If you have a paper shredder and use it a lot, you no doubt have lots of left over shreds of waste paper - waste not want not! I decided to use them in backgrounds to add a texture.

First of all I did these in 2 ways.

Step 1: I applied a good thick layer of gesso on card stock, then while the gesso was still wet I sprinkled on the paper shredding and pressed them down.

Step 2: Instead of using gesso I used cheap pva glue to stick the shreds to paper as I wanted to see which held up better in the backgrounds stakes - gesso vs glue!

Heres scans:

Using Gesso:

Close Up:

Using PVA Glue:

Close Up:

And now for the FUN part - adding colour! I painted both of the backgrounds with acrylic paints, then added a light coat of gold spray paint over the top to give it a bit of snazz.

You cant really tell the difference between the backgrounds on where I used glue instead of gesso but there is a slight difference. The glued shredded background has more 3 dimensional paper shreds, where the one using gesso the shreds are a little flatter which enabled me to stamp on it better.. I like both!
Heres the scans:
Glue Version:

Stamped Gesso Version:

Now for the artwork I made using these backgrounds:

Art and Words By Trish Bayley 2004