This week I’m taking part in a super exciting blog AND Youtube Hop all about Mixed Media in card making. (The Youtube Hop was yesterday, so if you haven’t checked that out yet you can head over to my video HERE.)

I am all about giving you the confidence you need to try new things creatively, so I wanted to show you some easy ways to incorporate mixed media into your card making, and maybe even show you that you already do!

The first thing you need to know about mixed media is that it just means using more then one type of medium on your project; so stamping, painting, embossing, texture pastes, these are all different mediums so if you put two together you’ve created a mixed media project!

So, although it can sound really intimidating, if you break it down you can see it’s much easier to achieve than it first sounds. For my mixed media project I chose a few different, but simple, techniques to make a card for a friend who has recently had a baby, so let’s get crafty!

I started with sketching out the beautiful baby boy’s name and then I used some Nuvo Masking Fluid to draw over this sketch. The bottle has quite a fine tip, so I just did it straight from the bottle.

Masking fluid is used to create a waterproof barrier on your paper, which then means it is protected from any liquid mediums you use on top of it. It’s really important that you leave this to thoroughly dry, otherwise it won’t work. I left mine overnight.

Then it’s time to add the wet medium over the top!! I chose to use Nuvo Shimmer Powder in the colour Atlantis Burst. You just need to *gently* tap the bottle over your paper and you’ll see powder coming out.

It is really important, again, that you let this dry thoroughly before trying to remove the masking. If the paper is still wet then it will tear your paper when you try to remove it, which can really spoilt the lovely painting that you have spent your time creating.

To remove it, you just need to gently rub at it, starting at the edge, with either an adhesive eraser or regular school type eraser; you can use your fingers if you haven’t got either of those, but I highly recommend using an adhesive eraser because it makes light work of removing the mask and it is very cheap at just a couple $’s.

I used Platinum embossing powder on dark navy card stock; I just LOVE how these two look together.

I was itching to use this new to me background stamp from My Favourite Things, so I placed that down on my glass mat facing up and added Versamark all over it, before placing my card panel straight onto it. I covered this with a sheet of printer paper and gently, but firmly, rubbed across the whole panel to make sure I got a really good impression. (You can use your MISTI to stamp the foam mounted style stamps by taking out the foam pad from the bottom of you MISTI but I wanted to show you that you don’t have to have one in order to use these stamps.

(This tutorial assumes that you know the basics of heat embossing, if you don’t or you need a refresher I have many other posts on this.)

I also heat embossed a sub sentiment with the same powder onto dark navy cardstock and trimmed it down to be a skinny sentiment strip with an angled edge.

I used a circle die, offset, to cut down my watercolour panel, then attached this to my embossed panel with adhesive foam tape and added my sub sentiment, making sure to add a foam square where the strip continues past the watercolour portion.

The finished panel fits nicely onto a white A2 Neenah 110lb card base. (4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch)