Florence Turnour's Blog

OK, so it is already Day 5, but I had so much work to do. I'm taking a break from it to try some more of the techniques in Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 102 class. Day 2 focussed on stencils, one of my favorite tools. I like cutting my own stencils from transparency paper, which is slick and easy to sponge through, and thin enough to stamp through. This time, however, I used a stencil from Crafter'sWorkshop. I made two samplers, and pasted them to the two sides of this middle sized butterfly. I was inspired by Tim's choice of blue and brown, but decided that I was in a green mood, and chose Distress Ink in Evergreen Bough and Vintage Photo instead. I like the speckled appearance made from little specks of clear embossing powder. Here's a close-up. Here's the start of my butterfly mobile project , including a butterfly made using Distress Paint as a resist, and here is a butterfly made using Distress Paint to create a faux patina look. Maybe there...

For some reason, the media (magazine articles, books and so on) about mixed media art seems to be half techniques, tools and materials, and half self help (egging the reader to have, for example, "the courage to create"). I am interested in the former, being already brave in the face of art supplies. I welcome recommendations for books, tutorials, blogs (yours?) or whatnot related to mixed media. My own next mixed media undertaking is underway. I began by drawing butterflies and cutting them out on my Silhouette cutter. I cut black butterflies a tiny bit larger, to matte these. I glued four black ones together to make a thicker more sturdy element. They are exactly the same shape, thanks to the cutter, and layered easily. My plan is to hang these from their holes. Next I decorated four white ones, and glued them to the front and back of two of my thick black butterflies. Here's one side: I stamped the flowers using Distress Paint, and then used Distress Stain ...