Mixed media layout "Being a mother..."

Hey all,

In light of some recent stuff going on in my life, I felt the need to scrap a layout about my feelings. 

On April 4 my little boy Connor suddenly got a lump on his neck. The lump got bigger and after being told by the doctor  a couple of times that it would go away on its own, we were sent to the hospital after all, because it just kept growing. 

Since a couple of days before that hospital visit the lump had started to hurt Connor and his skin turned more red by the day.

Long story short: ultrasound, doctor, surgeon, pediatrician, and finally surgery to remove the entire infected gland on Wednsesday, May 18.

We are still awaiting the final test results, but already know the infection wasn't caused by something scary and incurable like cancer. 

However, back when things weren't clear yet, I suffered through some rough times, driving myself crazy with thoughts of bad things. The thought of losing Connor hurt so much it made me cry more than once. 

Just looking at his lump hurt, I can't stand him being in pain. 

I'm so glad the surgery is over, because staying with him until he finally succumbed to the anesthetics, watching him cry and scream, made me cry even harder.

The day after the surgery Connor already didn't experience any pain anymore. The last few days he has a soar throat and I don't know what to think about that. He's been feeling off. I just hope that whatever is plaguing him, will vanish soon.
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The May moodboard from the "Scraps of Darkness & Scraps of Elegance" blog was one of my inspiration sources.
Scrapsofdarkness.blogspot.nl

The moodboard over at "Mixed Media Place" for the May challenge was a perfect fit for the colors and feel I had in mind. That one quote from the moodboard, "She believed she could, so she did", could have been written just for me during this period. I had to believe I could get through this, when I didn't really feel like an adult myself. So I was brave for my little man!

The quote I used for my layout is another one though, because it perfectly describes the feelings I am trying to convey. 

"Being a mother is discovering strengths you didn't know you had and dealing with fears you never knew existed."

Pictured above are almost all of the ingredients you'll need. 

The shades of Tattered Angels glimmermist I used are the following: Verdigris, Latte, Jazz Blue, Walnutgold and chalkboard French Vanilla (for the splatters) and also Glimmerglam Tail Fin (which I forgot to include in the picture!). 

Started my layout by choosing the perfect paper from Kaisercraft, "Antique Bazaar Collection: Unearth".

I wanted the layout to have a 'prickly' feel, so I chose a Sheena stencil with thorn pattern. Applied Viva Decor's "Rusty Paper" through it.

This layout is full of symbolism: rusty staples are holding many things together, to represent both the stitches Connor has gotten, as well as the pieces of my broken heart being held together.

That beaten up and broken heart was made from brown wire, around which I wrapped henp rope in a crazy pattern.

For the middle part I used a shred of paper with bark printed on it, layered onto some fabric which I colored using my old bottle of Walnut Ink.

Used some pieces of bandage (again with a double meaning) colored with Tattered Angels glimmermist "Verdigris" to tie up some more loose ends.

The chipboard clock (from Sandra's Hobbyshop) represents the time ticking away, leaving us hoping, fearing and wondering.

The patterned crosses woodboard background pieces aren't a coincidence either: everybody knows what the Red Cross stands for.

I kept most of the elements on my layout nature related. Also inspired by the feathers from the Mixed Media Place moodboad. It merely enhanced the feeling I already had. Used feathers, a shred of paper with bark print, some wood chips my dad sawed from a branch, a chipboard dandelion from Scrapiniec, wood angel's wings, a small metal arrow and branch.
I'll leave you with some more close-ups. Hope you'll like it! Questions and comments are always welcome!

You can find me on Facebook too: Less is bore
And also in Instagram:mandylessibore

HAPPY SCRAPPING!

"Fleeting Moments" Altered mixed media Fan

Hi everyone,

I've noticed some fans being altered lately, you too? They made me finally work on the wooden fan that I had lying around too.

My in laws got this fan for me during one of their world trips and I had different plans for it initially. 

Until I remembered the vintage photograph of my mom holding up an umbrella. Her dark hair was up in a tight bun, which she hated because her hair was thick and heavy. Her mother had even sewn two of those bun-spunges together, to make it even worse. My mom was a living doll and she hated it. I depicted that by caging one of my old Frozen Charlottes in a birdcage. 

Needless to say once she was mature enough she was thrilled to make her own decisions when it came to her hair and clothes. From a young age she already learned to make the best of (her) life.

My grandfather, whom I hardly knew since he passed away a year and a half after I was born, loved to take pictures. I'm proud to still own his camera and so happy he took so many pictures/slides of my beautiful mom. Precious memories, even more so since she passed away too young as well.

