Mixed Media Messiness!

Good morning..

Today I am bringing you something a little different for me..a mixed media canvas.

Just recently, although I've always been intimidated by them before, I have been getting more and more excited and interested in the Finnabair style by Prima. I have seen some wonderful examples on FB and on Pinterest, so I thought I'd have a go!

Now..I know I have a long way to go and a lot to learn..but here are my very first attempts...please bear with me while I'm on my learning process. Of course, because I'd watched a few tutorials on You Tube..I decided I just 'had' to get some more products! So off I went with my credit card (!) and bought some Prima Translucent Gel, Prima Gloss Gel and some new texture paste(my old stuff had gone off quite hard but there wasn't a lot left so I didn't mind too much) I haven't thrown it away yet..so if anyone knows of a way to instill new life into uber thick paste..do let me know. I had quite a bit if stash anyway but I found myself ordering some glass beads and Cosmic Shimmer sparkly texture paste too!

Then I had to decide what to decorate. As luck would have it, over on good old UK Scrappers, there is a mini canvas art swap..so without further ado, I ordered a set of mini canvasses from The Works. (6 for £2.99.. A bit of a bargain I thought!) and I started decorating.

It ended up as a really rather sparkly affair! First I covered it with extra strong tin foil sticking it with PVA glue, ensuring I wrinkled it as I was sticking it down. I then used four different Adirondack alcohol inks and daubed them all over the background. Once dried I adhered the title made from some Teresa Collins mini alphas. Which left me with the spaces that I needed to embellish.

I selected a collection of flowers (recently purchased from Wild Orchid Crafts) and layered them in a bit of cooking mesh I bought at Poundland eons ago (I knew it would come in handy one day) and then I poked in bits of broken jewellery and some smaller flowers.  I then finished it off with a smattering of pewter coloured bead spacers, various pearls and some sparky turquoise stars.

At this point I was happy enough with the composition but I wasn't happy with the way the title was sitting proud of the canvas. So this is where I got out the Sparkly Texture Paste... And I literally splodged it all around the title along the edges filling in all the gaps. It looked much better! Then I got a bit carried away! I added more and then..as if it wasn't sparkly enough.. I added some silver glass glitter that I had bought last year at a retreat I attended. I bought it from the on site shop supplied by Crafts for Eternity.

It covered a lot of the sparkly texture paste with the glass glitter and I then shook off the excess.

In the end I was quite pleased with it for my first attempt...any suggestions what I could do differently are always appreciated.

Well that's it...but come back soon as I have another, in my opinion, better canvas for you to see.

Elaine

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