Hi All,

Lots of you will have now had delivery of your orders from Lisa's first show - hope you're all enjoying your new goodies. Today I have decided to show how I put together a mixed media style cover for one of the books you'll have all seen on Lisa's second show on 3rd February. We've all had great fun playing about with these, the samples from the rest of the Design Team were totally inspiring and the variety was amazing I am sure you will agree.

Lots of people can to be a bit frightened with the idea of how to 'compose' a mixed media piece but trust me, once you've got over the initial fear and got going it's great fun and a very satisfying way to create.

For this piece I have used lots of bits and pieces from my crafty stash and I've listed the bits  from Lisa's collection below (don't forget you can also buy direct from Lisa by visiting https://thatcraftplace.co.uk,  new releases appear about 14 days after the shows on Create and Craft but there are stacks of other goodies to buy from the shop so I would encourage you to visit and have a browse. 

Lisa Horton Goodies: - Greyboard Book Cover, Greyboard Shapes, Pennies In A Line stencil (sneaky peek but one of my favourites), SIsal, Mermaid Tails, Stamperia Cream Paste.

To begin I gathered together all the bits and pieces I wanted to put into the project, taped together my book with some wide masking tape and then laid the pieces onto the book to get an idea of where I wanted to place them. I then took everything off again and used the stencil and paste to create a bit of background texture. Once the paste was dry I added all my goodies sticking them on with gel medium - the sisal and texture fabric get pinned on with the other embellishments so don't worry if they don't seem to stick down at first. Once the gel medium was dry and everything was secure I covered the whole lot with white gesso to give myself a nice even base colour.

Next comes the messy bit!!! I spritzed, sprayed and splashed with a variety of mediums including distress sprays and mica sprays - as you can see the piece itself went through a variety of colour changes, you just have to trust the process. Once I was fairly happy with the overall colour effect I toddled off to the kitchen and made a cuppa, grabbed some biscuits then came back and looked at what I had created to decide what to do next. Several slurps of tea and a biscuit (or two) and I then got out some powder pigments and used this to highlight round the edges of the book and round some of the greyboard pieces to make them 'pop'. I brushed over the piece with a clear embossing pad and added silver embossing powder - this picks out the highest points on your piece and add's yet another bit of texture and a lovely highlight.

Finishing touches were then added by 'spattering' some spots with my posca pen and doing some broken lines around the edges of some of the greyboard bits and the main edges of the book front and back - not forgetting the spine and adding just a few little bits of the glorious mermaid tails because everyone loves a bit of bling!!!

The picture at the top shows the finished project although as I am sat looking at it now I am thinking a couple of the phrases from the 'wordage' papers would make the whole piece come together. I've not done any inner pages on this one yet - I just need to sit back and look at it for a while to decide what to fill it with but that's the beauty of these books and mixed media in general, you can come back and re-visit your projects and add more any time the fancy takes you.

Hope that helps people who have not ventured into mixed media see there's nothing to be scared of - a lot of the process is about 'going with the flow' and seeing where things take you - no rules and if you don't like things it's so easy to change it all up with a few more embellishments and a change of colour.  

If you've got any questions please feel free to ask - I don't profess to be anything other than an enthusiastic crafter but I will help where I can.

Happy crafting.

Jo. xxx