The Adventure Begins - 2017

Hi everyone!

I'm Christina. Since 1994 I've been paper crafting. During the past 6 years, I've developed a huge passion for mixed media. Most of the techniques are from Tim Holtz. He's really good at sharing cool stuff, and yes I do have an abundance of his products, some of them are in my project.
This is my second design team and I'm so thrilled to be apart of this team. I look forward to sharing my creativity and inspiration with everyone.

This months challenge (January) theme is New with a Twist Clocks. I missed this challenge because I had a late arrival. So I decided to create a mixed media altered journal cover with the January theme.

mixed media altered journal

This is my first altered journal cover. I've been wanting to create this for a few years and finally decided it was time.

First you will need an old hardcover book. I used a book from my vampire phase (haha).

Randomly glue pieces of tissue paper on top of book cover.

Once all the pieces/finds are glued in place, cover with black gesso. Hint - you can also use a glue gun for dimension and texture, before applying the gesso -

Alcohol or baby wipes are used to buff out areas to show the tissue paper and the distress paint is rubbed around and on the pieces to give them hi light.

For a finishing touch, I rubbed acrylic paints -copper and gold, distress paints -Broken China, Brushed Pewter, Tattered Angels Glimmer mist- Coffee Shop, Perfect Pearls- Heirloom Gold on the Tim Holtz Sizzix Weathered Clock die, gears, game spinner, time piece, chain etc. to make them pop out.

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial on how fun it is to alter a journal. 

Also come over and join in the fun in the January challenge - New with a Twist Clocks

Have a great day,

Christina

HAPPY NEW YEAR Art Journal

Hello everyone, thank you for stopping by! Ann here today and show you the tutorial of my art journal page. I'm so delighted to be on the Mixed Media Mojo Design Team! Thank you Maria & my other teammates for this wonderful opportunity and look forward to growing in my craft while working alongside these talented artists. I made my Happy New Year art journal page for our current NEW with the twist of Clocks challenge. Hope you will enjoy seeing it.

I've a few step out photos on how I made it, enjoy!

To get started, I cover the page with Gesso. Painted the whole page with Acrylic Paints. Let it dry. I used a sponge to apply Inka gold over my stencil.

Applied black ink through stencil across the bottom of page and allow to dry. Stamped sentiments with StazOn White ink. Driped with Acrylic Paint.

I die cutted a bunch of alphabet letters and numbers. I layered four of each letter together for some dimension. Then painted them using Acrylic Paints.

The Clock was die cut from some milk paper and painted with Acrylic Paints , dabbed with Ceramic Stucco, then embossed with Ranger Watering Can embossing powder.

I then adhered the clock, alphabets and numbers onto the page to spell HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017.

Hope you have enjoyed my quick little tutorial. 

I hope this inspires you to join in our January Challenge. I can't wait to see what you create.

Thanks again for stopping by today and happy creating!

Ann

Fall is Here Yay! And so is a bit more Mixed Media Mojo Play!

Happy First Wednesday of Fall!

Hi! It's Kim from TangledBlueRose here with a Fall project to (hopefully!) get your Mojo going and make a project to share with us, we would loooovvvveeee you to share:)

The season just turned so it is official! Hope your weather in your part of the world is starting to show the season change!

This is a small canvas board, 5x7. I did not want a smooth base so I covered it with a generous layer of my homemade texture paste.  The I added some drywall tape pieces, one is a cool pattern with circles and another the standard grid one. I just pushed the things into the paste while it was wet.

Here you can see some of the layers. I stamped the images then embossed them. I like to emboss them, it helps me stay in the lines while coloring :)  I used Distress Paint and Inks to add the colors throughout this project. Have fun using whatever you have on hand! Just play.

The sunflower image is a digital stamp image transfer. I printed it on cheap dollar store photo paper. Then I pressed clear shelf contact paper onto it and smoothed it out with an old gift card. The contact paper is not paper, it is like a thin plastic. Once I made sure all the bubbles were gone, I put the whole thing into a bowl of tap water. Let it soak till the paper backing of the photo can be peeled up. This only takes a few minutes. I know it seems like an eternity but it is worth it. 

Gradually and gently, using your finger or soft rag, rub off the paper. Soon you will have all the paper removed and it will leave just the image on the contact paper. Let it finish drying now. Once dry if there is still some white on it that you don't want, just wet that section and rub it away. Don't worry if you accidentally rub away some of the image. It is perfect! You just made it rustic and distressed! This whole process works with clear packing tape too, it is just narrow. So depending on your image size, pick what works for you or just simply use what you have on-hand.

