I Can’t Adult Today, Tomorrow’s Not Looking Good Either – Marie Antoinette – Mixed Media Card

Today I have a (reasonably) quick mixed media (natch) card for you using just a few things and a (reasonably) quick process as well!  How about that eh?  So we are using this Flourish Frame Connie, a photo, some paper, paint and a little stamping.  Here’s what we are aiming for today.

This is the frame I am going to use, it’s a chipboard frame from GSL, due to the nature of lasercut chipboard, make sure to give it a wipe down before starting to work with it.  I am also going to use one of these Marie Antoinette photos that I printed out last month when I was making this card for my sister, whose name is not Marie or Antoinette btw and she’s not very excited about cake but sometimes you just have to go where the muse takes you.

Sometimes there are little bits of chipboard still left in place so pop out any remaining bits from the frame before starting to paint it.

This time around I am using this Sunset Gold Jacquard Lumiere paint that I have had for forever and it never seems to run out!  This little bottle came from a selection box of 10 or 12 and I really liked them so I invested in some of the bigger bottles just in case they ran out and I am STILL using the first little bottle lol.  Total value for money! I didn’t bother to prime it with gesso or anything because with this paint I don’t actually think it’s necessary so that’s a step we can miss this time.  Sometimes depending on the colour or the type of paint or the substrate you are using, this would not work that well, but in this case, it was good.

Turns out I am also going to be using a lot of this Vintaj Patina in Bronze because it was clogged and I squeezed it really hard and well, I have all this to use now, instead of the little bit I had planned to use.  It’s all good though.  I knew this would happen if I kept squeezing it but I didn’t have anything to hand to poke it with so I just applied some extra pressure and we were good to go.  And look, it’s such a pretty colour anyway.

So I sponged some of it on over the gold, just here and there, randomly making it look a little tarnished.  Here it is all painted and left to dry while I work on some other elements.

I chose this photo with Marie in the pretty blue dress, and used the frame to draw around where I needed to cut the photo so it wouldn’t show through the delicate cutouts of the frame.  Sorry about the glaring light on it but it was so dark because of the weather that I had to have the lights on even during the day! #winterblues  Don’t worry about that little white bit at the top, we will totally hide it with a sharpie and some paint splodges so you will never know it was even there.

I touched it up with a black Sharpie and then edged it very roughly with some of the bronze and gold.  See, you can’t even see the join, now can you?  The frame was also given a touch up with some of the copious amounts of Bronze patina I mentioned above.

This lovely pink scrapbook paper is by Maja Design, part of the new Little Street Cafe collection, and it’s is just perfect for that old wallpaper look that I want to achieve for hanging my painting on.

I don’t really like to use paper untreated in some way, so I did a bit of sponging around the edges using the same Sunset Gold paint and also the Pearl Magenta in the same range.

Something is still needed to complete my card… ah yes a sentiment from this stamp set from Hero Arts called To Seize or Not To Seize.  Some of the sentiments are sweet, some sassy, some snarky.  I’m going with the one that says I can’t adult today, tomorrow ‘s not looking good either because I think some days would have been hard for Marie.  I was actually thinking of using another stamp from a different Hero Arts set that said YOU’RE A HOT MESS but I couldn’t do that to Marie.

I also needed something to display it on, like this little plaque shape cut from this Spellbinders Shapeabilities set called Brillante Rondelle.  I stamped on the sentiment using my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform and some Onyx Black Archival Ink, then used a little (very little) Antique Linen Distress Ink to make the white card less white.  When that was done, I edged the little plaque with some gold Icing Paste.

In case you felt like going in another direction with this card, here’s another option – use something pretty like this LOVELY metallic diecut from Prima. I had this leftover from another project and I did toy with the idea of using it on this card instead of the stamp, but I really liked the stamp.

 

Before I forget, here’s a closer look at some of the treatments on the card – check out the edges and corner of the paper and the two-colour combo on the frame.

All that remained was to mount the card onto a card base and… but wait… this card measures 6 x 8 inches so what could I possibly mount it on?  There are a few different options like cutting two pieces and gluing them together, or getting a sheet of card that is larger than the usual cardstock size or… you could do what I did and cut up an amazon box!  You know the ones that are made of a kind of kraft card, non-corrugated?  They have printing on the outside but on the inside, lovely kraft, so I cut up one of those and used it for my card base!

And that’s the finished card, the whole process from beginning to end took just over an hour so really not too bad, and a lot of that was drying time and searching for stamps lol.

I hope you enjoyed this quick card tutorial and that it inspires you to take an hour and go make something pretty.

You can visit the GSL Cuts blog post here and see a version of this post and I have linked to the UK shop are in the Project Recipe below if you are interested in the frame. 

Challenges

Simon Say Stamp – Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes

PROJECT RECIPE:

GSL Cuts – Flourish Frame Connie D6K
Maja Design – Little Street Cafe paper
Jacquard Lumiere paint – Sunset Gold, Pearl Magenta
Vintaj Patina – Bronze
Finnabair – gold icing paste
Tim Holtz – Vintage Photo Archival Ink
Versafine – Onyx Black ink
Hero Arts – To Seize or Not To Seize stamp set
Spellbinders – Shapeabilities Brilliante Rondelle
Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive
From Stash:  photo, amazon box