Tag: mixed media

card making, how to, mixed media, papercrafts, trimcraft, tutorial

Mixed Media Anniversary Card – How To

ms.paperlover

1

Hi all! I have a post today to show you how to make this pretty mixed media card. Today is my parents’ 30th Wedding Anniversary, which is the ‘pearl’ anniversary, so I wanted to make something with lots and lots of pearls. Of course you could use this style and techniques to make any sort of card you wanted, and use any papers, but I will list the items I used to help you get an idea of what is needed.

I used:

A3 cardstock

First Edition Sweet Nothings 12×12 Paper Pad

Dovecraft Distressing Tool

Paper Flowers, various colours and sizes

Clear Glass Beads

White thread

Flat back pearls (lots!)

White Gesso

3D Gloss Gel/Gel Medium

I wanted to make a huge card, so I started with A3 white card to create my card blank. The card measures 7.5″ by 8″, so you will need to cut a piece 15″ by 8″, and score down the middle to create your card blank.

2

Matt the front of the card with three contrasting papers, one just under 7.5 x 8″, one 7 x 7.5″, and the front one 6.75 x 7″. Distress the edges of the centre paper.

For the centrepiece, I cut the numbers on my silhouette in the font ‘Beyond the Mountains’. I offset the numbers by about 0.3″ and separated the two cut files so the darker ’30’ could be backed by the lighter one. If you do not have a silhouette or other electronic cutting machine you can print out a template and then draw and cut around it, the shapes are not too complicated so it shouldn’t take too long.

3

Distress the edge of the larger 30, then adhere as seen in the photo below, so the numbers slightly overlap and so still leave a border of the green paper underneath. Also so there isn’t an awkward bit of green poking out where the number three ‘dips’ inward on the right edge.

9

Now it’s time for the messy bit, start by lightly sponging some white gesso on the corners of the card:

5

Gather together all your embellishments ready to put on. I also cut the ‘mum and dad’ with my silhouette with pearlescent paper (PEARLescent, geddit?!).

7

Add the gel medium (or other adhesive, you basically want something that will dry transparent with a gloss finish) in the first corner you’re embellishing.

6

Then add the thread, loop it around your fingers, make knots, whatever you like. It will look messy at first but works once all the items are in place and gives a lovely shabby-chic look.

8

Then start adding the rest of your embellishments! You may need to add more gel as you go. Start from largest to smallest. So I started with the large paper flowers, then the smaller pink ones, then large pearls, medium pearls, etc, and finish with the glass beads and tiny pearls to fill in any gaps.

ea

If adding a small title or sentiment like I did with the ‘mum and dad’ cut, then add this at the very end.

Finish by painting a light layer of gesso over the flowers to help tie them in to the theme of the card – if your flowers are white or ivory you may not need to do this, but mine had a hint of yellow which I wanted to hide.

10

The gesso layer also contributes to the shabby-chic effect.

You can dry with a heat tool but I find it better with all these embellishments to leave it overnight to dry.

And it’s finished! One thing to remember with this card, make sure you have an envelope, or the equipment to make an envelope, that is big enough, as it is a BIG card!

f

Thank you so much for reading. If you make your own version of this card then I’d love to see it, so please tag me on social media! Let me know if you have any questions, and if you’re a bit new to or confused by mixed media, then I have a Mixed Media Basics video up on my YouTube channel (it’ll be published a few hours after this blog post), there’s a link to my channel up at the top of this page underneath my logo.

Grace / ms.paperlover ❤

budget crafting, mixed media

Making Your Own Spray Ink

ms.paperlover

 

OK, so if you’re cheap like me, you don’t like paying big prices for stuff like Heidi Swapp Color (Colour!) Shine, or Dylusions Sprays, or any other craft/mixed media spray inks.

Don’t get me wrong, those things are GREAT, and if I were overflowing with cash then I would buy them ALL! And there’s certainly some on my ‘to buy at some point’ list. But alas, I cannot have them all.

