Mixed Media with Heart and Stephanie Ackerman

Mixed Media with Heart and Stephanie Ackerman

We’ve talked before about the importance that online friends can play in our lives, they understand our scrapbooking, crafting, artsy selves! I recently was fortunate enough to go to Phoenix, Arizona to spend time with some of my online scrapbook friends, from our ScrapHappy group! When you get to meet online friends in person, it is not as if you are meeting strangers, it is truly a reunion!

During our event, we were fortunate to have Stephanie Ackerman join us and treat us to a mini workshop. I love Stephanie’s doodling style, and her heart. If you’ve seen her work, you know she put’s heart into it! She makes it all look so easy, and yet over time she has begun to add such dimension to her pieces!

Kristie Sloan and Stephanie Ackerman
Kristie Sloan and Stephanie Ackerman

She currently is running her year-long 52 Pick{ME}Up class. It’s never too late to join in if you want to check it out. Some of the techniques she uses for this class were what she presented to us. Using a deck of regular playing cards, we made a few of these little cards.

kristie-sloan-stephanie-ackerman-workshop
Stephanie Ackerman’s 52 Pick{Me}Up Mini Workshop at ScrapHappy Reunion

“What would you do with them?” you ask. The answer is, ‘Anything you want!’ Give them away, keep them for yourself, use them on a card, a scrapbook page, or anything else. They were great fun to create.

glue n seal matte tip I would like to share is a product that I first learned about through Stephanie. It is called Glue ‘N Seal, and is THE BEST product I’ve used to date for mixed media pieces. It is not tacky or sticky as so many ModPodge type items are. It dries quickly, and it just becomes part of the piece to invisibly, that it’s hard to tell if you used it! Seriously, I was using it on some tags I was making, and had to use it to adhere a couple of things that were not sticking well. Because I was using the matte version, when I went back to coat all of the tags with a final coat, I couldn’t even tell the two I had already done! I can’t say that about all products I’ve used in that manner!

Back to the project:

  • We covered the cards with old book paper
  • Added bits of washi tape
  • Added bits of gesso and paint
  • Added hearts that had been cut from Gelli printed pages
  • Used gel medium with a bit of red paint on the hearts
  • Created some depth and dimension by using a Ranger Distress Ink marker pen
  • Finally we added little phrases we pieced together from words cut from old book pages

 

I had prepped more cards than I had hearts, so I used a quote and some little pieces I had from some scrapbook embellishments for other cards. As always, you’re only limited by your imagination! If you get a chance to work with Stephanie, don’t miss it! In fact, here is a class you can access right away; it’s called, Project Miscellany: Playing with Paints, Paper, Stamps, Stitches and More. (affiliate link)

KS