Love Her! / Chickaniddy Crafts

Hey there, friends!  I hope you're doing well today :)  I've got a new layout up for Chickaniddy Crafts today.  This month, the Crafts Team is featuring lots of crafty trends we all know and love.  We will be sharing a new trend each day this month, so keep checking back and see what each day has in store!

One of the trends I'm playing with is Mixed Media.  If you follow me, you know I absolutely love playing with inks, paints, modeling paste, gesso...anything wet and messy!  With Spring coming soon, I decided to create a super bright and bold layout.  I love creating my own backgrounds.  To do this, I used a stencil, modeling paste, a stamp, distress inks and water.  It looks complicated, but really it isn't.

Supplies Used: Twirly Girly--Sentiments Mini Stickers TG14EB05, Tags Mini Stickers TG14EB04, Enamel Hearts TG14EB07, Piggy Tails TG140S12; Scrumptious--Home Sweet Home SC140S02, New Harvest SC140S10, Autumn Haze SC140S06, Check Please SC140S09, Mini Stickers SC14EB06, Sentiments Mini Stickers SC14EB07, Journal Tags SC14EB03, Sticker Sheet SC14EB02, Die Cut Tags SC14EB04, Mini Brads SC14EB08; Jolly Good--Alpha Stickers JG14EB02, Banners Mini Stickers JG14EB05, Mini Brads JG14EB08, Snow Play JG140S09, Happy New Year JG140S12; Other--cardstock, Liquitex Gesso, Golden Modeling Paste, Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Shimmerz Coloringz, Brother Sewing Machine, Coats Thread, Ranger Archival Ink, October Afternoon Date Stamp, Sharpie Pen, pop dots, washi tape

Here's how I created this background.

1.  After coating my entire page with clear gesso, I used a palette knife to smudge white gesso over a triangle stencil.  After letting that dry, I took the banner shaped stamp from the Scrumptious collection and used various colors of distress inks to stamp it in a rainbow color scheme.

Since distress inks react and blend with water, I knew these would be the best to use so I could create a watercolor effect.

2.  After stamping the shapes, I simply dabbed my finger into some water and started smudging a little.  I love that you can see some of the triangles and some of them blend in to the background.  I love this look, so I kept smudging.

3.  After the cardstock dried, I started going through my Chickaniddy collections to choose papers and embellishments that coordinated with all of those bright colors.  I pulled items from Scrumptious, Jolly Good and Twirly Girly.  I wanted to continue the rainbow effect at the bottom, so I tried to include something of each color...die cuts, brads, stickers and stitching.

4.  I continued adding embellishments and choosing papers to layer under my photo.  Here a few of the pieces I pulled from:

The Sticker Sheet

Alpha Stickers

Enamel Hearts

 

5.  I punched some hearts from patterned papers and stitched through them...I love creating little clusters like this.  It allows for another grouping of all the rainbow colors.

6. Finally, I added some machine stitching in the bold turquoise color.  Here you can really see the bold orange and how the triangles create such great texture and interest.

I hope this inspires you to give Mixed Media a try.  It's really fun, and it's always an experiment...you never know what your background is going to look like until you start playing around with different mediums.  There are different types of paints and inks to play with...even gelatos!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a great day!