Colourful mixed media card.

Hi crafty friends! Karin here from @creakarts I’m this months guest designer and will show you a new card every Saturday in June on this blog. This week is all about mixed media and I love it. My card features Laurel Leaf Meraki Para-Dies, EAP Gilded Greetings, Sahara Symphony Meraki Para-Dies and Meraki Divine Illusion Embellishments.

The first step is all about watercolours and spray paints. I watered my watercolour paper very well with a spray bottle before adding colours onto the paper. For my card I started with spray paints, pink flamingo, lemon zest and squeezed orange from Dylusions. I added every colour randomly onto the wet paper, if you add colour to wet paper you’ll see how beautiful the colour spreads out. Don’t be afraid that the colours are going to mix up because if you use colours that can be mixed up the end result will be awesome. If needed you can spray more water onto the paper during this process. I wanted a more vibrant pink and yellow colour so I also added watercolour in bright pink and yellow onto the sprayed parts. After I added all the colours I like to pick up the piece of paper and tilt it sideways and up and down to mix the colours a bit more. You can now air dry the piece of paper or use a heating tool to speed up the process.

I always like to add some splatters onto a mixed media piece and for this card I just wanted the splatters on the background of the paper. I used splatters white from Spellbinders. The more water you use while splattering the lighter and bigger the splatter will be. I personally try to use as less water as needed for the tiniest opaque splatters. I hold the brush in one hand and tap lightly with my other hand on the brush to let the paint fall down, if you do this with too much force you’ll get more elongated splatters, so be careful. I also dropped some water onto the paper with my hand to lift some of the ink. Spray with the spray bottle some water into your hand and flick it with your fingers onto the paper.

Next I added some little stamps that I coloured with Karin brushmarkers in magenta and warm grey. I used a teeny tiny bit of water onto the ink on the paper with a brush to let the colours flow a bit.

And now we’re getting somewhere. I took the Sahara Symphony die and ran it trough my machine with a simple piece of paper because I’m going to use it as a stencil for the background. I placed the cutter piece of paper onto my background and dabbed white gesso onto some places with a sponge. It’s all a bit random again, just go with the flow and see where you want to have a little more detail. When the panel is you can add distressed edges with a scissor or with a special paper distressed tool. Now the background is done!

Next step is making the Laurel Leafs pop that I’m going to place onto the background. I took another piece of watercolour paper and added the same spray paints as I used for the background but this time I didn’t wet the paper first. Without water the spray paints will leave a blotchy, speckled impression. I used one colour at a time and let it dry in between. When every colour is dry I added a little bit of water just to give it some extra dimension. Now this panel is finished I ran it through my die cutting machine with the Laurel Leaf dies on top of it. Because the colours are almost the same as the background I added lines to the leaves with a pigma micron 005 pen. After this all I thought it needed something more so I die cut the leaves again but now out of vellum paper. Now its time to add the leaves onto the background. I only glued the stems of the leaves, first starting with the biggest leaf in vellum than the biggest leaf in colour after this I added the little leaf in colour behind the stem of the biggest leaf in colour and the little one in vellum placed in front of it all.

One of the last steps to make this card is adding a sentiment. I used the EAP Gilded Greetings and cut out ‘hugs’ from the paper. It originally says ‘sending hugs’ but that was a bit too big for this card. I coloured the white background of the sentiment with Karin brushmarkers canary and skin2. With a Gellyroll pen 05 I added some highlights to the letters. After this I added the panel onto a double card in black with double sided foam tape. And to top it off I added a few Meraki Sparkle Divine Illusion embellishments.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. I hope I have inspired you with this card and you’ll have a lot of crafty fun with mixed media as much as I had making this card! Have a great weekend! ~Karin