Today is my first official post for Anything But Cute, and it couldn't have come at a more exciting time. As we celebrate our First Anniversary at Anything But Cute, we want you to celebrate what you do best...mixed media! This month's challenge theme is
Celebrate Your Style! This is your chance to do it your way, in your favorite style...so pull out those inks and paints and show us what you're made of! You can make anything you want, in any theme you want and any style you want, just as long as it has some mixed media products on it and no cute images. HAVE FUN!
We have some special treats for you this month. Along with our design team projects, we have invited our Favourite Artists from last year to come and celebrate with us. You don't want to miss the incredible line up of inspiration they have provided for you!! We also have a wonderful line up of prizes from some amazing sponsors...lots of chances to win some goodies, so don't miss out!
I wanted to create a mini album to celebrate all of the things I love best. I simply cut four pieces of cardboard to arounf 4x6" and punched holes in the sides, then tied them together with jute twine to fashion an accordion fold. I gessoed each panel, but love to leave the edges raw to create more color variation in the next steps.
I embossed a Stampers Anonymouse background stamp in Walnut Stain Distress Embossing Powder, then stenciled a Prima dots stencil with texture paste. Rather than using my palette watercolors, I wanted to use up a product that I've had in my stash for ages, Walnut Tintz. They are similar to Distress Stain. I simply dabbed and puddled each color. I purposely left some white spaces. This is so much fun to do!!!
Next, I created some inky background panels to use in my collage, and picked out a few Prima papers that would coordinate. The lavender doesn't quite show up in the photos, but the mini is predominately lavender.
To build my little groupings, I stamped each focal image, distressed the edges, then layered over the inky paper and torn designer paper, mixing in a hilarious book page I found and some extra stamping and ephemera.
This is my industrial theme attempt. I am trying to embrace industrial/steampunk - but doing so with my vintage grunge style.
Notice that I stamped the papers tucked in behind. I love creating my own patterns! The book page here listed all the don't do's - including no spitting! LOL!
I used a chipboard sticker over this stamped hourglass. I finally picked up the Tim Holtz honeycomb border die.
My sweet friend, Bonnie, shared these cogs with me - thanks Bonnie! You're the best. This is my favorite section of the book page. You'll also notice some Rub-Ons.
I decided to leave the black plain, because I just love looking at that yummy watercolor and texture.
I'm also playing with these great challenges:
