Finnabair @ Dromkeen for Bella Carta

Had another amazing opportunity to play with Finnabair and lots of pretty Prima product, and drive to parts of Australia I had never been to LOL! 

This canvas was created with a black gesso background, collage of paper and ephemera, texturised clear soft matt gel, lace, flowers, metal, wood and plastic button embellishments and sentiment, covered in black gesso and highlighted with metallic sprays and metallic paint created using mica and soft matt gel.

Playing along with That Craft Place Anything Goes Mixed Media,

We Love to Create Anything Mixed Media and
Mixed Media Monthly Challenge Texture.

The Mixed Media Card Challenge... Bliss

SO excited to share with you for the inaugural The Mixed Media Card Challenge. 

The theme for July is Touch of Nature, and the optional element is Tag.

This month I went close with the optional element, but ended up using a canvas flag, rather than a tag (or maybe it's actually a hole-less tag LOL!), and incorporated a Touch of Nature in the textures, colour palette and floral and dragonfly images.

Created by applying Brushed Corduroy Distressed Ink around the edges of the Kaisercraft woodgrain paper and Francheville stitched canvas flag then layered these on a pale Kraft cardstock base. Tarnished Brass Distress Paint was applied to the grungeboard Tim Holtz flowers. The Tattered Angels dragonfly was stamped in Versamark Watermark Ink and Zing Gold embossing powder onto blue mulberry paper, and added the Studio Calico wood veneer sentiment.

I hope you take the opportunity to have a play with Mixed Media, I'd LOVE to see your creations!  In case you're wondering what qualifies as a Mixed Media Card, I have posted details here, and they can be found on The Mixed Media Card Challenge blog. 

While you are there, grab some more fabulous inspiration 

from the amazing Design Team!

Julia Aston

Shirley Bampton

Charlene Cundy

Maria Fischer

Jan Jenitis

Kripa Koushik

Maria Levine

Sanna Lippert

Deepti Malik

Jenny Martin
Shery Russ

Elina Stromberg

Loll Thompson

HOW TO PLAY

1. Create a mixed media CARD based on the theme, with or without the optional element.

2. For this challenge only, you may create a mixed media TAG based on the theme.

3. Display the challenge graphic on your blog post and link back to this challenge post.

4. You may enter as many times as you want, as long as each entry is different.

5. You may combine a maximum of 7 challenges (6 other challenges plus ours).

6. Submit your projects by July 25, 11:55 p.m. PDT (GMT -700).

7. We’ll announce the winner and favorites on July 31.

Playing along with Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes too!

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...