Monday, February 1, 2016

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge #21 – It's all about the glitter!

It's that time again – the start of a new month and a brand new glittery Mixed Media Monthly challenge. In fact, that is the theme! Get your bling on and glitter up your creative mixed media projects because that's what we want to see. I present to you Challenge #21:



For my project I altered a binder to house some of my ATC collection. I made another binder a few months ago (see it HERE) but it was rapidly filled up. I needed a second one!! (Actually I think I need to make a third one so stay tuned… ;-) )

This month the challenge sponsor is Frantic Stamper which happens to be one of the only U.S. retailers of the U.K. based Paper Artsy products. The MMM design team got a chance to play with some of their Fresco Paint and I must say it is cool stuff!

To start, I covered the front of my binder with three layers of black gesso (letting it dry in between layers). I left it "rough" around the edges to blend out into the burlap. The burlap was so coarse that the extra layers were necessary to smooth out the central area a bit and fill in some of the texture. After that I used a sponge brush to add a layer of Captain Peacock Fresco Paint and then a highlight layer of Caribbean Sea. I hand cut a swoosh stencil out of cardstock and used it to stencil the wave shapes with Inky Pool.

Gesso is your friend!

quickie hand-cut stencil
Next came the fun part – thinking about the elements I wanted to include and playing around with where I wanted them. Often I will make quick mockups or diecuts out of scrap cardstock to use while I'm working out a project. You can see here a bit of my thought process:

Use throw away cardstock to work out your ideas before
cutting into the "good stuff".

Speaking of "good stuff" I created some "custom" paper to use for the anemone, coral and seahorses. Paper Artsy has several instructional videos on YouTube; I used the easy brayer background technique for mine. I love the texture and color blends you get!

Fresco paint colors: Pumpkin Soup, Cherry Red, Coral, Banana, Snowflake

For the coral branch, I also added texture by stamping with bubble wrap. I just wrapped a rectangle of bubble wrap around one of my large acrylic stamp blocks and used a brayer to apply paint to it – then stamped onto the coral piece. It adds another great textural layer.

Fresco Paint colors: Amethyst, Coral, Antarctic, Inky Pool

The bottle is cut out of scrap plastic packaging covered with Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint. The trick to using the crackle paint on plastic is to first lay down a base layer of Glue 'n Seal or Multi Medium (let it dry first). Otherwise the crackle paint will flake right off the plastic. I added a bit of Pumice Stone Distress Glitter around the edges while the crackle paint was wet (keeping up with our theme you know). After the crackle paint was dry, I dripped a bit of Mushroom Alcohol Ink around the edges to age it and define the cracks.

Are you still with me? Of course I incorporated all kinds of glitter (which is so hard to capture in photographs). I used coarse Art Ingredients Glass Glitter for the sand, different colors of Stickles Glitter Glue all around and dry glitter for the seahorses and purple coral branches. I managed to get a photo that shows a bit more sparkle, in person it really shines!


I hope that you'll head on over to MMM and check out all the inspirational projects my teammates have created for the challenge. If you link up your project there you'll be in the running for a $25 gift certificate from our sponsor this month, Frantic Stamper. We'd love to see you there!

http://www.franticstamper.com/

Thanks for stopping by! The supplies I used for this project can be found at Sizzix, Simon Says Stamp or Frantic Stamper. Follow the links below and a shopping you may go. ;-)




Thursday, January 14, 2016

Winter Time

Hello everyone, I'm here today to share a winter themed decor project that I made for the DecoArt Media Winter Wonderland Challenge! My entryway has been feeling rather sad since I put all my Christmas decorations away so I wanted to dress it up again with a project that is wintry but not necessarily Christmassy. I think this fits the bill!


I used loads of DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics and other DecoArt products. I'll give you a run down and some closeups:


The arches are shapes I cut out of foam core board. (Tip: always use a super sharp X-acto blade when cutting foam core!) I base coated them with Prussian Blue Hue and then covered them with Crackle Paint. Remember thicker paint makes bigger crackles, so I tried to vary the thickness a bit for variety. When the paint was dry I gave the frames a light wash of Medium Grey to bring out the cracks and textures.

The deer were painted with Burnt Umber with a bit of Titan Buff mixed in (plus Gold for the antlers). When dry, I coated them with Glue 'n Seal and sprinkled on dry Rock Candy Distress Glitter.


The blue background in the arches is the result of a little experiment I did. I used illustration board as a substrate, wet it first and loosely applied watered down Cobalt Blue Hue, Cerulean Blue, and few splatters of Paynes Grey. I wanted it to look blotchy so I didn't overwork the colors. I was wondering what would happen if I sprinkled salt all over it while it was still wet. This is a tried and true technique when watercoloring – you get a gorgeous, feathery pattern when it all dries. I wasn't sure how it would react with acrylics. I sprinkled the table salt on and let it sit until the board dried. It didn't react like watercolor paint does at all but I was very pleased with the speckle pattern it left. I think it's perfect for a snowy background!

The full board of the sky background. I also splattered some White Shimmer Mist here and there.
 After cutting out the arch shapes to go behind the frames, I stamped the treelines and stamped and embossed the snowflakes.

I also similarly used Fluid Acrylics to create a sheet of paper to cut up for the trees.

The full sheet of "tree" paper.
I used smooth bristol board and Sap Green and Veridian to make the mottled texture. I splattered on lots of paint as it was drying so it was more speckled and textured looking. Once my trees were constructed, I dry brushed on Interference Green paint to highlight the branches and add a surprising glimmer.

If you are still here I'm almost done lol. The snowflakes were die cut out of scrap packaging plastic and embossed with the folder that comes with the die (Snowflake Duo by Sizzix) I dabbed one side with watered down Silver paint and then applied Crackle Glaze to the opposite side once it was dry. While the glaze was wet I sprinkled on a touch of Ultra-fine Art Sugar glitter. Last but not least, the base of the project is covered with Snow Tex paint with Rock Candy glitter sprinkled on while the paint was wet. You can see I am a fan of sparkle.

Whew that was long! I hope you've been inspired and maybe picked up a few things to try yourself. For even more inspiration, head on over to The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge Blog and check out our current challenge, Time Flies. (You can see my original post and more details HERE.) You have until the end of the month to join in and link up your projects!

Time Flies MMM challenge

Thanks for stopping by! The supplies I used for this project can be found at Sizzix, Simon Says Stamp or Amazon. Follow the links below and a shopping you may go. ;-)