Carte Postale for Grandma

Hello Hello

So sorry for the late post this week, trying to get all of our loose ends tied up before school starts back up next Thursday, just another week of summer...where did the time go?

I swear that every year it goes faster and faster.

Real quick I wanted to show you one of my newest mixed media pieces. I made this about a month ago for my grandma's birthday. She has always been in my corner, cheering me on no matter what it was I was pursuing at the time and I just wanted her to know that I appreciate it more than she will probably ever know.

So I started with a medium sized paper mache book here and painted a double coat of white gesso here on it, let both coats dry completely and then I added in all of my texture.  

Now as far as texture goes, pretty much anything goes. Some of my go-to favorites are paper doilies, cheese cloth, metal jewelry pieces (like jump rings-anything flat really), also die-cuts work well, sticker letters, crochet trims, beaded pearls, quite honestly anything really. 

Now to get everything glued down sometimes can be the tricky part, so I use a combination of hot glue and a gel glue, the gel glue that I have on hand right now is: Beacon 527 but there are several on the market that would work just as well. The thing to be careful of is to not get carried away with too much on any one piece. I know from experience that with the 527 glue a little goes a long ways, especially with the smaller embellishments. Now another adhesive I use and this works best with your fabric pieces: cheese cloth, crochet trims, etc. is matte gel and you quite literally want to paint the whole piece with it, lay it on your project and then cover it again with another coat, of course making sure you use a fairly fine brush so you can get into all the details of your piece because you don't want to lose that texture.

Once I had all my textures in place and completely dry, I then went back in with my color sprays, I use Tattered Angels mostly with a few others but I really don't have a preference so long as their is lots of glimmer or shine, and spray from the outside in. And I usually start with my lighter colors first. Now at this point I've already had a lot of wait time and I don't really like to wait so I use my heat tool to dry the spray so that I can get on to the next color and from here you just go until you like what you see. After that if you wanted you could add a few extra pieces or call it finished; in my piece I added the pearls and the decorative accoutrement, along with the faux leather belt that closes the entire piece. To add these pieces on afterwards I normally use the Beacon 527 glue because it does dry clear and it's quite a bit tougher than hot glue.

So there you have it, mixed media in my very limited experience and know-how. If you have any questions please comment me and I will be happy to answer them the best I can. Until next time, thank you so much for stoppin' in a takin' a peek.
Have a fabulous weekend!!!

just B