Challenge #13 - Celebrate Your Style

Hello Everyone!

Pamellia here and I am pretty darned excited about our challenge this month, as we are celebrating our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!! I am so honoured to have such a wonderful team and deeply grateful to have so many talented followers, so this month is going to be a real CELEBRATION! Pour some coffee folks, because I have a lot to share with you today! First up is our challenge theme for the month of May...

CELEBRATE YOUR STYLE

As we celebrate our First Anniversary, we want you to celebrate what you do best...mixed media! This is your chance to do it your way, in your favourite style...so pull out those inks and paints and show us what you're made of! You can make anything you want, in any theme you want and any style you want, just as long as it has some mixed media products on it and no cute images. HAVE FUN!

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OUR SPONSORS

We are so excited to announce that we have a wonderful line up of prizes for you this month!! We have three Gift Vouchers to give away (Winner, Runner up and a random draw), and a couple of surprise packages that will be given away randomly as well. Thank you so much to these wonderful sponsors for their generosity, and helping make our Birthday one to remember!!

The Funkie Junkie Boutique

Linda from the Funkie Junkie Boutique has generously donated a $25.00 gift certificate to one lucky winner and she has also put together two surprise packages full of goodies that we will be giving away at random to two lucky entries!

VISIT THE FUNKIE JUNKIE BOUTIQUE:
Store - The Funkie Junkie Boutique
Blog - Frilly and Funkie Challenge Blog

Facebook - The Funkie Junkie Boutique

Emerald Creek Craft Supplies

Kim at Emerald Creek has generously donated a $25.00 gift certificate to one lucky winner and she is offering a 10% discount to all Anything But Cute followers until December 31, 2016! The code will be under the badge in the sidebar for the rest of the year.

VISIT EMERALD CREEK:

Store - Emerald Creek Craft Supplies

Blog - Emerald Creek Dares

Facebook - Emerald Creek Craft

Alleystamp

Janine of Alleystamp has generously donated a $25.00 gift certificate to one lucky winner!
VISIT ALLEYSTAMP:
Store - Alleystamp
Etsy Store - Alleystamp

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FAVOURITE ARTISTS OF THE YEAR!

I am honoured to introduce you to our very special Guest Designers this month. These ladies consistently entered gorgeous projects into our challenges over the past year, and appeared more than once in our DT Favourites and Honourable Mentions section. The entire team sends out a special thank you to these wonderful artists for all their inspiration and support. 

These talented gals have all put together tutorials for you on their blogs, to share their techniques and skills with you. Please do give them a visit and learn more about how they put these stunning projects together!!

Joi - Joi@RR

Howdy from Joi@RR. And HAPPY First ANNIVERSARY....Anything But Cute Mixed Media Challenges!!!! 

Wow - so honored and excited to be here to "party"! I sooooo love these gals at Anything But Cute. They are such incredible artists and some of the most caring and encouraging gals I have met in the art world, to date. 

My goal was to create something bright, cheerful and fun in keeping with the happiness of a year of huge successes at ABC. I sure hope you will hop over to my blog and see the step-by-step tutorial, as well as lots of yummy photos!! And guess what? There is even an original poem there for the very special and well deserved ABC Celebration!! Hugs to you all!!! j. 

IrinaR - Handmade by Irina Rakovets

Hello everybody! Congratulations Happy Birthday Blog "Anything But Cute" ! My gift to you - a tutorial for making such an old treasure chest.

To see a tutorial invite you to look into my blog "Скрап-ХоббиМания". Be sure to grasp with itself a cup of coffee. I adore coffee. And still I absolutely love scrap. I met scrapbooking autumn 2012. I like to make albums and canvases. Although at the beginning of the way, I was doing a lot of layouts. Creates in Vintage style, Fabric White Vintage, Shabby, Grunge, and of course, SteamPunk. In almost all of these styles, I use the technique of mix-media. I hope my tutorial will be to you to liking.

