Mixed Media Fun!

     This week I was inspired to create a fun mixed media canvas after seeing a post by the amazing Gabrielle Pollacco on her blog, Such a Pretty Mess. (You can see her projects here. Wow!!) I happened to have an 8x8 canvas in my stash that I'd been saving for a rainy day, so I began by prepping it with gesso, and then I made a holy cow mess of it and almost threw it out! I'm glad I didn't even though it looked like a hot mess there for a while. 

     I started out by layering some tissue paper over the gesso with mod podge and using oil pastels to give it some texture. I masked the word "Love" with some scrap letters on the left hand side and sprayed them with Melon Mambo ink. I sprayed some Baja Breeze and Shabby Shutters ink around as well. At this point, the whole thing started to look crummy -- the tissue paper wadded up and turned gross colors, and I thought I'd ruined the whole thing! I decided to give it a day (take a deep breath) and I tried to salvage it by sanding off the tissue paper. This seemed to work okay, and I ended up with some muted colors and some really cool color variations, so we were off to the races again!

     I stamped some text and flourishes around and then masked a heart and painted over it. I drew the little girl and paper pieced her and then squiggled around the edges. I added the crown and the crackle painted grunge board wings sort of as an afterthought. I painted the Dusty Attic chipboard piece and painted and glittered the flowers. 

     I used some lyrics from a song I love for journaling, and since this canvas is for my little girls' room, I thought the message was just right. 

     Anyway, this project is nowhere near Gabrielle's masterful project, but I hope you'll be inspired to try something new! Have a wonderful day, my friends!