WInter Wonderland Reverse Canvas!

Hello, December's Guest designer Deb Riddell from Paxton Valley Folk Art here to share a tutorial with you on how to create this 'Winter Wonderland' reverse canvas.

I'd like to express my thanks to Mixed Media Mojo for having me back again this month on their blog, what a wonderful early Christmas gift!

The first project that I shared with you for this month's Mixed Media Mojo challenge

was my 'Joy To The World' mixed media plaque.  This 'Winter Wonderland' reverse canvas is simply a variation on that same theme, I have just substituted the following design elements:

1) substrate - changed the flat artist's canvas to a stretched artists canvas

2) texture - changed the burlap and cracked paint technique to faux snow and cracked paint technique

3) word banner - changed the clear packaging banner to a die cut banner

4) focal image - changed the poinsettia to snowflakes.

By changing up the main elements you can get a whole new look for your designs, a real time saver during this busy holiday season.

So here is the tutorial on how to make my Winter Wonderland reverse canvas, I hope you will enjoy it!

1) Paint the inside recess of the reversed 4" x 6" stretched artist's canvas with white acrylic paint and paint the outside 'frame' and sides of the canvas with light blue. ( I used Americana Warm White and Ceramcoat Wedgewood Blue).

Cover the blue painted areas with Deco-Art Weathered Wood and, after it dries, add a top coat of white.  Quickly sprinkle some Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter and just a touch of Glamor Dust onto the white top coat while it is still wet and leave the canvas to dry.

Once it is dry, add some Delta Fantasy Snow orDec-Art Snow-Tex to the inside recess, building it up slightly along the sides and bottom edge and set it aside to dry.

2) Stamp some snowflake images with blue ink (I used Simon Says Stamp's Soft Navy Die ink and some Hampton Art snowflake stamp and die set) onto a silver Deco Sheet.

Die cut or fussy cut the snowflake images and then punch several smaller snowflakes from the same silver Deco Sheet.

3) From white cardstock, die cut one of theSnowflake Duo snowflakes and emboss it with the accompanying embossing folder.

Gently add some Stormy Sky Distress ink to the raised embossed areas of the snowflake and add a bit around the edges as well.  Brush a bit of Star Dust Stickles glitter glue over top of the embossed snowflake with your finger.

4) Die cut the winter wonderland sentiment usingTim Holtz's Holiday Words: Blocks dies into a silver Deco Sheet.  Back the die cut silver deco sheet with some blue cardstock and cut out the fish tail banner shape.

I made my banner about 2" by 5 1/2" so that it would extend slightly over the sides of the canvas.  Gently bend the tails of the banner and add a bit of a bend in the middle of the banner as well for some movement.

5) Now put it all together!  Adhere the 'Winter Wonderland' banner to the bottom of the reverse canvas at a slight angle, using some dimensional tape or pop dots as needed to give it support.

If any staples are still visible on the frame, strategically place one of the punched silver snowflakes over top of it.

6) Back the embossed snowflake with some pop dots and glue it into the recessed area of the canvas over top of the Fantasy Snow.

Add a couple of the small punched silver snowflakes to the interior of the canvas as well.

7) Add pop dots to the backs of the large stamped silver snowflakes and glue them to the outer frame of the canvas here and there.

If any of those pesky staples are still visible, use the smaller punched silver snowflakes to cover them up.  You can also add some of the punched silver snowflakes on the outside edges of the canvas as well if you'd like.

And that's it, you are done!  This would make a lovely gift for someone special, add a hanger on the back or gift it with a small wooden easel so they can display it all winter long.

I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial and once more, thank you to Mixed Media Mojo for asking me to be a guest designer with them again this month.  I'd also like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a joyous holiday season and may the New Year bring peace and prosperity to all.  Thanks so much for visiting today and happy creating!

Deb xo

Wrapping the presents

Hello to everyone who stops by this week! Lucyna here. I hope you are enjoying this holiday season and that you can find enough hours in your day to get everything done.
Today I want to share a quick and easy way to make your wrapping unique and unusual.

I started with some special sheet of canvas and some stencil.

I love the texture canvas brings.

