AW39 - Around the World Challenge mixed media project

It’s Around the World Challenge time again! And this month I was asked create a project inspired by this image:

I decided to take my inspiration from the colours of the flowers and foliage, so began with a watercolour-style background. This one uses a fun salt technique which was shown to me by Karina Goodman at Studio 61 here in Derbyshire. 

TIP: If you want to play around with this kind of project, make a few backgrounds at a time, so you can get started quicker next time. 

So, how did this card happen? I really should start writing these posts immediately after creating this sort of project, as it’s hard to remember all the many steps that go into them, but here goes… and please bear in mind that I am still learning this technique so some of the steps are purely experimental.

1. Take a piece of watercolour paper and wet it, with a brush, aquapainter or with a spray bottle
2. With a paintbrush or aquapainter, drop or swish some ink so that the colours blend
3. While the ink is still wet (this is important) sprinkle some coarse seasalt on top. I did this on the red section only.
4. Allow to dry completely before brushing away the salt. You’ll see that it has absorbed the ink and leaves paler spots behind; it’s a little unpredictable but you can get some amazing patterns this way. 
5. Now you can begin adding some fun elements to the project. I began by cutting and tearing strips of Typeset DSP and laying them across the left hand side of the project. This was inspired by the March page from this lady’s smash book.  
6. With the brayer inked up, tap just the edge of it onto the project, to create vertical lines - you can make flower stems, grass or patterns this way
7. Stamp around the top using Gorgeous Grunge and red and black inks
8. Using the brayer, colour a piece of Typeset DSP in red… and another in purple. Alternatively, if your ink pad isn’t too wet, you can simply press the paper into it. Don’t worry about perfection; it’s over-rated. 
9. Using the bird punch, punch out six wings from each of the coloured pieces of DSP. Trim the purple ones down so they’re slightly smaller, then arrange both sets in a flower pattern. 
10. Now you can decorate the petals as you wish, by outlining them in black pen, white pen (or both) and adding dots and lines. I also hand-drew the stems and a leaf, doodling dots along the stem and colouring the leaf white with the Chalk Marker. 
11. I created a third flower with the Itty Bitty Accents Punch pack flower, but cut out the petals individually (you may need to punch two or more flowers), again arranging them in a flower pattern and inlining them in black pen. 
12. All three flowers are topped with a circle of gold glimmer paper.
13. Next I added some white splodges of various sizes, simply freehanding them with the chalk marker. I outlined them in black pen. This was inspired by this lady’s project. 
14. I found words from two different stamp sets, stamped them in black and cut them out roughly. Once stuck down, I outlined them in black pen. 
15. Individual sequins were added with Glue Dots. I haven’t found anything else which will stick them down successfully.
16. Finally, I spritzed the whole project with Vanilla Smoosh Spritz for a gentle shimmer.

Now it’s your turn to create a project inspired by the photo. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as this one - take a look at what the rest of the team made for some more ideas.

122959	105232	102109	105222	100531
133704	102395	133645	130517	126954
132708	126969	117191	135304	132133
133787	133719	119869	134364	134180
137146	132983	118772	106549	133680

Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com

Mixed Media flower garden with THREE Sale-a-Bration items

It’s a long one today, and a surprisingly complicated project. No, you haven’t come to the wrong blog, I just fancied a change!

For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by mixed media techniques, but I wasn’t sure how to blend it with Stampin’ Up!® products. My dabbling began with my foray into texture paste but it wasn’t until this week that I had chance to have a proper play. 

But where to begin? Of course, Pinterest came to the rescue. Pinterest has really opened my eyes to a lot of new techniques. Sometimes I just click the search button and then “DIY and Crafts”… it’s amazing what you discover this way! 

This time, I simply searched “mixed media” and after browsing a few blogs, this is my first attempt, which takes inspiration (pinspiration!) from this blog post. Despite normally leaning towards the clean and simple style, I really enjoyed creating this project and it turns out I had almost everything I needed in my SU stash, as you’ll see from the supplies list below. I even managed to include, count ’em, THREE Sale-a-Bration items - can you spot them without reading the list below?

The great thing about this sort of project is that it’s very difficult to go wrong. Well, I say that, but Sunday’s attempt ended up on the fire! 

Happily, today’s project was a little more successful, so here’s a step-by-step guide to creating this project. No pictures, I’m afraid, I was having way too much fun!

1. Cut a piece of watercolour paper to 12.5cm square and wet it
2. Using Coastal Cabana and Wild Wasabi re-inkers diluted with a tiny amount of water, paint rough horizontal stripes across the paper. You can add more to strengthen the colour if you wish. Allow to dry, or speed it up with a heat gun
3. Take some bubble wrap and ink it up with Coastal Cabana at the top right. Repeat with Old Olive at the bottom. 
4. Stamp the solid stem from Lotus Blossom (SAB) in Garden Green. Stamp a few more with the less solid stem, stamping off as required. I also sponged a little Garden Green in the bottom two corners to fill in some gaps. 
5. Punch out six bird wings from Flowerpot DSP, and one 3/4” circle. Doodle around the inside edge of the circle. Arrange the wings to resemble a flower and stick them down. Doodle around the edges. Put the circle of DSP to one side for now. 
6. On Very Vanilla cardstock, Stamp “Our friendship is a very happy thing” from the A Happy Thing stamp set (SAB) in black ink. Cut out the words and adhere them to the project. 
7. To get the newsprint effect, you will need real newspaper. Tear into small pieces, then apply smears of Mod Podge (Tombow might work, too – I didn’t try it) roughly to the background. Put the paper, face down, to the Mod Podge and rub it with your bone folder to transfer the ink. Gently peel back the paper to leave the ink behind. You may end up peeling away some of the colour but this doesn’t matter. 
8. I found that I had some shiny patches around the newsprint so decided to Mod Podge over the whole surface. This takes some time to dry and gives the whole background a slightly glossy effect. 
9. Apply sequins (I simply pressed these into the Mod Podge).
10. With the Chalk Marker, doodle around the sequins and words.
11. To make the frame, I glued some Typeset DSP to some Very Vanilla cardstock (using the glue stick) and used the two largest dies from the Square Framelits set to cut out a frame. Ink it with Baked Brown sugar and then press the whole lot into a Versamark pad so it can be embossed with clear embossing powder. 
12. Cut some grass from Old Olive cardstock using the Fringe Scissors, then taper the ends with your Stampin’ Snips. Stick this behind the frame (I used washi tape).
13. Attach the frame to the front of the project using Stampin’ Dimensionals, cut in half (Ha! Like I don’t do that all the time!).
14. Using the In Color Accessory pack (SAB), separate some of the threads from the Hello Honey twine and thread through a Tangelo Twist button. Attach to the DSP circle and then to the project. 
15. Mount your finished piece on a 5 1/4” square card base of Kraft cardstock.
16. Make a cup of tea and have a sit down before having a go at another one!

tams# 2911

Product List

139143	139134	122959	106550	133698
133704	130921	117191	133325	119873
138637	100082	132133	132983	131174
126973	126953	131175	133773	102300
131164	109020	133674	106576	132708

Links by TheseAreMyStamps.com