Tutorial: Mixed media embellishment

Of course, mixed media means "anything on my desk," right?

Today, I'll show you how I made the tag on this scrapbook layout:

I'm taking a class at Big Picture Scrapbooking with Claudine Hellmuth, and it's causing me to look at my supplies in a new way.  In particular, we're learning a lot of background techniques that can be used as building blocks to create more complex pieces.  I'm using chipboard, a dictionary, gel medium, and a brush to start with.

First, I glued a page from a dictionary to a piece of chipboard using fluid gel medium.  I like this dictionary because it has some nice pictures on some of the pages.  The page on the right is a piece of textured grungeboard.  I'm using the piece on the left today.

Next, I mixed paint to create a soft blue.  Blue is one of my favorite colors, so I knew I would be able to use this somewhere.

I then die cut the chipboard into a variety of pieces using my Sizzix Big Shot machine.  If you don't have a die cutting machine, thin chipboard is easy to cut into squares or rectangles that can be used as tags.  I glued an image transfer of some flowers onto the rolodex die cut.

To finish it off, I added a strip of vellum, a bit of ribbon, and some chipboard letters.  I really like how this turned out.

And, as a side note, I will be continuing to blog, but will take a more relaxed pace for the rest of the summer.  I will post a few times in August and early September, but not on any particular schedule.  I hope you enjoy the rest of the lazy days of summer!  (That are turning into not very lazy around here!) I plan on taking at least some time to read some crafty books and gather some new inspiration. Some of the books on my list include some books I love about collage and image transfers.

If you're interested in learning more collage techniques, I really recommend the books by Claudine Hellmuth.  She has a lot of great techniques in her books, as well as examples of projects and composition ideas.  Both books are packed with techniques.  In her first book, the style is more vintage/grunge and in the second, she shows us a lighter style to collage with brighter colors.

If you're just interested in learning about image transfer techniques, like how I made the flowers on my tag, I recommend the book "Image Transfer Workshop." It introduces 35 techniques, and each one is accompanied by a description of its limitations and uses with step-by-step pictures.