Storyteller - A Touch of Mixed Media

The November Kit was all the things Vicki Boutin, Storyteller and wow is it a beauty. The messy but beautiful, grunge but classy, vintage but fresh look of Vicki's collection never disappoint - and this collection has purple, a unicorn colour in scrapbooking, so I was particularly excited! 

From my kit, so far I have made a Tag Mini Album and now I am venturing into 12x12 layouts (my go-to format) to capture some hiking memories from the summer with the fam-jam.  

I was inspired by the messy lines of some of the patterns in the Storyteller collection so decided to give it a try myself. Not to cover the page, but as a sort of anchor to all the branding strips, washi and bits of paper I thought would look neat all layered together as a horizontal stripe just off center on the page. 

This looks fancier (but in a messy way) than it is - I simply found 3 Distress Inks that matched the collection and dragged the edge of the stamp pad down the page all .. wait for it .. messy like! I didn't wait for the inks to dry as I wanted a little bit of a blend which gave me that touch of green there - perfect for hiking photos! The Distress Ink colours are Peacock Feathers, Seedless Preserve, and Fossilized Amber (my fav!). 

Then, one colour at a time, I rubbed a bit of off each stamp pad onto an acrylic stamp block and adding a spritz of water I used my paint brush to add some splatters of the same colours all around the page. I like using my stamp block for this because it wipes off so easily. 

To finish off the mixed media, I used a simple Tim Holtz repeated circles stencil, Distress Ink in Black Soot and a blending brush / dobber thing to add some random circles on the left and right of the stripes. Just enough that some would show from behind all the embellishments. Although looking at my page now I see you cant see any I added on the left - oh well! 

On the home stretch now, it was all about picking various bits and pieces from the stickers, the chipboards, scraps from past pages, branding strips (the pretty side) and other bits to create a messy layered cluster over the stripes. 

I could not resist adding way too many hearts just above the photo - haven't seen the family in a long while now thanks to COVID-19 so I poured some heart love onto my page for them! (PS is there ever too many hearts on a page? I think not!)

The final touch for me was some random Tim Holt Tiny Attacher Staples and a bit of Nuvo Crystal Dots in black watered down just slightly (again using my acrylic stamp block) and splattered on the page as a final messy and shiny touch. Tip - cover your photo with a scrap piece of paper and be sure to wash your brush right away or it wont be a brush any longer when you splatter with Nuvo.  

 

Thanks for swinging by! If you try your hand at a 'touch of mixed media' or are playing with the Storyteller collection we would love to see - tag us on Facebook and Instagram!