Deb Riddell - Paxton Valley Folk Art

Hello, my name is Deb Riddell (better known as Paxton Valley Folk Art around blogland) and I am so happy to be here at Anything But Cute to help them celebrate their one year anniversary, congratulations ABC!  I was shocked and honoured to get an email from Pamellia telling me I'd been chosen as one of their favourite artists for the year and thrilled to be asked to be a guest designer, thank you so much.

This month's anniversary theme at Anything But Cute is 'Celebrate Your Style'.  My creative style is vintage and I am always inspired by Mother Nature so I used these inspirations to create this dragonfly reverse canvas to celebrate my style. I used lots of layers and techniques to create this canvas and have some step by step photographs on my blog to show you how I made it, so hope you will be able to stop on by.

Thank you again to Pamellia and the design team at Anything But Cute for allowing me to be a part of their anniversary celebration.  And I hope that you too will 'Celebrate Your Style' and join in the fun here at ABC, can't wait to see what you make!  Happy creating, Deb xo

Julia Aston - Create With Me

I was surprised and thrilled when Pamellia e-mailed me to say I had been chosen as an Anything But Cute Favorite Artist of the Year and to invite me to be a Guest Designer to help celebrate their First Year Anniversary!  The theme for the challenge is Celebrate Your Style.

I am a fairly new convert to the mixed media style and I'm slowly learning all the layering, painting, and rusting techniques. I tend to be a 'clean and simple' designer which probably sounds very contradictory to mixed media - but that is my style and I'm going to celebrate it!!! I absolutely LOVE books - reading them, holding them, shopping in book stores for them and making them! So I created a little 4" x 5" x 1 1/2" book for my project using Eileen Hull's Passport Die from Sizzix.

My overall theme in images and sentiments on the cover and the pages is affirmation and being positive, strong women as we go through life. I invite you to stop by my blog here - to see just how I put this little book together and to see what's inside!

Thank you again, to Pamellia and the rest of the Design Team for inviting me to participate in this celebration! I also look forward to seeing what you create to "Celebrate Your Style".  Please join us in the Anything But Cute - First Year Anniversary challenge! Julia

Jane Tyrrell - Jane's Journal

Hello, yes I know I was only here in March as a featured artist but recently I was delighted to receive a lovely email from Pamellia. She gave me the wonderful news that I had been voted by the team as one of their favourite artists of the year. Wow, I am truly humbled by this as there is a lot of fabulous talent around here.  Thank you so much.

Pamellia asked me to make something to celebrate the challenge's 1st anniversary which shows "My style". My style is quite feminine but I do like to dip my toe into grunge too. I use a lot of mixed media in my work.  I love learning new techniques and trying new products so I think my style is also constantly evolving, just like the world in which we live in. I love art journalling and I also make "Moments" to celebrate family occasions using mixed media. My crafting is totally influenced by the seasons, Mother Nature and my family and often combines all 3.

For this special occasion I decided to make an double art journal spread celebrating all the seasons. This was a real labour of love and I used lots of techniques. You can see them and more close ups of each season over at my blog here.

I would like to wish the ladies at ATBC a very happy 1st anniversary, where on earth has that year gone? I have really enjoyed entering their challenges and I look forward to continuing to do so. Cheers and birthday hugs, Jane x

Nicole Wright - Nicole Wright Designs

Let me start off by saying Thank You to the Anything But Cute Team for picking me as one of the Favourite Crafters!  EEK... I cannot believe it.  

Nicole here and I am a crafter, blogger and designer where you can find all the things I create and mistakes I make on my blog Nicole Wright Designs.

My style tends to lean towards masculine.  I prefer natural colour tones, metal and gears to anything cute.  I will usually find a way to take the cute and make it grungy. Stop by my blog and check out a full tutorial on this card including the metallic powders, distress crayons and Sizzix dies. 

Stop by and say Hi.  Be sure to take a closer look at the gears when you are there.

Nicola - Paper Profusion

Hi there! I'm thrilled to be here to help the majorly talented Anything But Cute team celebrate their 1st anniversary! Huge thanks ladies for including me as one of your favourite artists of the year - it's truly an honour.

