June Special Guest Designer ~ Tracey Sabella

Hello Crafty Souls...
Today we present a very beautiful Mixed Media Art made by the talented artist Tracey Sabella. She is our guest designer for today. So enjoy the blog...

Hello dear artists and followers of Mixed Media Academy! I am Tracey Sabella from the U.S. in the lovely state of Ohio. I live with my amazing husband in the countryside on a hilltop surrounded by forest and wildlife. We have four adult children and two sweet grandchildren. 

I adore creating mixed media cards, home decor pieces, and occasional scrapbook pages. I have been paper crafting since 2007 and currently am blessed to design for two fantastic companies: Little Birdie Crafts in India and the Polish company Studio75. I had the amazing opportunity to travel to India this past December to teach Master Classes for Little Birdie Crafts. You can find my work here:

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Thank you Vidhi and the MMA team for inviting me to guest design this month. I am so honored and thrilled to design alongside such a talented group of artists. 

I have created a shabby mixed media heart to share with you inspired by the fantastic June Challenge "Pastel Summer" Mood Board. This board fits my style perfectly. I adore texture and these colors have been a dream to work with. I hope you'll be inspired to create a project and join this month's challenge. 

My Project

I simply adore altering found objects. Here in the U.S. we have yard sales, where you can find cast off items for a very reasonable price. Earlier this year, I went to a sale with one of our daughters and found this old metal heart. 

As soon as I saw this heart I knew it would be perfect to alter with mixed media textures, beautiful flowers, and lovely chipboard. You can see all the steps taken to transform this into a lovely decor piece in my tutorial below: 

Tutorial

Step 1

Start by brushing the heart with white gesso front and back drying between coats. It took 3 layers of gesso to get good coverage. I painted the back first, and then turned it over and brushed the front. 

Step 2

Even though the metal heart had a textured surface, I wanted even more texture. So once the gesso was dry, I used a palette knife to randomly cover the heart with crackle medium. I varied the thickness of the crackle medium, laying it on heavier in some areas and lighter in others and even left some of the surface with no crackle medium. A thick layer results in larger crackle while a thin layer will produce smaller crackle.

Step 3

Cut a piece of cheese cloth a little larger than the heart. Pull, stretch, and roll the cloth to pull the fibers into a disarray, then scrunch the cloth and adhere to the surface with soft gel medium. Set aside to dry.

Step 4

Once dry, mist the surface with water, then spritz with lime and forest green color sprays, allowing the color to seep into the cloth and crackled surface. Set aside to dry.

Step 5

Once the color spray is dry, dry brush the fabric and crackled surfaces with white gesso to highlight the textures. 

Step 6

I cut apart a vine chipboard piece and brushed them and the Faith sentiment chipboard with white gesso. Once the gesso was dry, I heat embossed with green embossing powder. 

Step 7

I selected beautiful Little Birdie Crafts flowers in the gorgeous challenge color palette, arranged them in the center of the heart, then adhered them with silicone glue. Around the edges, I adhered the chipboard vine pieces and a sweet butterfly at the top. 

Step 8

To fill in around the cluster, I used soft gel medium to adhere Prills and microbeads.

Step 9

I adhered the Faith chipboard sentiment across the flower cluster with more silicone glue. 

Step 10

Finally I tied pink, white, and yellow ribbons onto the loop at the top of the heart. 

More Close-ups

Thank you Tracey for the wonderful project...

For all our readers, do participate in our current challenge and grab a chance to be our next Guest Designer...!!!