Foxglove's Mixed Media

Hello again, you wonderful people!  I am back with the last of four Valentine's-themed artist trading coins.  I do have a video up on YouTube, so if you are interested in watching it, please scroll to the bottom of the page or follow this link . I started off by punching the 2.5-inch circle from thickish scrapbook paper, then I traced the heart shape onto a different scrapbook paper and cut it out. (Not that it matters much, but the scrapbook paper I used for the coin shape was double sided, and I ended up painting over the opposite side from what you see in the photo below.) To make the gears, I cut them out of scrapbook paper using the Sizzix/Tim Holtz "Gearhead" die set. I glued the gears onto the hearts and then I covered them black gesso made by Liquitex.  This will make adding the wax more striking. When they were dry, I pulled out the Finnabair Art Alchemy Metallique Waxes in Brushed Iron and Rose Gold. To start, I used an old paintbrush to add...

Hello, everyone!  Today I have number 3 of 4 Valentine's Artist Trading Coins to share with you!  This coin features a pair of pink hearts.   I also have a video at the bottom of this post and at my YouTube channel here . I started off by punching out the coin shapes from mixed media paper and book text.   I glue the two together and put a light layer of gesso onto the bookpage.  I ended up covering it all with the paint, so in the end, using the book page as a layer was a moot point, haha.  I also cut two hearts ono printer paper, cut them out, and then used them as a template for cutting the hearts out of mixed media paper. I pulled out my Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists in "Cherry" and "Pink Bell" and spritzed them onto the hearts.  I rarely ever use any of my sprays because I am guaranteed to make a mess, but this time I put the hearts into a cardboard box before spraying them, which really helped contain the mess!  I wanted my hearts to...

Hello, everyone!  Welcome back!  In today's post, I will show how I made the second of four Valentine's coins.  These are for a swap where four people each had their own theme.  The first coin was a bacon and egg theme, and this coin's theme was a cat, so I chose to use a Crazy Cat from the Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Mini Crazy Cats and Crazy Dog stamp set. I do have a video of how I made these coins, so if you are interested in watching that, you can go here or scroll to the end of this post. Sorry for the poor photo - I just couldn't get good lighting.  Anyhow, I started by punching out 2.5" circles from mixed media paper and bookpages.  I glued the pieces together and then used a wash of white gesso by Liquetex gesso over the bookpage to push the text into the background.  As you can see in the photos above, you don't see much of the bookpages any more. I stamped the cats from the Tim Holtz stamp set onto the Canson mixed media paper, an...

Hello, and happy weekend everyone!  I am back (again) after taking a break to study for a computer certification course.  I am happy to say that I passed, yay me!   This time around I made four artist trading coins for a monochromatic white (with some silvery glitter.)  It's hard to get the right angle to show the details of these coins, but I did my best.  For three of these, I put down bookpages and gessoed over it with white gesso.  I wanted to have that extra bit of interest, but I also wanted to keep to a monochrome color scheme.  The coin in the top left doesn't have a bookpage background, though, because I goofed on the original, then forgot to do the bookpage step when I redid it.  C'est le vie!   Here are the tools I used:   --2.5" circle punched from Canson Mixed Media paper --Stencils: "Persian Gate" from The Crafter's Workshop (this is the one in the photograph); "Wildflowers" from My Favorite Things...

Hello, everyone!  I am back with a couple of more artist trading coins for you.  If you're new to "coins", these are 2.5" circles that you art up and trade, just like the artist trading cards.  These two were quick to create and uses mostly Tim Holtz products. To start off with, I mushed various Distress Ink colors into my craft mat and spritzed it with water. For the tree/sunset, I laid the ink down in rows: first a yellow, then pink one, and last a red one. (Forgive me - I made these weeks ago, and I don't remember the exact colors I used.)  I spritz with water and moved the mixed media paper through it with one smooth, slow swipe.  For the blue on the right, I laid down colors in various blues and blue-greens. I dried everything with my heat tool, and then pulled out some background stamps by Seth Apter and Bo Bunny and stamped randomly with archival inks. From here, I pulled out stamps that I felt would make a nice silhouette.  The red/ora...

Hello, everyone!  Sorry - I couldn't resist the urge to throw in a Wizard of Oz reference.  :-) Today, I have an artist trading coin, four inchies and four twinchies to show you.  For those who don't know what these are, the "coin" is a 2.5" circle (you may also hear the term "artist trading circle", the inchies are 1" square, and twinchies are 2" square.  I do want to apologize in advance - I don't have has many in-between photos today.  I use my phone to take pictures of my projects in progress, but for some reason, the phone doesn't always save the pictures.  They just disappear.  I don't know what's going on with that, but it's getting pretty frustrating.  Anyhow...moving on... I will start with the coin - I used my 2.5" circle punch to create the circle from Canson mixed media paper. I pulled out my Distress Inks in Iced Spruce and Peacock Feathers and mushed them onto my craft mat.  I spritzed them ligh...

Welcome back, everyone!  I have two projects to show you today.  The first is a star-themed artist trading card, and the other is an abstract landscape artist trading coin. First off, the star-themed artist trading card: I began this card the way I do a lot of my cards - I glued down a bookpage and gessoed lightly over it.  I then added a light wash of fluid acrylics in Payne's Grey and Ultramarine Blue (DecoArt).  When it was dry, I added stars to the background using the Tim Holtz star stencil and Distress Oxide in Faded Jeans.  Lovely!  I set the color with my heat tool, however, the Oxides are reactive to water in the same way the Distress Inks are, so I wanted to do something to keep the ink from rubbing off or getting smeared, so I pulled out my Art Basics 3D Gloss Gel by Prima Marketing.  I used the stencil to go back over the original star shapes.  Because the gloss gel is a "wet" medium, the Oxide color blended in with the gel....

Hello again!  I am back, this time to show how I made the Artist Trading Coins pictured below.  The Coins continue to be all the rage amongst the mail art traders, and I personally really enjoy working on a round shape. Aren't they cool?  I love how they turned out! (I say that because most of the time, I don't know where I'm going when I start a project, so sometimes there's no telling how something will turn out!) Anyhow, I started with a 5x7 sheet of Canson mixed media paper and Ranger's Tim Holtz Distress Inks in various colors of blue and the Iced Spruce color.  I mushed one, two or three colors onto my craft mat, spritzed lightly with water, and dragged the paper through the wet colors.  By dragging the papers, I get a nice smooth blend of colors.  Because I had so much ink left over, I pulled out some blank Artist Trading Card mixed media paper to sop up the extra inks.  I dried the papers between each layer, did another drag-through w...

I first heard about Artist Trading Coins (or circles) from the trading site ATCs For All.  A wonderful crafty artist Craftyhodges first posted about it on her YouTube channel here . She explains it, but for the purposes of this blog, it's a 2.5-inch circle that you art up, exactly like Artist Trading Cards (ATCs). I am in the midst of creating some more, so I will eventually share some pictures of the process, but in the meantime, here's a photo of what I submitted to the trading forums. Top Left: I stamped the bird onto Japanese text paper and colored it with Tim Holtz Distress Inks. covered paper with a layer of Mod Podge and set it aside to dry.  I then re-stamped the bird onto plain paper so I could mask the bird.  I then stamped the cherry blossoms and colored them in with Faber-Castelle brush markers. I glued it to a cardboard base to give it some thickness (formerly known as a Mt Dew box) and drew sketchy lines around the outer edge. Top Right:  I do...