Mixed Media Gift Bag - Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder

 
Hi everyone. I hope you all had an awesome weekend. This week's project didn’t start off as a gift bag. In fact I was trying out a technique for some cards, and then didn’t really like the result very much, but before I knew it I had created this lovely gift bag for all my daughter's prezzies.  

I’ve had a few scraps of card stock, amongst many other things, lying around just waiting for some inspiration so these became the substrate for my technique play. To start with I mixed Liquitex Matte Medium with a little water to make a glaze. [I think it was about 4 parts Matte Medium to 1 part water - I saw this idea somewhere on my travels].

 

I used a flat brush to brush a good layer of the Matte Medium mixture over my card, sprinkled on some Moss Green Brushos [not much] and picked up a little more Matte Medium mixture and dragged the brush down in one direction until the Brushos had streaked and blended a little. I did this on two pieces of scrap cardstock. Love this technique but its not much on its own.

   

I’ve had the PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1301 stamp in my stash for quite a long time, well over a year now [I’m thinking more like two], and it hardly ever comes out to play. I inked it up with Olive Archival Ink then used a dry wet wipe and an ear bud to wipe off the areas I didn’t want stamped and stamped over the Brusho background. I didn’t rub too hard, and as it happened a faint print where I had rubbed it off still showed - a happy mistake. I coloured the image using Tim Holtz Distress markers and this is when disaster struck. I hated the butterfly and the card almost ended up in the bin.

 

 

A while later an idea struck me. I die cut two butterflies using the Tim Holtz Butterfly duo die, used two or three different brushos and left them to react. I inked up the the embossing folder that comes with the die using Ground Espresso Distress ink, then carefully repositioned the die cut and embossed. The result is really pretty. 

 

Now I was feeling inspired again. I used the Ground Espresso Distress ink to ink up a clock stamp [I think its a Memory Box stamp - I've had it for a 1000 years - well not quite - you know I'm exaggerating right!]. I spritzed the image with water and added a light sprinkling of sandstone Brushos and left it to dry.

 

 

I love the way some of the crystals don’t always dissolve and there are little sparks of colour here and there.

 

I layered the clock over the stamped butterfly on my card experiment and put the embossed butterfly over the top. I distressed the edges and ran the Ground Espresso Distress ink pad around the edges, but I still wasn’t really happy with the card thingy so decided I'd use it on an art journal page.

 

I used Yellow and Teracotta Brushos to create a background on a sheet of A4 watercolour paper and added some texture paste. Can you see the little pops of colour.

The page needed something to anchor the experiment card to, so I fished out some bits from my stash. [ I don't think I'll use my stash up in my life time].

I layered the torn dictionary paper and the die cut onto the journal page then layered the card on top. I found a film strip die cut, cut it into two pieces and placed one on the top and the other on the bottom under the card. Then I glued everything down.  I then added a little more texture paste over the card and the page as well as to the righthand top corner.
 

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I used another stamp from the PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1301 stamp and inked it up with Black Archival ink and stamped lightly here and there to create some interest.

I distressed the edges of the page and ran the Ground Espresso Distress ink pad around the edges. Somehow the page wasn’t quite working for me, so I added some of the Olive green Brusho’s to the top, right hand side and bottom of background page. Now I'm happy with the look.

Last but not least I used a lovely sentiment from the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Cling Stamps - Handwritten Thoughts.



I was planning a visit with my daughter and her family and needed a gift bag for all her goodies, so out came one of the plain white A4 gift bags I always keep.  I used double sided tape to attach the "journal page" to the gift bag.   I’m really happy with it now, and even happier that some of my “older” stuff got a chance to come out to play. 
There’s so much evolving in the craft world these days and so much new stuff coming out all the time that it’s easy to forget our “old stuff" on the shelf while we move eagerly onto the next new craft supply. Well I often do!!!


Supplies:

Bought plain white A4 size gift bag

A4 sheet of water colour paper
Olive green Archival ink stamp pad

Black Archival Ink stamp pad

Ground Espresso Distress ink pad

Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Cling Stamps - Handwritten Thoughts.  

PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1301 stamp 
Clock stamp

Liquitex Matte Medium 
Flat paint brush
Tangerine, Yellow, Olive Green and Sandstone Brushos
Distress Sprayer
Texture paste
Stencil
2 x scraps of card stock
Scrap of dictionary paper
Scrap of die cut
Film strip die cut
Tim Holtz Butterfly duo die/embossing folder
Wet wipes
Ear bud
Distressing tool
Double sided tape