Welcome to this week’s Make It Monday blog hop! If you arrived by way of Karen Fitting’s website at Photos Kept Alive, welcome! I don’t want you to miss her post because she always has such great ideas, so I’ll tell you how to get back to it at the end of this post.
Today’s theme is Fall/Halloween for the hop. I have had this idea for a little while, and so I saved it for today. Since so many people want to know how to create the mixed media projects they are seeing, I decided to create something with a limited set of products. I chose the Scaredy Cat paper pack and Scaredy Cat Complements pack from Close to My Heart because I felt it offered such a great collection for what I wanted to create.
Halloween Mixed Media Decor Item
This project was done on a 12″x12″x1″ canvas. By painting the edges, it doesn’t need to be framed. If you wanted to, you could use a canvas panel so that it would be thin enough to place in a regular picture frame.
First off, select what you’ll use for the background. I chose the Slate paper for the top or sky, and the black for the ground bottom. I cut a strip off the bottom of the Slate paper and then tore a tiny bit along the edge. That way, the layers ease together nicely. Now, use an adhesive medium to coat the back side of your paper. Turn it over onto the canvas add a layer of your medium over the top to seal it.
Tear along the bottom edge to create less bulk when adding the next layer.
Next, I tore an edge on my Black paper to create the ground. Again, coat the back of the paper with your adhesive medium, turn it over onto the canvas and add another layer of the medium.
Black paper turn to give curves for the ground portion of the project.
Next, you can either add some texture to background or you could just continue to the next step. I like to add a lot of different textures, so I used black StazOn as well as some white paint and a bit of Thistle ink. In the end I was sorry I had added too much of the white, so I grabbed some black paint and gave a squirt into my white paint to make a nice gray. I then brushed this over the sky portion of my background and restamped my texture in StazOn.
After my night sky became too light, I ended up creating gray with my paint and toned it back down.
Now it was time to really start having some fun. Between the paper pack and some stickers from its coordinating set, there was a lot to play with. Since these were the only products I wanted to use, I did a lot of cutting. One of the decorative sheets has a lot to choose from, and the parts that didn’t get cut up from that sheet will still be used to make some other things — cards, treat bag toppers, etc. You can get a lot of mileage from that one piece of paper! Here is what it looked like
Major pieces placed and doors and windows added.
Next I added details with a fine line marker, placed more stickers, and then used a black Pitt Pen to smudge around the edges of everything to give it more definition. A bit more black was smudged into the sky to add a little more darkness. NOTE: You MUST have sealed everything with your medium over the top, even the stickers. The Pitt Pen will smear for a second as soon as you put it on, but it will not smudge if it is on unsealed paper. You have to act quickly, and you may need to dampen your finger, as well.
The last thing I did was use a white gel pen to add some final definition to a few areas. You’ll notice that I didn’t try to make perfectly straight lines. That’s it. Complete! Here are some close ups.
White Gel Pen used to add some details.
Black Pitt Pen smudged around edges.
Night sky with more black smudged in over the Slate background.
Here is the final piece. I may go back in and use my fine tip black pen to outline the witch and broom over the moon. What do you think?
Halloween Mixed Media Decor Item
Here is the FINAL piece. I went back in and outlined the witch!
Halloween Mixed Media Decor Item
Easy access to the Scaredy Cat items are below.
As promised, if you missed Karen’s great idea for hybrid Halloween tags, you go back and check it out HERE. Otherwise, next on the Make It Monday blog hop Melissa Shanhun is scrapbooking Halloween and there’s not a costumed child in sight!
I hope you all know how much it means to know you’ve stopped by, looked and read. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a comment!
Until our next Artful Adventure,
Here are the featured products used in this project, with links to my online Close to My Heart store.
