Uniquely You!

Morning,

I have been getting messy with some mixed media and it has been so fun. It has been a while since I created a full-on mixed media layout, creating the background paper and the embellishments. Yes, it takes hours but who cares when you are getting messy, relaxing and taking some me time!

I had purchased this card kit from Uniquely Creative a couple of months ago and had broken my self imposed rule ‘ Everything new must be used ‘ rather than stashed. This kit had been sitting on my desk, under a pile of supplies and when having a clean up I found the kit and broke it down, separating and sorting all the components. Now I don’t make cards but I loved the stamps and stencils in the kit, which is why I purchased it. The design of both is very Australian, using patterns similar to indigenous art. The booklet which came with the kit had a picture of a wonderful layout made by Tammy Klingner. The colours she had used just sparked and sent me running to find a photo which I knew would work well with both the stamps and stencils.

Here is what I used, I pulled in a couple more stencils to play with. The green stencil is a Kaisercraft but I’m not sure about the others, they may be WRMK. As usual, I’m pulling in some Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks, love, love, love these. You can see Tammy’s layout in the first photo below which I am using as inspiration.

So, here is what I did…it was a long process. I started by using textured gesso paste and the stencils to create some texture on my background page.

While the gessoed background dried in front of the woodfire, I stamped out the circle embellishments onto white cardstock. Then I used the same stencils and some Tim Holtz Distress oxide inks to add some layers of colour and pattern onto each circle. A Little rub of Distress Glaze between layers fixes the ink in place.

Some blue oxide ink, a plastic bag and a splash of water and I have a lovely textural look to stamp more circles on and punch out.

I recently purchased some WRMK 2″ Clear Cut Punches, I had wanted some for ages but they are pretty expensive, close to $50 (AU) here. A 50% off sale happened and I couldn’t resist, snapping up the heart, hexagon and circle punches. It has taken me a while to master using them, at first I battled to get a clean cut and I ran some waxed paper through them to lubricate the mechanism. This seems to have helped, either that or I’m better at applying an equal weight distribution when punching. Anyway, I used some Simple Stories, Heart collection papers to punch the circle embellishments, the colours in this paper collection matched well with my photo.

With the gessoed background dried it was time to add some colour, more oxide inks were splashed around to build up layers of textural interest.

Some oxide Chipped Sapphire darkness to bring it all together. I love how the ink pools around the gesso and seeps into the previous inks. You may notice that some of the gesso took on a creamy yellow colour when dry, I was testing two different gessos. The yellowing didn’t bother me and worked to my advantage, as it matched in well with the Simple Stories papers.

Next, some stamping, more stencilling and a whole lot of fussy cutting! Those stamped circles took a while to cut, think I need to purchase some more circle punches.

Then, it was just a case of assembling, layering and adhering the circle embellishments. I used some fun foam and double-sided tape to create different layered heights. I added some black watercolour splatter and some small text quotes.

Even though I loved how it looked I felt it needed a little more punch and so I added some bright red watercolour splatter to pick up the thin red line in the hoodie from the photo. Then, a few enamel dots from the Simple Stories collection. The title came from the kit, a piece of wood veneer which I painted with watercolour paint.

This was so much fun and I highly recommend the Uniquely Creative stamps and stencils, no connection, I just like their products. Do check out Tammy’s blog, I love her colourful style.

And, please do leave a comment, I would love to hear what you think about this layout…is it too much? Remember that you need to click on the title of the post to open the page to comment.

The next post will be another mixed media layout, stay tuned, I’m nearly finished creating it.

Keep on scrapping!