Painty, inky backgrounds

I'm really enjoying my experimentation with multi-media techniques.  This is another layout that started with a sheet of plain white card.  I wanted a mixture of grungy/aged effects, to go with the Dickensian theme, plus a little glitz to go with the on-stage theme, and I think I've pulled it off.

I started by lightly brayering three different colours of paint (black, brown and gold), then adding some texture stamping in distress ink (hickory smoke) and gold ink. The image in the bottom left corner is a new stamp from IndigoBlu, and the bottom right is black texture paste through a mask.  I stencilled the word OLIVER, before adding photos and some blingy embellishments from a couple of recent Quirky Kits.