Tuesday Tutorial - Mixed Media meets Clean & Simple

Hello Whimsy Friends & Welcome to our Tuesday Tutorial. It's Iris here today and I want to show you how I made this Clean & Simple Mixed Media style card. I love to incorporate a bit of mixed media into my cards and no, it does not always have to be messy. ;-) Today I want to show you how to take a more clean and simple approach to mixed media but still get that mixed media style look.

Here is what we will be creating today

The card has a mixed media background. I layered several stamps and kept everything in a vertical row to rather than stamping all over the background panel. This gives the CAS look to the card. The focal point is a large embossed and cut out butterfly. This could easily be substituted with two smaller butterflies, a butterfly and a bee or whatever other element you would like to use.

This is what I used to create my card:

Stamps: Circles Circles Circles, Distressed Backgrounds and Ink Splats, FA Doodles, FADoodles Too, Butterflies Fluttering, 

Paper: A2 size card, top fold from white cardstock , white mixed media panel 4" x 5.25",
white cardstock (Copic friendly) to stamp butterfly and sentiment

Tools: Stamp positioning tool or acrylic block, heat tool, anti static powder, scissors for fussy cutting, tweezers

Copics: RV52, RV56, RV66, BG32, BG15, BG18, 110

Other: Versafine Clair Nocturne ink or Versafine Onyx Black ink, Versamark ink, Distress Oxide ink - Peacock Feathers, white gel pen or white POSCA pen - fine, metallic gold marker,  gold glitter embossing powder, black embossing powder, Stickles Glitter Glue - Stardust, foam tape, glue, sequins

I started out with the Circles Circles Circles clear set and the 4" x 5.25" mixed media panel.

With Versafine Clair Nocturne ink I stamped several different circles onto the mixed media panel.

More or less in a straight vertical row with some of the circles overlapping.

Next I chose an ink splats stamp from the Distressed Backgrounds and Ink Splats clear set 

and stamped with Distress Oxide ink - Peacock Feathers. I stamped over the circles

always trying to maintain a vertical row of stamped images.

For the next two steps I used the burlap stamp from the same set and stamps form the

FA Doodles and FADoodles Too sets:

To stamp just part of the burlap I am folding the stamp over:

It's time to use some elements from the FA Doodles and FADoodles Too sets

This is how my background looks after I've finished stamping. I am trying to keep that vertical row

 for the clean look.

Now on to some details. I used a white Uni POSCA pen to add some dots to the solid black circles,

breaking them up a bit. A white gel pen works as well.

With a metallic, gold DecoColor marker I colored the hearts from the FADoodles Too elements,

to add some shine.

I still wanted a bit more gold so I stamped some more ink splats from the 

Distressed Backgrounds and Ink Splats clear set with Versamark ink, 

added gold sparkle embossing powder and heat embossed. 

The finished background:

Next step is to create the focal point. I chose a large butterfly from the Butterfly clear stamp set. Unfortunately this set went out of stock while I was creating my card. But it will be back in stock soon. Alternatively you can use the Dove Art Butterflies Fluttering set and/or the Bee-utiful Bees stamp set. 

I stamped the butterfly with Versamark ink and heat embossed with black embossing powder. You can also stamp with a black pigment ink, like Versafine Onyx Black ink, and then emboss with black or clear embossing powder. So you have some options here depending on what items you have available.

After stamping and embossing the butterfly I fussy cut it. I cut as close to the image as possible because 

I do not want to have a white edge this time.

Using a black Copic marker I went all around the butterfly to cover the cutting edge. This will cover and hide some areas 

where I did a poor job cutting the butterfly out. Especially on his antennas and hard to reach parts.

Time to color the butterfly. I used the following Copics to color:

RV52, RV56, RV66, BG32, BG15, BG18
I wanted part of it to match the turquoise color in my background and one contrast color.

I colored the outside darker and went lighter towards the butterflies body to achieve a glowing effect.

To assemble the card I popped the background layer onto a A2 size top fold card base using foam tape. 

If you don't want that extra layer of dimension you can just glue it on.

Before adding the butterfly I needed to have a sentiment and see how I can incorporate that.

I used a sentiment that is included with the Butterfly clear stamp set. 

Alternatively you can use the You're Too Kind clear stamp set.

This is how the card looks after adding the butterfly, sentiment and three sequins for just a little bit more bling. Butterfly and sentiment are popped up on foam tape as well and I've added some sparkle to the butterfly wings using Stickles Glitter Glue - Stardust.
Voila! - Mixed Media meets Clean & Simple!

Shot from another angle:

Here is a link list of Whimsy products used -
I've also linked the alternate products you can use:

              

                

    

Thanks for stopping by and visiting us here today on the Whimsy Inspirations Blog.

 I hope you've enjoyed the tutorial and that I could inspire you to try and add a little bit of mixed media in your next project.

I would love to see your take on a clean and simple mixed media card. Share your creation in the Whimsy Facebook Inspiration group and feel free to tag me.

Germ-free hugs and stay healthy!