Shabby chic / vintage is my favourite style and I also love all things nature so to "Celebrate my Style" I've made a trinket box that adapts to the varying seasons. The scene on the top lid represents Spring / Summer and a second scene, inside the lid, depicts chillier winter times. Please pop over to my blog, Paper Profusion, to see lots more pictures.

Wishing Pamellia and all at Anything But Cute a Happy, Happy 1st Anniverary with many congratulations. Wishing you even more success in years to come. Nicola x

Chris - Pearshapedcrafting

Hi everyone! A whole year of fabulous challenges at Anything but Cute……and I have been asked to join the celebrations! I can't tell you how excited I am! What an honour this is to be here as a favourite artist at ABC! Thank You so much!

I don't really have a crafting style - I will give almost anything a go - so eclectic is the word I suppose! I love using up my scraps though, so there's a lot of that on my blog Pearshapedcrafting

The theme here this month is 'Celebrate Your Style'. I do love making little books, and this time I have Paris on my mind - having only returned from Paris 3 weeks ago! It was also chance to use up more of my scrap mountain! I hope you will come and see the inside of my little book!

A very Happy Anniversary to all the talented team at Anything But Cute! Chris

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OUR AMAZING DESIGN TEAM

Wow, so are you completely blown away by those amazing projects or what!! What a line up of inspiration for you all, and we aren't done yet. We still have some incredible projects to show you from the Anything But Cute Design team!!

Anne - Redanne

I wanted to celebrate my style by creating a sea themed project.  Seahorses are my favourite sea creatures so I used three beautiful Seahorse knobs to adorn a mini cabinet, which I altered Andy Skinner style and I used some clay from my stash to make an Octopus ....

Autumn - Sew Paper Paint

For our birthday celebration and my first project with the team, I wanted to create a mixed media mini album.  I have been on a cardboard junk journal kick so I worked out a mini accordion version, filled with watercolor puddles, stamps, and grungy texture - all of my favorite things!

Branka - Vintage Handmade

I wanted to celebrate my style and our first birthday with this handmade canvas art journal. I used a  lot of sewing, hand dyed fabrics, ribbons, some yarn, threads, acrylic paints and markers in creating this vibrant and colourful project.

Lisa - A Mermaid's Crafts

For my first design team project, I wanted to celebrate my style with a shabby chic canvas. I covered the background using Andy Skinner's Mega Crackle technique and then layered it with my some of my favorite things: crackle paste, crackle paint, texture paste, distress inks, glitter, butterflies, cheesecloth and lots of flowers.

Niki - Pawsitively Creative Crafts

I wanted to celebrate my style by creating something I have never tried before and also using one of my favorite movies as inspiration. Jack Skellington is made from a wire frame and polymer clay, his dog (Zero) is made from polymer clay as well. I used some new molds for the clock and pillars and the bricks around the tombstone were made with a very interesting item that anyone with a die has. Hugz and Carpe Diem!

Pamellia - My Little Craft Things

This card was made for my dear sweet friend and team mate Niki. I have combined patterned papers with mixed media products and home made flowers to create a shabby garden card for her Birthday! Happy Birthday Doc! For my tutorial portion of this, I have made a video. ENJOY!!

Sara Emily - sarascloset

To celebrate our birthday at Anything But Cute, and  my teamie, Niki's birthday, I made a card for her in my grungy style. I used glue, glass bead gel, Distress inks, paints, crayons, re-inkers, and Crazing Medium, as well as DecoArt Media paints, antiquing creams, and Crackle Glaze--and that's just on the background panel. 

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WOW, I am just so amazed with the talent and creativity of our team, it's impossible not be inspired by these amazing projects! Thank you so much to everyone who entered our challenges last year, we loved seeing all your incredible work each and every month!!!

Challenge runs until June 4th - we can't wait to see what you come up with this time! Happy Crafting from the entire team and thanks for visiting Anything But Cute!