I played a little with my acrylic paints to create a background. Then, using another stencil and some texture paste I made 3 snowflakes. Next some stamping was added.

I altered a birch-tree star with gold glitter and attached it to the piece

I often use craft paper to wrap the presents as I like a bit primitive look of it. 

Hope you like it too!

Mixed Media Mojo - December Challenge

Welcome to our December Challenge! Can you believe it's the end of the year already?  Thanks to all who played along last month in our challenge!  Our Mixed Media Diva and next Guest Designer for January is:

VICKI - All I Do Is Stamp

Congrats and please contact me at riaann at optonline dot net!

Now let's move onto December!  This month our theme is Sentiment with a twist to NOT use red or green!

Before we share our fabulous DT creations let's introduce our December Guest:

Meet our December Guest Designer - DEB!

Here is a little something about Deb:

"Hello, my name is Deb Riddell and I am so excited to be here today at Mixed Media Mojo as a guest designer (sorry for the crooked picture, I am really, really bad at taking selfies!)  I live in British Columbia, Canada on a small acreage with my hubbie and our rescue dogs who are much better known as our kids!  I started on my creative journey as a decorative and water colour painter and then branched out into creating home decor and decorative items after discovering the world of folk and primitive art.  From there it was a short hop to mixed media which is my current passion (and dare I say obsession!)  I was so excited when Maria told me what December's challenge theme was going to be here at Mixed Media Mojo and I decided to create a Christmas mixed media plaque to celebrate the season.  Hope you will be able to hop on over to my blog, Paxton Valley Folk Art, to see a step by step on how I created it.  Thanks again to Maria and Mixed Media Mojo for giving me this opportunity and wishing everyone happy holidays!  Deb xo"

Now let's check out the wonderful creations from the Design Team!

December Guest - Deb

Hazel

 Lucyna

Maria

Barb

Please link up below a new project created for this challenge and do not combine with more than 6 other challenges.  Limit to 3 entries per person. You can be the next Mixed Media Mojo Diva and our Guest Designer for January!  Be sure to check to see if you are chosen on December 1!

Be sure to check in Monday's and Wednesday's for Art Journal and Mixed Media Inspiration! 

Thank so much for stopping by! I can't wait to see what you create!

Give Thanks!

Hey there Maria here with a small fall themed canvas.

I took a few pictures of some steps.  I started with Dyluisons paints using a baby wipe:

Added some stamps

Cut out a pumpkin using Stampin Up paper and adhered down.  I was going to paint the pumpkin but then decided to cut out a pumpkin in pattern paper and adhered that down.

The white dots on the pumpkin are using a stencil and Rangers Texture Paste, which I will say is awesome! I stamped GIVE THANKS (Unity Stamp Co) on paper and layered it with green.  Using Scrap Dots by Helmar I adhered to panel so it's a little raised. Finally I doodled around using a white signo pen.

Come play in this month's challenge there's still time!

Thanks for stopping by!!  

Maria 

Autumnal Journal Page

Hi everyone, Hazel here to share with you an autumnal journal page.

Last week I had a play with my alcohol inks on vellum and have made the page out of one of my samples.

I started with a piece of vellum that had green leaves printed on it, I dripped the alcohol inks and spread the ink by blowing through a straw, when I was happy with the result I stamped some leaves [La Blanche stamp] with black archival ink.

The words are printed on vellum and I've had them in my stash for years, I attached them to white paper with some brads and then attached them to my page with double sided tape. I drew the pumpkin, coloured it with coloured pencils and cut it out, I glued it to the page together with some punched out leaves.

Thank you for looking.

xxx Hazel.

Recycle a Book Into a Journal

This is a start of a journey on the creation of a journal from a found book.  I tend to go to resale shops/goodwill and buy things.  One of my favorite purchases are books - not to read but for art.  A couple of weeks ago I was walking out of a store and the lady who walked out with me asked me what book I had bought to read.  I told her I was not going to read the book, I was going to use the pages for drawing on.  I bet she was surprised by that answer.  But I digress.

Many people will buy books and make them into journals.  I have decided to do that.  I have just started the process and want to give you some ideas.  Maybe you will join me on the creation of your own journal.

I found a cookbook at Goodwill.

