Mixed Media & Happy Crafting...

I took some of these 4x4 canvases away on our crafty retreat and thought I'd have a go at mixed media.

We were lucky enough to have a play with some of Joy's the new Penny Black masks and stamps - and yes, they are as fabulous as you hope they might be! The butterfly canvas is created by applying Gelatos over the primed canvas (they can be primed using Gesso, but these canvases came pre-primed) and blending the Gelato colours with a baby wipe. Using the Penny Black Charming stencil, I gently removed the colour from the stencilled flower and leaf sections, before applying Festive Berries and Mowed Lawn Distress Inks to the flowers and leaves.  When adding a layer of clear embossing paste to the flowers, I discovered that the Distress Inks react to the embossing paste, so I had to be very careful when applying the paste - next time I would use LuminArte or Gelatos, which don't have the same reaction. The sentiment ant butterfly undercolour were created using LuminArte. The Dyan Reaveley sentiment was stamped in Versamark Watermark and Zing White embossing powder, then fussy cut and adhered to the canvas using multimedia paste. The underlayer of the butterfly was adhered to the silver butterfly, and bling added, before adhering with Dimensional Magic.

The little bird canvas is created using one of Jenny's bird stamps, first stamped on watercolour paper with Versamark Watermark just to get an outline of the shape of the bird, then painted in LuminArte and dried before overstamping in Versamark Watermark and Zing Pewter embossing powder. The Dyan Reaveley sentiment was created using the same technique. The background was created using Gelatos, then a second layer of Gelatos mixed with texture paste to create a more textured finish.

Playing along with Virginia's View Stencil Challenge, 

Simon Says Anything Goes Monday Challenge,
 Moxie Fab World Styling with Stencils Challenge, and

Catered Crop Put A Bird On It.

Retreat photos... all the fabulous ladies who attended:  

Back Row: Teresa Xanthos, Jenny Dix, Debbie Pamment, Joy Taylor.

Front Row: Michelle Lupton, Sue Kohler, Jenny Martin Rawling, Iwona Palamountain (Chupa)(in front), me, Angelique Kelly and Cecilia Hsieh.  

Please go and check out their blogs - they're all completely fabulous!!

This made me smile...