And Fly Again Mixed Media Panel

Hello everyone, Deb here today to share a quick little tutorial with you on how I made my 'And Fly Again' mixed media panel for our current Love with the twist of adding Wings challenge.

I was lucky enough to be gifted with some of Tim Holtz's new Idea-ology releases when I attended the Association For Creative Industries (formerly the Craft and Hobby Association) Creativation 2017 trade show in Phoenix last month and was itching to use them so that became my jumping off point.

Tim's new Idea-ology is all being released this month so you won't have long to wait to get your hands on these beauties, never fear!

I started out with a piece of cardstock cut about 5" x 8" and coloured it with Distress stains and sprays in various shades of blue, adding spritz and flick with water and some script background stamping here and there.  I then used an individual alphabet stamp set from my stash, Ranger's Embossing pen in black and clear embossing powder to hand stamp the sentiment across the top of the panel.

I fussy cut one of Tim Holtz's Found Relatives and tinted her slightly with Distress markers.  Some butterfly wings from the new Botanical Layers pack were added to the figure and a heart stud from my stash was coloured with alcohol inks and placed in her hands.

Letters to spell the word 'love' were selected from the new Alpha Transparent Tiles.  The white was a little stark for my design so I coloured the tiles with a combination of Mushroom and Pitch Black alcohol inks and then used a cotton tipped swab dipped in rubbing alcohol to clean the alcohol ink from the clear portion of the letters.

More white cardstock was coloured with multiple colours of red and pink Distress inks, stains and sprays and then hearts were die cut using the Tim Holtz Shape Strips and Simon Says Stamps Holiday Shapes dies.

I wanted to mount this panel into my art journal but it seemed to be needing a bit of a frame so I chose a piece of brown typography paper from Bo Bunny's Beautiful Dreamer paper collection and mounted it behind the Distress coloured panel.

And then I assembled all the bits and bobs, the Alpha Transparent Tiles were adhered along the bottom of the panel.

The lovely winged girl was mounted onto some black fun foam and positioned on top of the Transparent Tiles.

Some more butterflies from the Botanical Layers pack were scattered about and a few strips of Design Tape from the new Butterfly collection were adhered to the panel as well.

And last but not least, the die cut hearts were scattered here and there, completing my mixed media art journal panel.

Hope that you have enjoyed seeing how I put my project together and that I've given you a few ideas on how to use some of those wonderful new Idea-ology releases that are about to come your way!

I also hope that you will enter our February challenge, Love with the twist of adding Wings, I always love to see what you link up with us.  Sadly this will be my last post here as part of the Mixed Media Mojo design team but you can be sure I will be popping in regularly to see what you are creating!  I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Maria so very much for asking me to be on her team this last year, it's been so much fun and I've enjoyed each and every minute.  Hope that I will continue to see you all around Blogland and as always, happy creating!

Deb xo

Happy New Year Mixed Media Card

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by today.  Deb here and I've got a quick tutorial for you on how I made my Happy New Year's mixed media card for our current challenge, New with the twist of Clocks.

If you recall, this is what my card looked like:

and here's the quick and easy tutorial!

I started out my colouring a piece of 110 lb white cardstock with multiple colours of Distress inks in various shades of blue with some drips and drops of water added.  The Distress inks are water reactive which is going to come in handy, more on that soon!

Next I stenciled the 'City Scapes' skyline and reflection stencil from Stencil Girl Products onto my prepared cardstock with Ranger Matte Texture paste and set it aside to dry.

And this is where the water reactive properties of the Distress inks come into play, as the texture paste dries the water in the paste reacts with the Distress inks, drawing some of the colour into the white paste.  An effortless way to coordinate your texture paste stenciled images perfectly!

It wouldn't be New Year's Eve without a fireworks display so I stamped 'The Works' fireworks stamp from Emerald Creek Craft Supplies multiple times, embossing it first with white embossing powder and then offsetting the stamp slightly and embossing it with gold and silver embossing powders.  I made sure to stamp a few light gold and silver fireworks down into the watery reflection at the bottom of the card.