An InLinkz Link-up

New DT Members - Welcome Lisa and Autumn!!

Pamellia here, and I am so excited to be here today to introduce you to not just one, but two extremely talented ladies who will be joining the design team here at Anything But Cute! Do stay tuned and get to know these ladies as they introduce themselves to you!

Lisa of "A Mermaid's Crafts"

It takes a special kind of artist to be able to mix two different art styles together successfully, and Lisa does it better than any crafter I have seen! Her shabby chic softness is just breathtaking and the way she blends that softness with mixed media products is not just a matter of skill, but also a real talent for balancing paper and paste. But Lisa doesn't stop there, she also does vintage, quirky, bold and beautiful and so much more...lots to love about everything she makes! I am just tickled pink to get to craft along side her over the coming months, and I know you will all be truly inspired by her creations!

Hi, everyone!! My name is Lisa from A Mermaid's Crafts. I am a writer and I live in southern Indiana in the USA. I've always loved to craft but didn't seriously pursue it until about fifteen years ago when I became hooked on the craft shows HGTV used to air. I first saw Tim Holtz on The Carol Duval Show and fell in love with his grungy, inky style.

I started blogging in March of 2011 and have loved every minute of it. My style is always changing, but my current favorite is shabby chic. I love distressed edges, torn paper, crackle paste, shabby stitching, lots of flowers and ribbon. I admire people who can do CAS because I just can't. I have to have layers...big open areas on a card make me break into a sweat. I have an almost compulsive need to keep adding embellishments!! I have a serious die, stamp and crinkle ribbon addiction and probably have enough paper to cover the earth...yet I still keep buying more (not quite hoarder status, but close ;). I'm so excited to begin this journey with this amazing design team!!

I've picked out a few of my favorite mixed media pieces to share with you today. I had so much fun making this canvas, which combines two of my favorite things...the ocean and mermaids :)

This canvas was a gift for my sweet niece. The sentiment is one of my favorites so I wanted to build a scene that was filled with texture and visual interest.

I rarely make masculine projects...I love flowers and ribbon and bling too much :) But for this steampunk inspired canvas, I used a mixture of metal and wire and texture paste. Even though it was masculine, I couldn't resist adding a butterfly and this one made of gears was perfect for this.

This journal page is one of my earliest attempts and also one of my favorites. I love the vibrancy of the Dylusions sprays. I filled waterbrushes with different colors of the sprays to color the leaves. A funky Dylusions stamp and Beeswax floor stamp finished the page.

Mixed media cards are my favorite thing to make. I love adding layers, texture and dimension to cards. This one includes several of my favorite mediums...crackle paste, texture paste, distress inks and sprays and frantage.

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Autumn of "Sew Paper Paint"

Autumn is fairly new to the crafting scene, but she has exploded across the mixed media world with her amazing creations!! I fell in love with her work instantly and just knew she was going to be someone to follow and keep watch on! She does it all, layouts, cards, tags, you name it, and her styles are just as ranged as her project base! She has such a great way with texture and dimension, even on a flat surface, and every creation is filled with elements that you want to reach out and touch! I really look forward to seeing what she creates and can't wait to get to know her better as an artist and a friend!

Autumn here to share just a little bit about myself...I am married to an amazing man, and my biggest supporter.  We have four children, yes four!  I live in the US and work full-time as a church secretary. I have been stamping for over 15 years, but making art throughout my entire life. Creativity is my outlet, passion and purpose. I define my style as grunge meets elegance. Though I love to distress everything, I like to balance my work with a touch of pretty and neat.  In addition to stamping, I love to draw and paint and have found that mixed media allows me to blend these skills and create rich artwork, filled with depth and texture. I started my blog, SewPaperPaint a little less than a year ago. The girls at Anything But Cute have been such an inspiration to me in my first year of blogging.  I am thrilled to be joining this team!  

