IAR "Journal Me This" April Challenge

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Hi it's me again with another Monday post for you. This time it is for the 

 I Am Roses APRIL Blog Challenge.  Head on over to the IAR Challenge Blog to get all the details on how you can enter to win some fabulous IAR flowers. Also we have a new addition to the IAR Design Team, Welcome Donna Smith!

So the title is "Journal Me This" and the challenge is to use flat flowers/petals. You can interpret this any way you want. Some of the DT gals made layouts and some made Journals. This is truly the first time that I made any real effort in Mix Media, so I made this journal cover. I am happy with the way it turned out. I've watched so many inspiring YouTube videos on Mix Media and thought "why the heck not, I'll give it a go"...even though I hate getting messy LOL.

Anywhoo...so here is the before of my cover. It's a page that I already started when I first played with my Gelli Arts Plate (Video here).

BEFORE

and here is the...

AFTER

Ta da! Hehehe. This thing took me the whole afternoon to complete. I really didn't know what look I was going for, dark or light...and dark it is! 

The page was already painted and had some designs from previous stencils. So I started out with some stamping in the background. Then began pulling out embellishments from my stash, laid them out on the page.  Some of the embellishments didn't go with the color scheme so I had to prep them with black acrylic paint, then I coated them with my sprays. While they were still wet, I sprinkled a metallic embossing powder then I set with my heat gun.

I chose four colors of  Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays and sprayed like there was no tomorrow. It was fun seeing how the colors mixed with each other and it pulled everything together. The edge of the cover was inked first with Black Soot Distress Ink then I took some black acrylic paint and went over the edges with  a foam brush.

I used the I Am Roses Small Daisy Petal Flowers and the Mini Hydrangea Flowers. I layered two together and added a clear rhinestone flower center, that I covered with black paint and the metallic embossing powder, topped with a small black rhinestone. I used hot glue for the paper flowers and glossy accents to adhere the metal elements to my page.

I added some Fusible Webbing mixed with some embossing powder to create another type of texture to my cover. Fusible Webbing is this type of dryer sheet-like material that when you apply a heat gun to it, it starts to melt and shrink to give this type of spidery texture/look on your project. If  you look at the bottom left corner and the right side of the oval frame, you can see where I applied it.

Another thing that I enjoyed doing on this project was using a texture paste (tutorial here) over a stencil to add even more dimension. I mixed some black acrylic paint to the mix because it was initially white. Then I used Tibetan Poppy Magical Mica from Lindy's Stamp Gang over it for some shimmery goodness.

I can't tell you how much fun I had playing with everything. This challenge really had me step outside of my comfort zone. I'm a pretty neat person, i think, and to get my hands messy and just try different techniques was a blast. So...I hope you guys can play along this IAR Challenge. You don't have to get all mix media'd out. You can create whatever you want and it just depends on how you interpret our title "Journal Me This".

Thanks for taking the time to read everything I wrote and I hope you enjoyed my post(s) for today.

Have a fab Monday!

I Am Roses Products (Links provided):

P70-15 White Small Daisy Paper Petal Flowers

P9-15 Mini White Hydrangea Scrapbooking Flowers

BF1-150 Small White Butterflies

BF2-150 Medium Butterflies White

Other Supplies:

Mix Media Journal Page, Black Acrylic Paint, Cheese Cloth, Pearl Spray, Melissa Frances Oval Frame, Distress Ink Black Soot, Tim Holtz Locket Keys/Game Spinners/Word Sticks/Boundless Flight Stamp Set, DIY Texture Paste, TA Glimmer Screen, Lindy’s Stamp Gang Flat Fabio - Wicked Witch Purple/Starburst Delphinium Turquoise/ Glitz Topaz Fire/Starburst Vavavavoom Violet/ Byzantine Bronze EP/ Tibetan Poppy Magical Mica/Fusible Webbing, Flower Rhinestones, Mini Black Rhinestones, Glossy Accents, Glue Gun, Heat Tool