Creating your Own Hide-away Doll House Play Set

Gloriann Irizarry always had her hands on crayons, scissors and paper. As she enjoys her time with her girls, she will always continue to create art into her daily schedule as that means doing what she loves most. From her creativity she creates hide-away doll house from a simple box. Here are the materials you need and the steps you shall follow:

· White foam board and Scissors.

· Metal ruler and hot glue gun

· Decorative gift box 17 ½ x 12 x 5 ½ and pencil

· Craft knife and Mounting repositionable spray

Here are the steps

· Measure the foam board to 5 inches to 16 ¼ with the pencil and the metal ruler then cut your foam board exactly at the 5 x16 ¼ pencil markings.

· Choose your favorite glue and spray then wait a little for the glue to get a little tacky.

· Measure the upper half and choose your favorite specialty paper and once the paper is cut to size use the Mounting repositionable spray and spray an even coat of glue. Let it get tacky.

· Finish the walls with Specialty Paper and choose contrasting colors.

· Follow the same steps for other floors and you can choose different colors

Gloriann is never bored and she will never stop creating because ART is so rewarding. She gets this awesome feeling when she sees her creation taking shape. Art has been a great way to be creative and to express herself.

Making Faux Metal Embellishments

During the cold winters of Canada, Ann Strecko Koeman stays warm by creating something just about every day. She is often found with her hair up in a twist, her hands stained with inks, and her clothes with paint splatters underneath her long goose.

According to Ann, Making your own mixed media embellishments for your crafting and art making can be satisfying to one’s creative soul and also to one’s wallet. When making Faux Metal embellishments with glue gun and some cardboard she likes using rustic looking items. She likes the look of old and worn even rusty metals.

One of the ways she makes such mixed media embellishments is by stamping an image on pictures while using ink and cardboard and after they have dried she heats up her glue gun, add a stick of glue and trace over the design with the hot glue.

Once the glue has cooled and is hard she spreads some PVA or Tacky glue onto a piece of kitchen aluminum foil as she cuts the cardboard around the stamped image to the desired shape and size.



The process is pretty simple and yet it can give such intricate designs. Ann is so passionate about creating and she even owns gloves that have flaps so her fingers are free to type away while she enjoys a warm mug of hot beverage to warm up those digits.

Mixed Media Art Small Gift Bags

The colors and textures of mixed media are some of the elements that leave Sandra Parés amazed. She enjoys creating and getting her hands dirty with paint and gesso. And with the festivities around the corner, she brings to you an ideal way of making someone’s Christmas using a small gift bag. The following are the materials you need:

· Regular white acrylic paint and brush

· Acrylic paint: Acrylic Glaze Silk

· Black gesso and sponge

· Scissors

· 1 template

· Ribbon to make the handles.

· 1 recycled tetra brik that we will have cleaned before.

Steps in making the gift bag

· Cut the tetra brik in half to make the small bag. You can make it larger or smaller according your personal idea.

· Using a sponge cover the whole outer surface of the tetra brik with black gesso.

· Once gesso is dry, paint the whole surface of gesso with the acrylic paint.

· When the paint is dry, you can polish the edges of the tetra brik with the adhesive tape.

· Take a template to add a picture on the bag. You will stencil the template with a sponge onto one side or both. If you stencil onto both sides, you have to wait to have the first side dry before you stencil onto the other side.

The last thing now remaining is to add ribbon so as to make the handles. You realize how simple it is to make someone’s Christmas.

Making Personalized Gifts Tags

Being a creative director of Martice Smith II, Martice Smith’s stunning illustrations reveals her love for fashion, typography and wildlife while being able to use a combination of traditional and digital techniques. It is after receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree that she established herself as a freelance Illustrator and graphic designer.

As a mixed-media collage artist, she believes that small details matter and she loves building upon several layers of paint, doodles and various mark-making techniques to set her work apart from the rest. She advises that if you are looking to develop your own approach, don’t spend a fortune on commercially made products when you can add a unique touch of your own- using what you already have.

She tried to make a personalized gift tags and these are the supplies you will need to get started: 

· Paintbrush & Gelli plate

· Stencils & metal eyelets

· Embroidery floss & brayer

· Acrylic paints & cardstock

· White ink pen for doodling

How to make it:

· Using acrylic paints, use a brayer and roll an even, smooth layer to the Gelli plate. Make sure to paint loose brushstrokes, going in various directions.

· Lay down a sheet of cardstock (or your choice of paper) and pull a print.

· Using stencils create a large tag template to use or trace through and cut out the Tags & Labels stencil from DecoArt.

· It’s important to seal the paintings on your tags, especially if there’s any water soluble media.

· Add the finishing touches and Eyelets, embroidery floss and twine makes these tags look more polished and really set the tone.

There you have it!

Holiday Mixed Media Arts & Crafts

Besides writing for mixed media art Shari Welch is currently a blogger for DecoArt. Her passion of mixed media art led her into being featured in Mixed Media May, and has been in a number of art shows in her hometown of Denton including GDAC. Helping others discover their creativity is something she adores. She is known for using reuse and recycles materials in her artwork like she was able to achieve the project below – the altered domino project.

· Attach the domino, dotted side up, with a clamp to a flat table surface leaving some hanging over the edge.

· Use a hand and with every safety precaution required, drill with a small bit and drill a hole through the dot of the domino.

· Make a few sets of stringed beads while attaching bakers twine to the one you will want to use as the top and set aside.

· Use glue to attach the paper to the domino, let dry, then add a dimensional effect product over the top of your paper surface.Leave them sit to dry completely.

· Insert a ring through the top hole in the domino

· Attach the beads onto the domino and you are done.

Shari Welch uses an online company that sells images and this saves time for her. Another plus is that the images are already sized for her project. To sum her passion for mixed media art, she volunteers for SCRAP Denton where she is on the education committee, teaches workshops, art camps, and performs art demos.

It’s really Fun to Create Mixed Media Projects!

Melanie Statnick has an illustrative and whimsy style of her art and being a published artist/writer, she likes the mixed media art because of the numerous amounts of different surfaces you can use to paint or alter. As she does her creation from her private studio, she thinks embroidery hoop is a fantastic idea and it steps away from the average square shape of the canvas. This is how she does it:

· Using a loose sheet of canvas fabricTrace the inside hoop using a pencil. Gesso the inside of the circle and dry well.

· Paint shapes with acrylic paint.

· Pick your favorite stencil and stencil in images and/or write words.Because your surface is primed with gesso you can accomplish the same effects as you would on a regular square canvas.

· Dry well and spray with a matt finish. Flip your artwork over to the back side match the gesso circle you made.

· Push smaller hoop through the inside. Cut remaining fabric off.

From Melaniestatnickart.com you will get to learn more about Melanie and you will also find a lot of her artwork in art galleries and shops extensively in NC with international private collections. Creating id fun and can only be achieved if you do it with passion and positive drive.



Happy creating!