Sweet!

Hope you liked this little quick trick technique today and if you like, create a paper of your own, play with different blending modes for each too.  Then come back here and leave us a link if you like  in the comments so we all can get inspired!

Till next time!