A little mixed media anyone?

Those of you who know me, will know that I am obsessed with mixed media. Nothing could make me happier than pulling out my mediums, paints, stencils, canvas.....in fact ANYTHING and play.

Today I thought I would share with you a little mixed media tutorial, to show you how I go about making a simple mixed media layout step by step.

My apologies for the terrible photography. Night time in my craft room is a tad dismal!!

The first step  is to take a piece of Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Back Canvas. ( Liz and the girls can get this is for you, if you wish to try this technique )
I have used a Prima marketing stencil over the top, and have used gel medium through the stencil, using a palette knife. An old credit card works just as well.

You can find gel medium here in the shop, and of course there are a heap of different stencils here

Carefully remove the stencil, and put the canvas piece aside to dry thoroughly. You can CAREFULLY use a heat gun to dry, but take special care to not "boil" the gel medium, as it will bubble up and may burn as well. .....but you can speed up drying, just keep a close eye, and pull back if it starts to burn!!! Don't ask me how I know this!!!

For this next step, I am using some sprays from Lindys Stamp Gang. Again Liz can get these in for you if you wish to add to your collection! There some of the Lindys Sprays available in the shop here
See the design on the canvas? This is the gel medium that has dried, and will act as a resist to sprays, inks, paints etc
HOW COOL IS THAT?

To start, I have misted my canvas with a good spritz of water. This just means that the colours will be less bright in the beginning. Better to start of pale, and build up the layers. Once you have zapped your canvas with spray you cannot get it off!! The thing with the Lindys products is, that they are fabric friendly ( or unfriendly if you have a woopsie and spray yourself). You can use them to alter
t shirts etc, which I am sure will be of interest to many. I think we all have a t shirt where we have spilled, and stained the front. Maybe a stencilled design could be just the thing to extend the life of a favourite shirt!

Gradually build up layers on the canvas, layering your colours so they will blend into each other. 

Sometimes there will be a little build up on the top of the stencilled gel pattern. Simply take a wet wipe and wipe it over the top to get your clean area again.

Now its time to build up some papers, in this case I have used Captured Moments cards from Kaisercraft here
I fell in love with the Antique Bliss cards the moment I saw them! They are so very pretty.
I have also used some of the papers from Rustic Harmony found here
They are just stunning papers. Love love LOVE them with a passion!

Here is the finished page. I have used the elements from the Rustic Harmony collection to build up some more layers, added a polaroid frame, and some resin pieces. To finish the page off I have stamped with a stitches stamp around the edge in grey to give the page a subtle frame

I just wanted to mention, that this technique can also be used over a lot of different substrates. Paper, fabric, chipboard, patterned paper....anything. so give it a go and stretch those supplies in a different direction.....You never know, you might get hooked on mixed media too!

Thanks for looking! And don't forget to let me know how you get on with this technique.

Cheers

Sharon

PS Happy birthday to my Darling hubby today XXX