Creating a Mixed Media Texture Background {The Crafter's Workshop}

Hi all! I'm happy to share with you today a layout I made of one of my nephew's (and his wife's) engagement photos. I wanted to go with a simple background to which I added some inking, texture and stamping.

 

I used two stencils that I designed for The Crafter's Workshop to help create the background design, using texture paste and inks as well as some fun mixed media products.

I began by doing some light inking on the background of the area around my photo with a soft rose/brown ink.  I then used the houndstooth design found in one of the hearts on the Complicated Hearts stencil and inked with a rich brown chalk ink (Ingvild Bolme's Branch Bark Chalk Ink). After that I added a whole bunch of random stamping around my photo area.

Next I added the heart design to the left side of the photo area using the 3 heart designs found on the Complicated Hearts stencil using some home-made white texture paste (recipe below).  This is an easy to make text texture paste that works very well with all my TCW stencils....and I love that dries quickly!   After I added my texture paste design, I outlined the hearts with a black pen so that they would stand out more from the page.

 

Homemade Smooth Texture Paste

1/4 cup Talcum Powder (I used Johnson's Baby Powder, Make it smell good too!!)

1 tablespoon White All purpose School Glue

1 tablespoon White Craft Paint

Some Water

Instructions:  Combine talcum powder, glue, white paint with disposable chopsticks (or plastic spoon) in an airtight container, adding water to get it to the consistency you are looking for.  You want a nice thick texture much like toothpaste.  The mixture will keep perfectly for many months.

For my title I mixed some bronze Pearlex mica powder into some Matte Gel Medium (Golden's) and used it on the 'Love' title from the Complicated Hearts stencil.

I used the same mixture on the inky butterfly design in the top left corner of the page.  The butterfly design is from the Winged Exploration stencil.  While the gel medium was still wet, I sprinkled on some tiny bronze micro beads (Prima).

After that, I simply added my photo and a few floral and chipboard embellishments (Prima flowers and Scrapeniec wood chippies)....and my layout was done!

I hope you enjoyed my project today and hope that you are inspired to play with your favorite TCW stencils while you have a little crafting 'me' time over the holidays! xo