It was no easy task to sift through my work and pick "favorites", but I picked a few pieces that I feel really showcase who I am as a mixed media artist and stamper.  This butterfly piece is my favorite mixed media creation to date.  I love the soothing colors, the subtle grungy texture and the vintage elements. I love the stamped focal point and the little crocheted cocoon. I can't relate this piece to anything else and think that is what I love most about it, the uniqueness.

This reverse canvas is another favorite because I love the natural, woodsy feel of it.  It was a gift to a very dear friend and has sentimental meaning.  I like all of the layering and imagery and puddled paint around the frame.  Handmade embellishments are one of my favorite ways to dress up a project.

I love constructing mini albums and filling them with my collections.  Here I enjoyed using a hodgepodge of leftover paper and tons of stamps.  I love the simplicity of this cover and the handmade flower stem and tape.  When I need a card idea, I flip through this album and pick a layout. Works for me every time!

As far as journal pages go, this is my all time favorite.  I drew the feather and made a stencil from it. I love developing my own designs and experimenting here with neon paints, and the contrast with the shadowy, ethereal background.  Not to mention, I really enjoy lettering and handwriting in my projects.

As far as cards go, though I do love making my own backgrounds, I always enjoy a nicely layered card from designer paper.  I love mixing multiple patterns with the "more is more" theory.  This card is a favorite because of the pretty vintage seam binding, the DIY embellishment, and the machine stitching.  Using inspirational quotes and scripture is one of my favorite ways to personalize my cards.

Again, thanks so much to this team for welcoming me!  I cannot wait to join in these artful adventures with you!  Also a huge welcome to Lisa, who is such an amazing crafter and encouragement.  Hugs, Autumn

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Are you folks as blown away as I am right now?? WOW, look at all those gorgeous projects!! I feel so lucky to have scooped these talented gals up, what a treat it will be to learn more about these ladies behind the scenes and share their work with you every month!

Lisa and Autumn will be presenting their first projects for Anything But Cute on May 5th for our One Year Blogiversary Challenge!!! You won't want to miss out on this one, as we will have tons of surprises and prizes!!

Happy Crafting, Hugs Pamellia :)

Spotlight Artist - Sara Emily is Tempting You With Texture!

Hello! It's Sara Emily here, and I'm excited to present this month's Spotlight Post, where I will be tempting you with texture! For those of you who see my work, you might see I like to add a bit of texture.

Two things come to mind when I think of texture: visual  and tactile.  Visual texture creates the illusion of dimension, while leaving the surface smooth and flat. Tactile texture has dimension that you can both see and touch. For today's post I'm going to provide some examples of different types of texture, focusing mostly on the tactile version. Even though I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, I do tend to use a bit of tactile texture in my work, but not as much in the line of visual texture.

A couple of examples of visual texture follow.  In the first project, you can see visual texture on both the smaller tags and the larger tag. For the two smaller tags, I applied Distress paint, and then blended on distress inks once the paint was dry.  By flicking on some water, allowing it to sit for a moment, and then heat drying, I was able to give some depth to the background.  By layering paints, inks and then paints again, I can achieve a lot of depth. Specifically this is done by first giving the surface a coat of gesso. Then I placed some Distress paints on my craft mat, spritzed with water and dragged my dried gesso covered card through the puddles. I heat dried and repeat until I'm satisfied with the look. In this example I stamped a Tim Holtz Flourish image with Picket Fence Distress paint and heat dried.  Next, I blended on some Distress inks, and wiped over the flourish to remove the ink from it.  The dried Distress paint acts as a resist.  I flicked on watered down Distress paint in Picket Fence, and then finished with a stamped sentiment. Lot's of depth while the surface remains smooth and flat--visual texture!

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In the following project, I used paper products--vintage book pages and tissue wrap and stamped images to provide  some visual texture. Of course there's some tactile texture here, too, in the form of crackle and rusted metal elements.

For my card Let It Snow (again!), I created visual texture and depth using a household product--plastic wrap! This is not my idea, but I saw it somewhere in blogland quite some time ago.  I gave my card a coat of gesso, and dried.  I sprayed with Distress spray stains in Wilted Violet and Blueprint Sketch, misted with water, and laid my wrap over the wet sprays.  I scrunched it up and left it to dry overnight.  When I removed it, it left this beautiful frosted appearance. Additional visual texture is made using a snowflake stencil and paints and inks. Tactile texture is given using an embossing folder and embossing powder.

OK, you get the idea of visual texture, and now let's move onto the good stuff--Tactile texture!!! Tactile texture can be achieved in a variety of ways--using mediums, pastes, papers and other textiles, embossing folders and powders, gesso and paints, die cuts, found objects, and even household products. I could go on and on, because I am always searching for more ways to add texture, but I'm afraid I might bore you.  So, I'll try to limit myself to some of my favorites, and save others for another day.  I'm sure much of this is not new to you, but hopefully there will be something that will inspire you!

We'll start with my favorite--RUST! I'm always looking for new ways to get a rusted look, and recently I've had the opportunity to try some techniques new to me. There are many, many ways to get the look of rust, some of them require fancy products,some just paints and others use a variety of mediums. Mine came strictly from what I had on hand. I guess you could call me a frugal crafter!

For the following two projects, I used similar techniques.

In the photo below, you can see I added visual texture first by adding  gesso, vintage book pages, and paint to my background. To get the rusty texture, I added glass bead gel at the top and bottom over my rusty colored paint.  This starts out white in color, but dries clear.  The stuff on either side is crackle medium, and we'll talk about that later.

In this next photo, the glass bead medium has dried (as has the crackle medium), and I've added Distress paints in Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain and DecoArt Quinacridone Gold and Cadmium Orange followed by Ginger alcohol ink. This is a bit too glossy, so I gave it a coat of DecoArt Ultra Matte Varnish and then a light dab of Walnut Stain paint once more. I repeated this technique on the butterfly, and the metal embellishment. To see more photos of this project you can visit my Rusted Porcelain post.

In the next two photos, I've made rusted embellishments by using a couple of pantry staples: cinnamon and instant coffee. In the first photo it is used on the rusted grate on the backing and in the following photo, it's used on the buckles. For the grate, I used packing material, added Mod Podge and sprinkled with a mixture of cinnamon and coffee.

I start by adding Mod Podge to each buckle, then sprinkle with a mixture of the cinnamon and coffee. When dry, I add another coat of Mod Podge to seal. I find it helpful to pour out some Mod Podge to a little cup, so you don't contaminate the large bottle with your cinnamon and coffee. For the buckles, but not the grate, I gave the dried buckles a coat of the Ultra Matte varnish to take down the shine of the (matte) Mod Podge and then a light touch of Quinacridone Gold.

Another rust technique I used on one of these projects is using household chemicals to create rust on metal hardware.  while the nuts and nails were already rusted in the garage, I rusted the keyrings and washes with a bath of vinegar for 24 hours followed by a soaking of kosher salt and hydrogen peroxide for another 24 hours, and finally, a sun bath for another day. A bit time consuming but effective.

On my next rusted project, I was looking for a rusted tin roof vibe.  I got that (I hope), by using a piece of corrugate board from a shipping box.  I distressed it and painted it with Folk Art Metallic Gunmetal Grey and heat embossed while the paint was still wet with a mixture of embossing powders: Embossing puffs in brown and a mixture of Cloisonne  High Gloss Granules (which are like Ultra Thick Embossing Powder), black embossing powder, and Perfect Pearls Powder in Pewter. To see more detail s of this wall hanging you can visit my Stay Curious post.

  

I don't really know what look I was going for here, but it all ended up looking like rust to me in the end.

I started by embossing my card with a Tim Holtz Steampunk Texture Fade and sprayed with Distress Spray stains, Distress inks, Lindy's Moon Shadow Mist, Ranger embossing puffs, Burnt Copper Leaves embossing powder, and some of my hand compounded Cloisonne Granule/embossing powder/Perfect Pearls powder. I can't tell you the exact colors used, because I was just flinging stuff at this at the time.  but start flinging your own colors, and see what happens! That's the beauty of mixed media. The ball chain is altered using alcohol inks and embossing powders, and the gears paint and embossing puffs, powders, and Cloisonne Granules. To see details of this and the other textures on my card, visit my Grungy Valentine post.