What I liked abut this book is that is a loose leaf book.  You will have room to create on your pages and turn the pages.  It is easy to remove pages so that you have more room in your book to put thick things.

To prep the cover, I will sand it.  It had a shine to the cover so I didn't think the paint would stick to it too well.  A layer of Gesso will be added after it has been prepped.  At that point you will be able to make it beautiful.

See the center of the book and how easy it will be to remove pages or to turn your pages after you have created your journal entries.

I have removed a few of the pages from the journal to add some extra room.  I plan to glue two pages together so that I have a stronger surface for each journal page.

Why don't you join me on this fun creative journey.  Find a book and start to alter it.  Hopefully I will be back next month with an update on how my new found recycled journal is coming along.

Happy creating.

Home Decor

Hello Everybody! It's Lucyna here. Today I am sharing my newest home decor.

It is a traditional reindeer in non- traditional colors!

I started with gluing together all parts of laser cut MDF.

To add more texture I glued some chipboard stars and some gel medium mixed with plastic microspheres. I covered all with gesso afterwards.

Here you can see all sprays I have used to colour my reindeer.

To add more interest to the surface I used some white Twinkling H2Os, black and white Enamel accents. 

The cotton scarf was the final touch to this decor.  

How To Create a Project

Barb here - let's talk about creating projects.  If you are like me you have an overabundance of art stuff that you can use for a project.  Sometimes it is overwhelming and you can't even begin to make a project.

A challenge blog such as Mixed Media Blog is good because it gives you an idea but then where do you begin.  This month I knew our challenge was Fall with the added element of metallic.  Here is how I approached my project.  I just started gathering items and putting them on top of a gold canvas.  I found some interesting items.  I found some things I really liked but there was just a little bit of it.

Here is what I started with.

I did not use some of the things in the picture but I had a starting point.

I knew that I wanted to use my Penny Black sunflower stamp so I stamped them on book paper which had a layer of gesso on it.  I colored them with distress paints.  They were cut out.  The leaves were stamped on painted canvas and cut out.

I then started to layer things on top of the canvas.  The second layer was grocery bag paper which had been wet and wadded up and then the edges were distress some more.  The first layer was a piece of canvas fabric which was torn so you have the added texture of the ripped edges.

After adhering these layers, I started putting the different things I had collected on top of the paper.

I started layering on the sunflowers and all the other layers.  I made a bow out of a torn strip of calico fabric.  I added a strip of the fabric along the bottom of the canvas.  An assortment of floral items were added behind the fabric bow.  I used some gold stems and the few berries on that stem.  That berry stem was a lucky find in my supplies.

Here is a close up of the sunflowers.  Layers of foam tape were added in between the sunflowers to give them some depth.  Buttons were added to the center of the flower.  Can you see the use of the threads pulled off the edge of the torn calico.  This adds more color and texture to your project.

Here is a close up of the bow.  The sunflower silk was tucked under the bow in the front.  The floral stems along with a fabric leaf were tucked behind the bow.  The Give Thanks sentiment is popped out.  I cut a piece of cardboard, folded it in half and glued the sentiment on top of it so it stands out from the canvas.

This was a fun project to do.  I used up a few odd items that have been floating around my craft area.  I limited myself to a specific group of items so I had to focus on my creation rather than being distracted by all the stuff I have.

November Challenge!

Can you believe it's November?  I can't believe how fast time flies by!  Thanks to all those who played along in our October challenge.

Our Mixed Media Mojo Diva for our October challenge is Debbie!  Check out this great Halloween Shadow box she created!  Debbie please contact me about being our December Guest Designer - Maria at riaann at optonline dot net.  Thanks!

Now onto our November challenge!  Our theme is Fall and our optional twist is Metallic! 

  

Come check out what the Design Team created:

Barb

 Hazel

Maria

 Lucyna

Please link up below a new project created for this challenge and do not combine with more than 6 other challenges.  Limit to 3 entries per person. You can be the next Mixed Media Mojo Diva and our Guest Designer for January!  Be sure to check to see if you are chosen on December 1!

Be sure to check in Monday's and Wednesday's for Art Journal and Mixed Media Inspiration! 

Thank so much for stopping by! I can't wait to see what you create!

Maria