MMMC 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

Happy 2nd Anniversary to the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge blog!!!! It's hard to believe it's already been two years since Donna and I jump started this challenge, a first of it's kind! Thank you to ALL OF YOU who play along each month and keep our challenge thriving! 

We have a special challenge to celebrate... You get to pick from ANY of our challenges over the past year (the ones listed in the photo) to play along and be entered for a chance to win! Join in the celebration with our blog post here!

Our challenges this year were:

Summer Days

Get Texty

Photo Inspiration (colorful tires/birdhouse)

Haunted Word Search

Texture

Silver and Gold

Time Flies

Glitter

Photo Inspiration (eggs)

Dimension

Butterflies and Blooms

I wanted to recreate/mesh two of my favorite MMMC projects (Get Texty and Birds of a Feather from two years ago) so I grabbed inspiration from them both and created a mash up canvas! I am entering it for the DIMENSION challenge.

Our special guest designer this month is Jenny Marples from the Funkie Junkie Boutique! You won't want to miss her creation and be sure to check out all the goodies she's giving away!

NOW on to my project! Here are some steps to how I created my Dimension canvas...

I decided to try something new and used two canvases as one (so they need to be hung together to be complete). I started by adhering old book pages all over the canvases with matte medium. 

Then I grabbed a super old pack of chipboard Thickers (I know you have one somewhere!) and started gluing them to the canvas. I put the alphabet pieces where I wanted the 'flow' of my piece to go.

My next background step was to add some stenciling using The Crafter's Workshop Time for Love stencil. Then I applied a very thick coat of Distress Crackle Paint and heated it completely with my heat gun. My final background step was to gesso everything. I like to use Design Memory Craft Gesso for this step because it is very light, thin, and dries incredibly fast.

Yeesh that was a lot in one step! Keep with me here!

Next up is the fun part... GLUE ALL THE THINGS! I have a box of supplies that will only ever serve this one purpose... to be hot glued on a canvas and gesso'd. So I just grab whatever fits and plop it down. I used the three larger flowers as my anchors to keep the flow of the canvas. 

Then gesso them all and let it dry!

Before I start adding color sprays I do a couple base coats of Gelatos. I scribbled the two colors shown above, got my finger wet, and spread the color around. Once that dried I was able to spray with even more color!

I used three different Color Shine mists to get this pretty pastel look. After each color spray I did also spray over it with water so the colors wouldn't be so vibrant. I just love how it all transforms in this one step!!

I'll be adding these two Scribbly Birds to the canvas as my focal point. I colored them with Faber Castell Aquarelle watercolor pencils. Now I adhere my birds, a quote, and some other small doo-dads and call it finished!

Thanks for joining me and I hope you join in our 2nd anniversary challenge! Check out The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge for all the details!! Happy June!