I wanted to stick with the colors from the picture and guess what? They match the March challenge over at the 'Words and Painterly' blog. Again. And yes, again using a picture of my mom. LOL.

(I already did an entry with a heart-shaped canvas starring my mom as an angel, check one of my previous blog entries.)

I started out by painting the fan with gesso. White was my first choice, but I realised black would make the picture pop even more. So I gradually blended the white into black.

By the way, I took these pictures with my new cellphone and I absolutely love them! I can do decent close-ups and the colors are almost perfect as is. The little editing I have to do is also done a whole lot faster than with my previous phone. I'm so happy! 

Once dry I sprayed everything with several Glimmermist colors: 'Cranberry Zing' (which turned out to be too purple for this color scheme), 'Crimson' and 'Pink Coral'.

I altered some of the embellishments I wanted to use. Covered the clock and Frozen Charlotte in crackle medium, then added some paint and ink.

You don't want to know how many mediums I put on the swirl. It didn't do what I wanted it to do. First I painted it with black gesso and then I added a crackle medium. I finally used one of my new Prima Opal Magic paints, pink gold. The idea was that it would crack and show some of the black gesso underneath. It didn't crack though. (On another project I noticed it didn't work either, but I blamed it on the wood surface being too coarse and soaking up all the medium.) I tried some black crackle Nail Polish and sanded everything. Not the result I wanted either. So I mixed another Prima Opal Magic paint, blue pink, with Tim Holtz clear rock candy crackle medium. That sort of worked but the color wasn't really what I hoped for. Later when I sprayed everything the color blended nicely.

The Scrapiniec ornament above the picture was done with several layers too. Black gesso, Prima Opal Magic paint pink gold, some Rusty Paper, etc.

The chipboard words "Fleeting Moments" are from 13Arts and I painted them with Prima Opal Magic paint pink gold, then added clear crackle medium and a bit of pink ink later on.

To enhance the 'Chinese' feel of the picture I made and altered some chopsticks sticking out from behind the picture. 

The little fan-like chipboard piece is from Scrapiniec as well and was simply covered in Glimmermist 'Crimson' and a bit of white gesso.

The branch underneath the picture was covered in Rusty Paper and later some crackle medium and pink ink.

The metal leaves, frames and birdcage were covered with white gesso and some Glimmermist 'Crimson' as well.

Added my glittery branches, flowers (sprayed them with Glimmermist Crimson and added white gesso) and bead/heart string for the finishing touch. Fussy cut the picture because it looked better.

Hope you like it! Comments and questions are always welcome!

Come find me on Facebook too: 

"Less is Bore! "

Or Instagram: mandylessisbore

Happy scrapping!

"Stoer (cool)" Mixed media layout

Hi all!

After a few busy weekends (and evenings in which I was too tired to do anything but reside on the couch) I finally had some time to create something again. I was in the mood to try some of my recently purchased goodies such as Finnabair's Opal Mica Powders and Prima's Graphite Texture Paste and Artstones.

And I knew just which picture and paper I was going to use for it!

Connor looked cool and sweet at the same time in this picture. I edited it a little to give it a more tough and vintage look. The graffiti paper called Hip hop  has been in my stash for a long time and is by a Dutch brand called Creamotion. It suited my idea perfectly.

Since it felt very flimsy I decided to stick it onto a piece of currogated cardboard, tearing open the middle section.

 Like almost every time, I distressed the edges and inked them. Later on I painted them some and applied some more Art Extravagance Graphite texture paste.

First I stenciled some rays using a Tim Holtz stencil, and some hearts in brick pattern with another stencil. I used the Art Extravagance graphite texture paste to do so. Wow, it's great to work with! Despite its grainy texture it is very flexible. I had no trouble applying it through the tiny bricks of the stencil. And the result is totally amazing texturewise and in vibrancy.

Now it was time to fill up the creases of my currogated cardboard. I applied gel medium first, then added Art stones in both sizes and Glass Glitter in two colours : sterling and platinum.

After that I mixed 2 shades Finnabair's Opal Mica powders with Tim Holtz clear crackle medium. I added this on top of what I had just done, thinking the opal powders would be sort of translucent. Turns out they aren't. LOL. (So after this step I sprinkled on some more glass glitter.)

The Dutch word 'Stoer' (it sort of translates into 'cool/tough') was painted with black gesso first, then I put my opal powder mixture on top of it. Later I decided the word didn't stand out enough, so I coated it with some Tattered Angels glimmer glam: Tail Fin. I bet you still can't find it now, though ;)

As a hoarder... wait, I mean scrapbooker ...;) I had kept some clothing tags I wanted to use. I altered them a little with ink and crackle medium.