To incorporate the clocks twist into my card, I die cut a Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers Pocket Watch from heavy cardsotck and embossed it with Emerald Creek Craft Supplies Hammered Metal embossing powder.  The midnight clock face was a digital image I had in my stash, so I just printed it out onto white card and punched it out with a circular punch.

The Happy New Year sentiment was die cut with Tim Holtz's Alphanumeric dies, once from black card and once from white, and the letters offset slightly to add a white highlight behind the sentiment.

And that was it!  I cut some gold metallic scrapbook paper about 1/4" larger on all sides than the embossed card and mounted it onto a card blank made from black cardstock.   Everything was adhered together and the card was complete.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have been inspired to enter our New with the twist of Clocks challenge, you still have a few days to enter!  Can't wait to see what you make to link up and as always, happy creating!

Deb xo

Happy Ornaments Mixed Media Christmas Card

Ho Ho Ho everyone, thanks for stopping by at this busy time of the year.  Deb here today to share a mixed media Christmas card I made for our current Winter Holidays with the twist of adding Shimmer challenge, hope you will enjoy seeing it.

I started out with a stenciled background using Tim Holtz's Birch Trees stencil.  I lightly sprayed some Antique Linen Distress spray onto 110 lb white cardstock, then did a stencil monoprint of the birch trees with multiple shades of light brown and grey Distress inks.  After drying the monoprint, I lined the stencil up again and stenciled through it with Weathered Wood and Stormy Sky Distress inks, adding drips and drops of water as well.

To define the birch tree images further, I used a water soluble graphite pencil to outline the trees and softened the lines with a paint brush dipped into a bit of water.  As a finishing touch, I spattered the stenciled background with diluted white acrylic paint for a snowy feel (sorry, didn't get a picture of that step!).

Three ornaments from Tim Holtz's Festive Sketch stamp set were stamped onto Distress Mixed Media Heavystock with Wendy Vecchi Archival inks in Red Geranium, Forget-Me-Knot and Leaf Green and then coloured and shaded with multiple colours of Distress inks and a waterbrush.

The ornaments were then embossed with some Emerald Creek Craft Supplies Iridescent Shimmer embossing powder to bring the December twist of 'shimmer' into play and fussy cut.

To bring a bit more shimmer and shine to my card, I die cut the words 'happy holidays' with Tim Holtz's Holiday Words #2:Thin dies into some gold foil cardstock.

The edges of the stenciled background were distressed and inked with some Frayed Burlap Distress ink and the gold foil die cut was applied to the bottom.

A card blank was created from some kraft cardstock and the stenciled background adhered with some double sided tape.  More cardstock was coloured with several shades of green Distress inks and I die cut some greenery with Tim Holtz's Mini Holiday Greens dies (sorry, missed getting a picture of that step too!).  The greenery was adhered to the top of the card

and white gesso 'snow' was added here and there with a sprinkling of Clear Rock Candy Distress glitter for more sparkle.

The fussy cut ornaments were mounted onto some fun foam for dimension and hung from the greenery above with pieces of metallic gold embroidery floss.

And more white gesso sprinkled with Rock Candy Distress glitter was added to the tops of the ornaments.

I am ashamed to say that this was the first time I'd used the Holiday Words Thins dies but I do love that font!

Wish the shimmer would show up better in the pictures, this card really is very lovely in real life.  You can catch just a glimpse of it in this side on shot.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by today and I hope that you will be able to join in our December challenge.

I'd like to take this opportunity as well to wish you and yours a joyous holiday season and I will see you all again in 2017!

Hugs, Deb xo

Turn Turn Turn Art Journal Page

Hello everyone, thank you for stopping by!  Deb here today and since it is Monday that means it's time for a new art journal page.  I made my Turn Turn Turn art journal page to incorporate some of the metallic leaves I didn't use on my first project this month for our Autumn with the twist of Metallics challenge.

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

I started out with a single page from my art journal (which I have had to take apart since it was getting to thick to close, I can't stop adding embellishments!).  I stamped the page with Tim Holtz's new Pine background stamp and Tree Branch Archival ink and then coloured the page with Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Distress stain.

The word TURN was stamped several times on the page with Ground Espresso Archival ink and I then spattered the whole page with diluted white, orange and brown acrylic paints.

