Steampunk Mixed Media Piece

Hello, crafty friends!

I have a mixed media piece to share with you today and it's something I wasn't sure of at first but I persevered and once I finished it I was quite pleased with what I achieved!

I've been wanting to make a piece like this for a while - I had a bag of MDF gears from Things To Alter just begging to be used!
Then I saw this video on the Finnabair Art Files channel on Youtube...  (link) and decided to loosely follow along with it. I'm not great at mixed media and I don't have many supplies but it seemed simple enough so I had a go.

You can find out how to make this following the video, but I'll explain the colours I used, etc.

 Once I had applied the (many layers of cheap) gesso (seriously, The Works gesso isn't great..), I used modelling paste to stencil gears. The stencil is by Scrapberry's. I added dylusions spray inks in Fresh Lime and Chopped Pesto, adding water and letting the inks run, until I was happy with the effect. Basically, just play around!

Once this was dry I used a brown watercolour pencil to outline the edges of the gears and then added some water. The darker edges brought more dimension to the gears.

Thanks for stopping by!

Emily xx

Girly MDF Cards!

Hi all,

Some girly cards to share today.

This all started when I was making some steampunk cards and I was colouring in a steampunk stamp. I wanted something a bit different to put behind it and out came my little box of bits from Things To Alter. I found this really cool steampunk piece, a head with gears coming out of the back... I painted it with Distress Paints and stuck the coloured image on top of the head. I used watercolour pencils to colour the image and then went over it with a little water to colour the image. I love how vibrant watercolour pencils are which is why I prefer them over watercolour pens.
The stamp and backing paper are from the Santoro Willow collection by Trimcraft and the sentiment die is by Sizzix.

I used the same watercolour colouring technique with these Belle & Boo stamps (also by Trimcraft, I'm a little addicted to their characters!) This card worked better tiny, it's 4x4" and I would have preferred it on kraft card to match the MDF but I only have white in this size. I layered up the MDF shells, they are the same depth as 3D foam dots so these are perfect to use when you are layering the shapes. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Emily xx

Things To Alter Guest DT - Wild & Free Butterfly Layout

Hi all,

Here is my project I made for the Things To Alter guest DT. Sadly there will be no guest DT after this as the owner is concentrating on her shop, but thankfully I had the opportunity to design for the team once again for the final guest DT post.

I did have a really cool idea for my project but after a few days of working on it, it was Not Very Good. Don't worry, I haven't thrown it away, it's just waiting for me to have more mixed media practice before I have another go. 

Instead, I made a layout using MDF butterflies, masks and a frame with little circles on it.

To start with I took a strip of white cardstock, about half the width of A4 and used two MDF masks as stencils and sprayed purple and fuchsia ink through them (I covered the rest of the paper with scraps).
The butterflies are painted with Distress Paint in Picked Raspberry and then I found some cool purple... I don't know what to call it, I think it was packaging from a gift that I had saved and I stuck it to the back of the butterflies and cut around it.
The background paper is Heidi Swapp 'Wanderlust' and there is also a strip of Pink Paislee 'Take Me Away' paper on there too.

Thanks for stopping by and thank you to Jac at Things To Alter for the opportunity and for the lovely goodies I was sent.

Emily xx

Things To Alter Guest Design Team - Steampunk Pirate Layout!

Hi all,

A new make to share today using some of the MDF shapes by Things To Alter.
I was asked to be on the guest team at the last minute and luckily I had some steampunk bits left over so I was able to make this layout and I am so pleased with it!

Here's what I made.

I created the background by using matte medium with a stencil with gears on it. Once it was dry I went over areas of the layout with watercolour - crimson mixed with a little burnt umber. I also used white acrylic paint and a honeycomb stencil. Around the edge of the paper I used a border punch and then tore around it. Finally I went around the edge using the zigzag setting on my sewing machine. 

The crosshatched MDF pieces are just one larger piece cut up and coloured with metallic Sharpies. I coloured the bird like this too.

The accordion flowers are so simple to make, I just took strips of patterned paper and scored at centimetre intervals and then folded them into a concertina and stuck together with hot glue. There is some sturdy card on the back of them to stop them popping up and then an embellishment glued in the centre. With this one I used an MDF steampunk heart I painted gold. 

This layout features a picture of my dear friend Sam dressed as a steampunk pirate at Comic Con last year. Don't they look so incredibly cool! To keep with the pirate theme I searched for a sea-type quote, printed it out, cut up and stuck down with matte medium (no messing about with fiddly tape or glue) and then drew around with a fine liner.

Thanks for stopping by!

Emily xx