The Craftminded: Childhood Memories Mixed Media Layout for Meg's Garden

Hi Guys!

This is Mabel here with my first blog post for Meg's Garden Design Team. I'm from Singapore, a small island country in Southeast Asia. Most of my projects involve Mixed Media and today I have a Mixed Media layout tutorial for you using Meg's Garden projects from the English Rose Garden Collection.

I picked Paisley & Roses (P6432) as my layout base. I also really love the flourishes on Meg's Garden name card! So I decided to not waste it and fussy-cut out the flourishes for embellishment later.

I also picked out a couple of Meg's Garden products I wanted to use for embellishment later. I have the vintage rose tag cut out from Cut & Create (P6434) which I snipped it into half to make full use of this beautiful tag for layering. I also fussy-cut out the frame from Vintage Ornate Tags 1036.

I briefly arranged my embellishments and photos to determine the area I would like my mediums to go onto.

I primed the patterned paper beforehand with clear gesso. I used 13arts Ayeeda Matte Coral and Lemon paints as well as Tim Holtz Distress Stain Spray in Tattered Rose and Milled Lavender to create the area I want to embellish later on.

I wanted to bring out different textures and effects and stamping is a very good way to achieve visual texture effects. I used Prima Marketing stamps from Cigar Box Secrets Collections as well as Finnabair clear stamps with my Black Stazon ink pad. I chose Stazon as its permanent and the ink will not run when I use it more mediums on top of it.

I continued to bring out more texture for the background by going over my stencils with modelling paste. I used Tattered Grid stencils from 13arts as well as Prima Marketing's stencil.

While the modelling paste was still wet, I poured on some mica flakes from 13arts to create some sparkle!

I also added Gold Glitter paint from 13arts as well as creating some splatter with diluted black gesso.

This is one of the trick I love to use when I need to stick alphabet stickers. I placed them on a ruler so I can gauge the length of the entire word, I can also shift them around easily to see where they fit better. Once I'm happy with the placement, I simply tilt my ruler and gently rubbed in those 'open' areas so they stick to the background.

And after embellishing my layout, this is the final look!

I diecut some leaves from Prima Marketing dies. I also tucked some laces as layering for added effect.

Meg's Garden has got a wide variety of flowers to choose from. I used some of the mulberry papers flowers as they're awesome for altering.

As mulberry papers are porous, inks can spread easily with water. So I just dipped my brush into Tim Holtz's Milled Lavender Stain Spray and brushed onto the flower near to the stamen. I then wet the areas I want the colours to spread to with water so the ink will flow. This creates a very natural looking flower. :)