I die cut the Bird Branch die from some crackled cardstock I had in my stash from another project.  I cut the bird off and saved him for a rainy day!

The branch was a little too pale for my design so I coloured it first with Ground Espresso Distress stain and then intensified the colours here and there with Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo Distress crayons.

The Weathered Clock was die cut from some chipboard packaging and embossed with Burnt Copper Leaves embossing powder.  Love this embossing powder!

And then the page was assembled.  I made a tag by painting a piece of cardstock with Frayed Burlap Distress paint and then running it through my printer to print the sentiment (the font is called Beyond Wonderland).

The tag shape was cut out and some oak leaves were punched from a remnant of Distress ink coloured cardstock with a couple of Recollections punches.  The edges of the tag were edged with some gold Decofoil.

The leaves are Ranger Foil tape mounted onto cardstock, die cut with the Layered Leaf

and Arbor dies and then coloured with alcohol inks.

Here's a close up of the Pine background and spatters, such an easy way to get some texture and interest on your background.

I hope that you've enjoyed seeing my Turn Turn Turn art journal page, I really enjoyed making it and was humming The Byrds song the entire time I was putting it together.

You still have plenty of time to enter our November challenge so hope you will head into your craft space and make something to link up.  I can't wait to see it, happy creating!

Deb xo

The Bat Sitter Mixed Media Canvas

Hello, Deb here to welcome you back to another Mixed Media Wednesday here at Mixed Media Mojo.  Today I have a Halloween canvas to share with you for our current challenge, Spookiness with the twist of adding Bats.

I'd like you to meet Zebediah Zombie, he's currently bat sitting for his friend Vladula Von Peckering who is away visiting his cousins and here you can see Zebediah taking Vlad's bats for a walk (or is that a fly?!)

I had so much fun making this, grab a goblet of potion and read on to see how I put it together!

I started out by cutting Tim Holtz's Lost Zombie and Gothic Gate from manila cardstock.

I then cut the zombie 3 more times from some packaging and cut one of them apart to layer together for some dimension.

The manila zombie was coloured with Distress inks and cut apart so I could add the clothes to the layered zombie.

I coloured the layered zombie with Old Paper Distress paint before adding the clothes and added Distress Crackle paint to give a lovely zombie-like skin texture to Zebediah.

The Gothic Gate was embossed with black embossing powder and then I sprinkled on bronze, silver and a green embossing powders here and there for an aged patina.  I ended up die cutting another gate and embossing it in the same way to form a fence.

A 1 1/2" circle was stenciled onto a 6" x 8" flat artists canvas with various colours of yellow Distress inks and then the circle was stenciled again with the Speckles layering stencil and Hickory Smoke DI to make the moon.

The stenciled moon was masked off and the entire canvas coloured with various shades of blue and purple DI for the sky and shades of brown for the ground.

The colours were intensified with Distress crayons and then some creepy vines were stenciled along the bottom with the Twisted mini layering stencil and Ground Espresso DI.

Ground walnut shells were mixed with Transparent texture medium and applied along the bottom with a palette knife.  A couple of the 'extra' zombie bits were adhered underneath the shells :O)

The haunted house from Tim Holtz's Mini Halloween #5 was stamped onto manila cardstock, fussy cut and adhered to the canvas.  The house was shaded around the edges with Black Soot Distress marker.

The Gothic Gate was cut in half and one hinge on each side snipped so that the gates looked like they were broken and falling down.  The second gate was cut down and adhered to each side to form the fence. A couple of tombstone images found on the internet were fussy cut and adhered to the canvas along with 1/2 of a Tim Holtz Pumpkin Piece and a couple of his Boneyard bones.

I had one of these bats that a friend had sent me (it's a die cut but not sure who makes it, sorry) and used the one bat as a pattern to cut a couple more of varying sizes from black cardstock.  I adhered each of the bats to some thin rusted wire and twisted all three together.

The zombie was mounted onto some black fun foam for dimension and the bats positioned so he was holding their 'leashes' in his hand.  Here are a few closeups of the finished canvas.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope that you have enjoyed seeing my bat sitting zombie Halloween canvas!

Hope you have been inspired to join in our October challenge, can't wait to see what you link up,  Happy creating!

Deb xo