8 Simple Mixed Media Cards & A Photo Tutorial- Guest Design Post By Preeti Datta

Hi Dear Crafty Friends!

Preeti Datta (aka Dutt Preety) here. 

Hope you are having a fine day. I am thrilled to be on the Crafter’s Corner Blog as a Guest Designer today. It is such a huge honor, so a big thank you to Shalini, Entrepreneur Extraordinaire & the wonderful owner of Crafter’s Corner. 

For today’s post, I will be sharing 8 Simple Mixed Media Cards and a photo tutorial for one of the cards. I’ve used Dress My Craft Stencils, Glitters, sequins & papers here. 

Dress My Craft (DMC) stencils are beautifully designed and would work brilliantly in all kinds of crafting especially for making Mixed Media Backgrounds. They are A4 in size & premium quality. Since they are thick, one can use them easily with various art mediums, pastes, sprays, inks etc and wash off the residue to ensure longevity. Because of their big size, one can use them on 12 by 12 layouts, on fabrics, walls etc... to get a seamless design. 

The 3 DMC glitters are beautifully packed in a wide mouth jar, so, it is easy to use one’s fingers to sprinkle them. They come in 3 varieties of fineness, with the DMC Microfine Glitter powder having the smallest white, shiny, powdery particles, DMC's Rainbow Glitter Chunks being multi colored and biggest in size & DMC's Rainbow Glitter is multi-colored, sparkly and has medium sized particles. I tried using various glues to stick down the glitters and all of these worked well-Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue, Dovecraft’s Acrylic Craft Glue, Ranger’s Multi Medium Matte & Glossy Accents. 

My favorite technique of adding loose glitter to these cards was to heat emboss an image and then sprinkle on some glitter on top of the heat embossed image and heat it with a heat tool so it got set within the melted embossing powder underneath. This way the glitter does not fall or rub off and it gives a great sparkly & shiny look to any project. 

For today’s cards, I’ve used the stencils with different mediums. 

All the cards are 5 by 7 inches in size and easy to create. I also wanted to minimize 3-D elements so that these cards could be easily put into available envelopes and mailed. 

So let’s get started.

Card 1: New Beginning

For this motivational card, I applied white gesso in the background on top of kraft cardstock (using a palette knife to get a rough, grungy look) and then sponged on black acrylic paint through the DMC- Alphas Stencil. The sentiment was stamped, matted and foam mounted on the card. All the edges were distressed with Black Soot Distress Ink.

Card 2: Thanks

For this Thanks card, I created the background panel with the gelliprinting technique using inks, paints and the DMC-Thumb Print Stencil. Then splattered on some watered down white gesso and matted it with a pretty text design paper from the DMC-Hydrangea Lawns Collection. To finish, added the die cut sentiments and the butterfly which is stamped from the Mudra Butterfly Layers Stamp and heat embossed on vellum.

Card 3: Hello 

For this hello card, followed a similar procedure as Card 2 by using the DMC-Alphas stencil to create the background. For this card, I also wanted some sparkle, so I put a layer of glossy accents on top of the die cuts and then sprinkled on some DMC-Microfine Glitter Powder on top. This added a wonderful & subtle sparkle which is hard to capture in photos.

Card 4: You are Enough

For this motivational card, I created the green background by using the Monoprinting with stencils Technique, in which I sprayed Lindy’s sprays onto the DMC Thumb Print stencil and then sprayed some water. Then used the stencil to stamp onto the panel. For layering, I then sprayed a darker brown color through the same stencil onto the dried background. Finished it off by stamping an apt sentiment, darkening the edges of the panel, matting & foam mounting the panel. Using this technique, one gets the positive and negative impression from the stencil.

Card 5: Happy Birthday

This motivational card was made alongside card 4 so the same techniques and stencils were used. Spraying ink on one panel and then flipping the stencil over to stamp with it onto the second panel. This way we can create 2 cards and reduce wastage of inks/sprays. For this card, I did some background stamping as well and then added the die cut sentiment.

Card 6: Cheers

For this celebration card, I created the background by sponging on white acrylic paint through the DMC-Thumb Print stencil and then Black Archival Ink through the DMC-Couture Fashion Stencil. The sentiment is a die cut and to add sparkle to it, I used some multi medium matte and then sprinkled on the DMC-Rainbow Glitter Chunks. In real life, it looks very shiny & sparkly.

Card 7: Hi

For this hi card, to create the background, I sponged on white acrylic paint through the DMC- Swirls Stencil and then with a soft touch created a sponged on white border. The sentiment is a die cut to which I added DMC-Rainbow Glitter using Dovecraft’s Ultimate Acrylic Craft Glue. 

Card 8: Sparkle

Photo Tutorial for Card 8 :

1. Created the card background by sponging on Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and Broken China Distress Oxide Ink through the DMC- Swirls Stencil using Ranger’s Mini Ink blending tool, Mini Ink Blending Foams and sponge daubers.

2. To add text to the background, sponged on Black Soot Distress Ink through the DMC- Couture Fashion Stencil

3. Then I did heat embossing through the DMC- Couture Fashion Stencil by first preparing the surface with an anti-static powder tool and then dabbing on versamark sticky ink through the dress form shape in the stencil & heat embossed it with Ranger’s super fine black embossing powder. 

4. To add shine to the dress form shape, as soon as the heat embossing was done, I sprinkled on some DMC-Microfine glitter powder onto the dress and heated it again with the Dovecraft Embossing Heat Tool, this enabled the glitter to bind to the melted embossing powder underneath and I had my glittery dress ready with no mess!

5. I heat embossed the die cut word “sparkle” as well and added shine to it (adding DMC’s Microfine Glitter Powder) in the same way by heat setting it. 

6. Then I did background stamping with Jet Black Archival Ink to create interest and adhered the sentiment with Tombow’s Mono Multi Liquid Glue 

7. In the end, I darkened the edges of the panel with Black Soot Distress Ink, matted it in black and foam mounted it onto a white card base. Then added DMC’s beautiful sequins- (Golden Black, White Sunshine & Crystal Clear) with glossy accents to finish the card.

That's all for today :) 

I'm very grateful to Shalini and the wonderful team at Crafters Corner for this experience. I had so much fun playing with the supplies. I highly recommend that you check out their website, HERE and also, their brand- Dress My Craft for it’s Stencils, Glitters, Sequins, Flowers, Pattern Papers etc They have a plethora of cool options to choose from. Buy a few to try them out, experiment and see the quality for yourself. I'm sure you'll love them :) 

Please don't forget, there is a great deal on DMC stencils via a Grab Bag Offer, wherein you can pick up all 12, A4 sized DMC stencils at a discounted price, please click HERE to check it out. 

Thanks a lot for your precious time :)
Stay Blessed
Preeti Datta
Blog

Instagram