 

Well, I think we might move on to something other than rust!  How about CRACKS?  Another favorite of mine. The following two photos show hearts with cracks, although  it's hard to see them in the second shot. I actually followed Pamellia's tutorial here, but I thought no discussion of cracks would be complete without mention of  her Mega Crackle.  I added a little heat embossing for additional texture. The purple frame also has cracks.  I used Crackle paste (Golden in this case), Distress ink and paint to color it, and DecoArt antiquing cream to show off the crackles.

Grungy Love

Special Gift

The bigger cracks on this little guy's top hat come from crinkling up the card before making into a hat. I rubbed a little Ranger Perfect Ink Refresher into the card before wrinkling and beating on it and then forming it into a tophat. I used Distress Crackle paint, acrylic paint, and DecoArt Grey Antiquing Cream to get and highlight the small cracks.

Something A Little Less Sinister 

I got the nice large cracks on this skull by using DecoArt Crackle Paste in thin and thick layers. By priming the styrofoam skull with black gesso before applying the paste, I got a nice old, decaying bone look. I highlighted the cracks further and aged the "bone" with DecoArt Creme Wax. I invite you to click on the link below the photo (if you dare!) to see how gruesome this little guy is, and to see how I made his rotted hair.

Decay and Spiders! Beware!

I love the love of cracked glass, and here I made faux cracked glass on my clock faces using Tim Holtz' Faux Cracked Glass technique.  I used Ranger Glue and Seal (matte) on  clean and dry vials, acetate, and glass watch crystals, followed by Distress Rock Candy Distress Crackle paint in a medium layer. Make sure the Glue and Seal is perfectly dry first. Allow both mediums to dry on their own. I used various alcohol inks to give the glass an aged appearance.  You can click on the link below the photo for details on how I crackled the clock die cut.

  

Fe Fi Faux Fum 

Other ways to create texture on your mixed media pieces include embossing folders like I used in the example below.

Oh, Baby It's Cold Outside 

Use stencils and paste--texture or crackle like I did on this shabby card.


Shabby Wedding Card

Or throw everything including the kitchen sink at your paper or card. Here I used pieces of coffee filters, cheese cloth, and microbeads and then topped it off with crackle paste and a stencil. Isn't it yummy?

Shabby Monochromatic

Or use your mistakes! Here, I used a piece of card I had heat embossed with Distress Embossing powders which leave a gritty texture when heated.  I did a poor job on the embossing, but saved the panel in my "trash" box anyway. For this project I tore it into strips and adhered to a heavy card base. I gave it a coat of gesso using a credit card, and before the gesso fully dried, I scraped over it with the  credit card again, revealing a gritty worn texture. A few torn vintage book pages with a watery wash of gesso complete the background all ready for what ever you want to throw at it or leave it just as it is for a shabby vintage look.

Sometime's it's just fun to see how your new products will react with your old ones! In this sample, I had sprayed my scrap of card with Rusty Hinge Distress Spray stain and dropped on some Perfect Pearls powder in Forever Green.  I spritzed with water and dried with my heat tool.  I added a thick layer (like spreading peanut butter) of my new Distress Crazing medium and again dried with the heat gun. This looks really amazing in real life--like old worn and musty leather. Oh, I love grunge!

I think I will leave it at that before I bore you to tears! Remember, with mixed media there's no wrong way to do anything! Just try different things, and you will find something you love!

There's still time to play along with Samra's Earth Day challenge which runs until May 4th! Get out your earthy colored mixed media products and possibly a recycled/upcycled item, and let's celebrate our great beautiful earth!

Thank you for giving me your attention and sticking with me through this LONG post; I do hope you come away with some inspiration!

Hugs and Blessings!

Sara Emily