Postcard Stories
Hello Hello
I'm back and you were warned...
Today I am sharing a mixed media piece I did for a really good friend of mine. I have been wanting to work with these balsa boxes for a while now and so I finally pulled one out of my stash so that I could play around with it and see what I could come up with and well...
Not to shabby if I do say so myself. I rather like how this collage came out and I figure they will hopefully only get better as I get more practice in. So to start with of course I put a coat of Gesso on so that anything and everything after that point has something to grab a hold of and stick to. Then I went in with my bits and pieces of embellishments and my artist's gel medium in a matte finish and started adhering things. After that layer dried completely I used my artist's modeling paste and grabbed a few stencils and put some dimension on that way.
After all my layers had dried and I was happy with the collage I then went back to it again and used a few spray mists to give it lots and lots of color. I started with a light gold right in the middle of the top of the flap then slowly layer upon layer I added in the brick red color. After that color dried completely I used my finger and applied over the raised textures a gold ink just to help redefine them, then added a bit of a Vintage Photo distress ink to the seams.
Inside the box I used a metallic acrylic paint in a vintage gold color and didn't do any more. I figured the postcards will end up covering most of it up so there was really no point beyond that.
Now as for the postcards I made them all by hand, the front side is the postcard where my friend can add her memories, then on the back of it I put a photo mat so that once she documents the memory she can add the photo that goes along with that moment.
The card I also made with a vintage flair and added one of my favorite quote stamps to the back of it framed in an elegant oval.
It reads:
Well-behaved women rarely make history
The smaller eyelet envelope has her 'Happy Birthday' wish in it.
The last little bit that I included was a few fashion clutches that dub as tiny journals in case one or more of the postcards isn't enough to tell the whole story...
So as a whole that's pretty much it. The papers I used were a white card stock, a Kraft card stock and then I believe all the ink was jet black by Ranger. I can only say that I am pretty darn proud of this piece and I sure do hope that my girlfriend will use it because she has a handful of grand babies now that would no doubt love to be able to look back in a few years to see what nanna did with her time.
Here's just a peek inside one of the mini journal clutches. I cut a couple of the ATC cards from a Sizzix die and stitched them into the seam of the clutch
To make the clutches I used three different Sizzix dies:
Then for a closure I used a Velcro dot and gosh do they look awesome, I think that they completely set it apart from anything else that I've done recently.
So I have to admit...this mixed media thing really is all it's cracked up to be...I freakin' love it and I encourage you to try it if you have gotten the stuff and are just to afraid to jump in.
Ironically enough I did the same thing, I normally do when it's something new that I haven't ever tried, I'll go buy what I need to get started with it and then it'll take me another year to actually do it. Now if I would just DO IT then I probably would be a lot further along than I am now...
but a finally dug in and I can't wait to do it again.
Thanks
just B
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