So here’s some ways to have spray ink for your craft and mixed media projects without spending loads.

1

First and foremost, you’re going to need some empty spray bottles. I bought the one in this picture from eBay, it was a few pound for six of them.  You can also find them in Wilko, Superdrug, Boots, etc.,.  Usually they’ll be in the ‘travel sized toiletries’ section.

Next, to make this gold ‘ink’, you need some gold acrylic paint. Mine is from hobbycraft, but go with the acrylic of your choice. Last, and this is the more difficult and expensive item to obtain, is some mica powder. The one I’m using here is ‘Gold Pearl Shine’.

For those who don’t know, mica powder is a (very) fine powder you mix with water in a spray bottle to create a sparkly, iridescent effect (there’s also a bajillion other uses but we won’t go into those). You may be questioning why make gold spray when the mica powder does that? Good question! I do use these a lot in crafting but as it says on the tin, they’re iridescent, so the effect is subtle. Pretty, but subtle. Sometimes you can only see the effect when you hold it up to sunlight. And that’s not what I want for this spray.

So, step one.

2

Very ungracefully squirt a bit of paint into the bottle. It will look a little bit like a gold turd and you will giggle.

Step two, add mica powder

3

Now, I can’t tell you exactly how much because I just eyeballed it. To give you some frame of reference that spray bottle is 30ml.

Step 3, add water

4

Again, can’t tell you how much exactly. About >>>that<<< much.

Step 4, shake it up, baby!

5

I shook that bottle VERY vigorously, yet it didn’t pick up all the acrylic paint. So I used something long and thin (a crochet needle in my case) to stir it and pick up the paint that had stuck to the bottom. And then I shook it again!

Step 5, test!

6

So this was my first result. As you can see it’s a little dark and the spray is quite thick. It’s also not that shiny. Not what we want. So I added some more water and some white acrylic paint, to lighten it up a little.

7

 

Result…

8

Better on the colour, but not consistency. So, I added even more water (only about 5-10ml at a time) and…

9

TAH-DAH!

It’s shiny, it’s not too heavy, and it gets the job done. I now have gold spray ‘ink’. It does need a very good shaking each time I use it, but that’s the case with most brand sprays anyway.

10

Now onto some other options.

A few months ago I published a haul video from The Works. In it I got some of this ‘Ocaldo Drawing Ink’ for £2 a bottle, and a number of people have asked me about it: how good it is, what I do with it, etc.

The answer is, I spray it.

11

I mixed ink and water at a ratio of about 60:40, gave it a good shake (making sure the lid was FIRMLY on), and here are the results:

12

The picture on the left is just spraying at a distance of about 20cm, on the right is taking off the lid and using the pipe to drop splats of ink onto the paper. I could of course add some appropriately coloured mica powder to make it sparkly if I wanted to.

13

The other Ocaldo inks, the ‘Shellac’ drawing inks, are a little different. They’re far more viscous and as such need to be mixed with more water, the ratio I used was probably about 50:50. When they’ve been standing for a while the ink settles to the bottom so they need a very good shake before use (the other inks not so much, just a little shake!).

The Rose Gold ink looks a very orangey copper in the bottle, but does come out a colour a little closer to rose gold when sprayed on something.

Here are some examples of using these inks as sprays…

14

At the bottom I have used a mix of the pink (cerise) and the rose gold, and also done some ink ‘dropping’ straight out the bottle. The top notebook is a mix of the blue and the silver (and also some Distress Stain at the bottom but shhh we won’t talk about that).

So there we are! Some options for spray inks on a budget. I realise the mica powder may be pricey to buy at first but it’s well worth the investment as you can do so much with them, and they last FOREVER. If you really don’t want to buy any (understandable), then there is a gold Ocaldo ink, it just never seems to be in stock 😦

Thanks so much for reading. Let me know what you think and if you have any of your own budget mixed media solutions!

cropped-lets-see-if-this-works.png

 

Grace ❤ @ms.paperlover