Here and there I added some cheesecloth like fabric, which I stained a little at first by spraying Boardwalk glimmermist onto it.
By the way, I sprayed this shade of glimmermist a bit over the page to make it more playful and soften the contrast of the cream background and black printing. 

On the left side next to the picture I added a little piece of brick pattern chipboard, which I coated with Art Extravagance Graphite texture paste first. The gaps were filled with both sizes Art stones later.

Added my embellishments like a zipper, wooden stars, swirls, dominoes, metal hearts and lamps (from Prima marketing ) until I liked my composition.

I hardly ever leave anything 'as is', so I inked and crackle glazed some items. (Lately I have noticed that the crackle glaze doesn't stay put very well. Could it be of old age? Anyone out there ever had this problem?)

Once everything was in place I splattered black gesso all over the page.

Hope you like it, as my own toughest critic I have to admit even *I* do really like this one!

Comments and questions are always very welcome.

You're also welcome to follow me on my Facebookpage Less is bore!

Or come find me on Instagram: mandylessisbore

HAPPY SCRAPPING! 

Canvas Corp Brands mixed media 4 by 4 canvas 'Finnabair style'

 Hi all!

It feels like it's been forever since I created something and shared it, though I know it's not. Not really. It's just been very busy around here because my little man turned 3 years old last Thursday! That meant shopping for a present, extra grocery shopping, celebrating his actual birthday with a select few and then on to baking cake, muffins, preparing the place where the party was held (grandpa's bar) and the actual party itself. 

Connor liked lighting the candles and blowing them out (a gazillion times) even more than the presents...

Back to normal life after those celebrations, so time was short again. and I wanted to start/finish the mini canvas for the Canvas Corp Crew so badly! It's a small canvas ( 4 by 4 inch) everyone in the Canvas Corp Crew is supposed to decorate to show (off) their own style. Today I was finally able to put the final touch on my 4 by 4 inch canvas, and even more importantly, take daylight pictures of it.

It has to be said that I work different on canvas than I do when I scrap layouts. Lately I like the canvas method a whole lot, and I want to try and incorporate this style more into my regular layouts. I'm not sure what to call it, besides the 'Finnabair' mixed media style.

Here you can see how tiny the canvas is. And the rawness of the cloth shows too. This is pure canvas, whereas usually canvasses for artists are treated with a layer of gesso already. I decided not to do that to this one, to see how the pure canvas would work with the mists.

First I applied some modeling paste through the 2 stencils, as you see below. A negative and positive version of the same pattern.

Because of the size of the canvas I didn't add more stenciling, just went ahead with embellishing. a lace border, lace figure, some chipboard and wood figures, a metal Prima picture frame, some flowers and a leave, and a cute little cherub watching where I was headed.

Next I covered it all in white gesso. After the gesso I added some glass beads texture gel here and there. Coincidentally I spotted the back of my mannequin and it was crackled. It hit me that that was because of the glue. 

Recently I saw a video of a woman who made her own crackle effect by covering an object with white glue (this was Tacky Glue from another store), let it dry a bit and then added paint while the glue was still sticky. It caused crackles indeed! The only shame is, you didn't see them anymore after I had sprayed the whole thing. (But hey, it works!)

Also I mixed some 13Arts Magic Powder with my gesso, to create some structure paste. I put that on the mannequin, swirl, scissors and crown.

Really, it's all just playing with textures until you like what you've accomplished.

I have no more further steps to show you now, but the finished canvas. I spray and ink until I'm satisfied. It's just playing and discovering what I like and what not. 

What I did not like was how the mists turned out on the un-gessoe'd parts. They looked a bit filthy. So I would advise you to apply some base coat on the canvas after all. Yes, the colors soaked in more intense, but like I said, they looked a bit filthy.

The glimmermists were first to go. I used Periwinkle Bouquet, Verdigris, Walnut Gold and Boardwalk for this canvas. Very shimmery colors and beautiful shades. I love the copper glimmer in the Verdigris!

On the text (which again is my scrap (and life) motto: 'Less is Bore') I used 2 shades of Glimmer Glam: Tail Fin and Tanzanite. They dried a bit glossy, which was exactly what I wanted. However, when I played with the coloring some more, I ended up dulling them somewhat, so I added a bit of (Tim Holtz) one step crackle medium. (Any brand will do.) I also added some more on the mannequin, because she looked a bit too boring to me.  

I gave the whole canvas a finish with some Inka Gold. On the main section I used Browngold. On the metal items I added later, like the little feet, handle and corner bits, I added some Hydrangea and Turquoise Inka Gold.

Hope you like it! Let me know! ;) 

My facebookpage is: Less is Bore!

Happy scrapping!