Ooooo this turned into a mini tut! I did not intend that to happen, but that is how art goes, right? Sometimes you just aren't sure where you are going, but then, boom! you are there!

Thanks for reading and I hope all of us here have given you a bit off inspiration! There is still plenty of time (even one more weekend!) to play with us on September's Challenge: Fall theme and add some paste. 

Show us your Mojo, let's play!

~kim

I have a few more photos of this project at my blog if you would like to visit. Let me know if you have any questions!

How To - Thankful Leaf Canvas

Barb here.  I am going to do a little tutorial on how to make this Fall Thankful canvas.  It measures 4 x 4. 

The first step is to adhere a book page to the canvas.  Gel medium was used to adhere the page.  A layer of Gesso was added on top.  Gesso gives your bottom layer a “bite” and by this I mean – your other mediums are able to stick to the Gesso. 

Distress paint (gold) was wiped on top.  Another color (orange) was added along the edges.  After the paint was dry I used a background stamp and stamped it with Gold on top of the canvas.  At this point I let everything dry.  Once the ink was dry, the edges were distressed with brown ink. 

Patience is not one of my finer virtues.  I find it much easier to do mixed media stages right before I go to bed – it has all night to dry – and then in the morning – before I head to work – I will add another layer.  I have no choice – I am not near my art piece so I can’t mess it up. 

I have a Silhouette Cameo and I love this machine.  The branch pattern I used for a stencil was cut with my Silhouette out of some scrap card stock I had.  I just tape the stencil to the front of my piece.  I take my embossing paste and I color it with more distress paints.  Smear it over the stencil.  I did not want a smooth texture on my leaves so I used a piece of paper toweling and just pounced it on top of the leaves.  The stencil is still in place.  I remove the stencil and let it dry.  After it was dry, I decided the leaves were not green enough so I painted some more distress paint on the leaves.

I stamped the big leaves in VersaMark on watercolor paper and used brown embossing powder.  I then got out my Twinkling H2O’s (I was surprised – I found them – I usually have put everything in a safe place and they are never to be seen again).  I wet the top of my Twinkling H2O’s to activate them.  I wet the leaves and then started adding swatches of colors.  The colors just blend together and when they dry they have such a beautiful sheen.  I then cut the leaves out.  I colored the edges with one of the colors in the leaf so no white edges would show.  I also cut a leaf with my Silhouette and colored it with the green distress paint. 

I believe at this point is when I realized I had been working on my canvas piece upside down.  How did I notice this – the words were upside down.  It probably did not matter because they really are not that visible but I would have known so now my paste embossed leaves have changed directions and the layout changes.  We move from the left side to the right side for leaf placement.  (obviously at this point my camera broke and I took no more pictures.)  You will have to draw a picture in your mind for each step.

I tore a piece of fabric (this is leftover from a blouse my daughter made when she was in college).  It is a lovely color and I will be very sad when my last piece of this fabric is all used up.  I wrapped the fabric around the top of the canvas.  A small strip of fabric was pulled through the holes of the buttons and tied in a knot. 

The sentiment banner was cut with my Silhouette.  I added a strip of paper behind the sentiment that was colored the same as the leaves.  I love how the different colors show through the openings for the word.  This was a happy accident. 

Now you start playing with your layout.  The base leaf (the one cut with the Silhouette) is adhered to the canvas with gel medium.  The next leaf was added so it just hung over the right edge of the canvas.  Pop dots were put on the back of the Oak leaf and it was put on the canvas.  At this point I just placed my sentiment on the canvas to figure out the placement of the maple leaf.  I putzed and moved and putzed some more.  I cut the stem off the leaf so I could let it sit on top of the sentiment banner.  A small piece of adhesive was put at the bottom of the leaf so the maple leaf has a natural curve to it and the top points are all loose.

The sentiment was added with pop dots and the button added on top of the fabric strip.

I hope you learned a little bit from my tutorial on making this canvas.  I would appreciate your feed back.  I promise next time I will take more pictures.  (my camera really did not break - I probably got up in the fun of creating and forgot to take pictures).

Thanks for stopping by and go – make some fun fall mixed media projects and enter our challenge.