Joy to the World – Mixed Media

I must make an announcement.

After much fiddle-farting with mixed media (visual arts), I’ve finally decided to share my creation.

I must confess. I’ve been wanting to try mixed media forever, but it scared me. I really didn’t know how to use mixed media supplies or how to put them together. I was intimidated with those gels, pastes, powders, paints, and metals (just to name many).

I did some reading. Some practicing. Some experimenting. I gave it a go, and realized…I love it! So much in fact that I made a YouTube video explaining the supplies I used and how I used them (I’m a beginner so I’m using beginner terms).

Now, I know with time (and practice) my projects will look better, but for now, I’ll share my first go at it.

Here’s to my mixed media journey. Cheers.

P.S. I used the glue gun (and said or typed glue gun) several times with this project.

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Check out my first mixed media YouTube video

Details

First off, I needed to start small. I didn’t want to feel overwhelmed with a big space, so I made an abnormally large odd shaped gift tag. I found a set of gift tags in the clearance section at Michael’s (actually it’s just cardstock with a fancy cut).

Let me just briefly chat about this 3D Gloss Gel. Let me just say, this stuff is so cool, it’s used to add texture to projects. As the name implies, it’s a gel and actually feels like hair gel! It doesn’t have a strong odor, it’s waterbased, archival-safe, transparent, it can be used as an adhesive, and can be mixed with paints or powders to change the color.

Anyway, with my palette knife (a popsicle stick will work too), I placed a heaping tablespoon of the gel into a condiment cup (the kind that fast food restaurants have…this may or not have come from Baja Fresh).

Now, this gel can be used as is. But I wanted to give my project a pearly shimmery shine so I added a couple dashes of mica powder to it and mixed it together (with a posicle stick). The mica powder comes in a set with several colors.

This project will get a tad bit messy, so I covered my work area with paper and placed my gift tag on top of it. Then I placed my stencil on top of the tag.

Then with my palette knife, I spread the gel all over the top of the stencil. Smoothing it out flat with the knife.

I removed the stencil and I let the gel air dry. It was close to dry (but not completely dry) after about an hour or so. Next time I will likely expedite the drying time with a heat gun.

Then I grabbed my burlap spool (similar) and I cut off a piece and trimmed it to fit the tag horizontally and covering about 3/4″ vertically.

I secured the burlap with hot glue.

Then I took my twine and wrapped it around the tag three times and secured the ends to the back of the card with washi tape (hot glue would do but I’m not sure why I taped it).

I rarely use stickers, but decided to use some wooden Christmas ones I have. I placed the ‘Joy to the World’ stickers at to the bottom of the tag.

I also added some snowflake confetti with my hot glue.

And because I love how the red berries look against the white and light brown colors, I cut some off of a stem and hot glued it to the burlap.

At the top of the tag I decided to make a bow with some red trim. I cut about 10 inches of trim, made a loop on both the left and right sides, and then did a basic shoelace bow. I trimmed the legs of the trim and hot glued it to the middle top of the tag.