Mixed Media Tag Tutorial

Hi everyone, I'm Christina.

As most of you know I'm a Tim Holtz addict! One of the many products I have is the ever popular Sizzix die The Lost Zombie. I knew when I received this die that there would be high hopes for him. You can switch it up for any occasion.

For the March Challenge I decided to create a mixed media tag using The Lost Zombie die.

Meet Rusty. He's got big plans! Tracking through the twigs, with a present and balloons. It's a bit windy, but it's not stopping him form enjoying the celebration.

After dressing the zombie, apply distress ink Walnut Stain around the edges for a tattered look.

Apply a thin coat of gesso to a #8 manilla tag. Let it air dry. It doesn't take long because there's not a lot of gesso on the tag.

Now the fun part begins....using any color of distress crayon, I used (Abandoned Coral and Vintage Photo) start colouring in random areas on the tag and blend with your fingers till the tag is covered. Hint: if the color is too dark, you can always buff it out with a baby wipe. Next place stencil (Dot Fade) on top and apply texture paste over in random areas of tag. Let it air dry.

Apply distress ink Broken China on top of Dot Fade, to give a hint of color.

For the zombie's (aka - Rusty) accessories I used Stampers Anonymous CraZy ThiNgs and the coordinating sizzix Framelits die, then coloured with distress crayons in Abandoned Coral, Feathered Peacock and Mermaid Lagoon.

This is one of my favourite dies - Sizzix thinlits die Twisted. It was used for the grass. 

The saying - Eat More Cake - is from the Stampers Anonymous - Handwritten Sentiments. I really enjoy playing with this set, because of the expressive lines.

Notice the brush strokes from colouring - it gives an effect of woodgrain in the background. It's pretty cool right?!

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and if you want further inspiration check out the other talented design team members projects on this blog.

We want to see your creations for the March challenge: Birthday with a Twist Balloons. So, grab your tea/coffee, supplies out and use your imagination. The possibilities are endless!

Christina

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