There's a New Blog in Town

There's a new blog in town. As I start to dabble more in mixed media projects, I wanted a fresh new place to document my progress and share what I learn along the way.

It's new. It no doubt will be tweaked here and there as I grow and learn how to work with this new style of blogging. And I named it, the Adventures of an Artsider. Check it out by pressing

HERE

and if it goes quiet on here, you'll know it's because I'm posting more on this new site. If you would like to follow me, I'd be extremely honoured and I hope along the way, you'll be entertained, inspired or who knows, even educated too.

Everybody say LOVE xx

Going for the One Layer Look

In the crafty world of the clean and simple, there is a challenge to make cards which consist of one layer only. Well, this is my interpretation. And yes, I've stretched the concept a little by layering up onto black card and mounting onto a backing card but what's the point in rules if you can't just bend them a little to get a nicer result?

Using Seth's drip die again, I cut into some thin paper, laid it over my card and beat it to perfection with Pickled Raspberry ink. You read that correct. Pickled. I've given up trying to read it as Picked. My brain adds the L and there's nothing I can do about it.

With mask still in place, I stamped a texture on top. I removed the mask, stamped one of Seth's circles in the middle and set about the rest of the design with a black pro marker.

As an experiment, it was fun to play and see what happened. And the result, whilst not perfect, doesn't quite deserve to be shown the inside of the wastebasket. However. Am I alone in thinking it now looks like a dripping eyeball?

To Become a Mixed Media Artist, You Must Do Just One Thing

Guess who's range of dies and stamps I'm still playing with? Well if you don't know, first of all, what rock have you just popped out from? Second, go read the last few posts.

Believe me, I'm certainly getting my money's worth. But that's not why I'm still using Seth's stuff. It's because I love the designs. I'm having all sorts of ideas. Usually, I buy a stamp etc, use it once and all inspiration in the well has dried up. With these artier designs, I keep coming up with ideas. I'm starting to impress even myself.

For this card, I had a scrap of die-cut black card lying around, created from the Coffee Ring dies. An experiment from the cards I made in the last post. Now I don't subscribe to the idea I hear a lot of creatives come up with of "I never throw anything away, it all get's used". Nope, if it's scrap, it goes in the wastebasket.

Don't read me wrong, I'm no money-bags who can happily waste supplies. I've just been crafting for long enough to know that the pile of scraps just builds and builds. A fraction may be used but what inevitably happens is that my craft space looks like a craft bin.

This time, however, I did find a use for the offcut. It was spared, because I did the one thing you must do to become a bona fide mixed media artist. The one thing you are contractually obliged to do, if you want to dare attach that label to yourself. I applied Crackle Paste.

Yup, that's the secret, my friends. Once you've crackled, you're in the club.

So I had my crackled offcut, I dabbed blue paint over the top and a good dollop of gloss varnish. I attached it to some other stamped and decorated card and because of it's zen like appearance, typed out and added the mot juste, Breathe.

You just wait, I'll soon be throwing inky shapes down onto my clean white canvases :D

More Makes from my Inky Stash

If you remember from my last post, I had plenty of colourful mixed media cards left over to carry on trimming into as well as a few offcuts. Enough to set about making two more cards with plenty still left over.

I used the same Drippy die from Seth Apter as last time, only this time adding a circle from another die set, Ring Around. The central star shape is from the stash of moulds I made a while back, painted with DecoArt's Black Shimmer Wax.

The second card was, well, a wild card, especially when compared to my usual comfort zone.  It began life with Seth's Coffee Rings die. The way he's designed them, you can run all three rings inside each other, through the machine and come out with a separate, whole, arty piece. I did the same for both green and yellow cards and pieced them together to make two circular designs.

I cut up one of the circles into quarters and adhered them to the corners of a red piece of card I had trimmed square. I laid the remaining circle over the top using 3D mount foam. Finally I added a clay embellishment which I had coloured with acrylic paint.

So yes, as you can tell, I may stretch myself out to the messy side and mixed media but the clean, graphic style pulls me back. It's interesting to see the results which arise. And best still, I have plenty of pieces on my desk to play around with and make more.

Messing About with Artsy Cards

You may know already from reading this blog that I'm a big fan of Seth Apter. And yes, that means I have amassed quite a stack of his stamps, stencils and dies.

I've been itching to have a play with them all, so I gathered together every product of Seth's which I own onto my craft table and grabbed some plain white card.

I then inked, painted, stencilled, stamped, stamped and stamped again. I used as many colours as I could lay my paws on. I made sure to use every stencil, every stamp.  After an hour of frenzied mess and a pair of frightening looking, inky hands, I ended up with a whole batch of decorated card.

I now have enough material to go ahead and make several projects. This card being the first idea I had. I grabbed my Drip Drop Die (I've had my eye on purchasing this since the second it was previewed on Seth's blog) sliced into several different colours and pieced together into the above design.

I gave the piece a coating of Triple Thick gloss varnish which made the colours pop. I lay it over some white card and then black, to see which I preferred and as you can tell, I drooled more over how it stood out on a darker background. I trimmed some black card down, ran it through an embossing folder and foam mounted to the final card.

I have plenty of offcuts and untouched card on my table to start making more projects. Should keep me quiet over the Easter holiday.

Bright & Bold ATC

Thought I'd go really clean on this ATC and try using block colours and no texture. I'm really having fun using bright, bold hues. As I hang the current batch of ATCs on my wall here, I'm being greeted by a rainbow of cheerful colour to start each day. Puts me in a chirpy mood first thing. However, I feel I'm ATC'd out for the moment. I'm itching to try something else. But what?...

Last Naked Torso - I Promise!

You're all probably sick of seeing this naked torso again. I promise it's the last project (for now).

It's the final of the batch I made and this time I wanted to doodle over it with my Posca paint pens. Again it's part of a heap of experiments. The background, for instance, is my attempt at stamping into texture paste. And adding gold pearl drops, which did not do what I wanted. They ran and blobbed instead. Still, the effect is not too bad.

It certainly adds a bright and cheerful piece of colourful art to my shelf. It sets me up perfectly in the mood to sit down and create, even when the light outside my window looks grey.