Anniversary challenge at Anything But Cute

Hi, everyone!

I have some wonderful news to share with you today! It's our first anniversary at Anything But Cute mixed media challenge blog and I am so excited! I can't believe I was a member of such a fantastic design team for a whole year! How awesome is that!

As we celebrate our First Anniversary at Anything But Cute, we want you to celebrate what you do best...mixed media! This is your chance to do it your way, in your favourite style...so pull out those inks and paints and show us what you're made of! You can make anything you want, in any theme you want and any style you want, just as long as it has some mixed media products on it and no cute images. HAVE FUN!

I wanted to celebrate my style and our first anniversary with this colorful handmade canvas art journal. 

Back cover:

Now, more about our anniversary challenge:

We have some special treats for you this month. Along with our design team projects, we have invited our Favourite Artists from last year to come and celebrate with us. You don't want to miss the incredible line up of inspiration they have provided for you!! We also have a wonderful line up of prizes from some amazing sponsors...lots of chances to win some goodies, so don't miss out!

I love to play with different materials, with vibrant colors and different techniques.  I used a lot of sewing, a lot of hand dyed fabrics and ribbons, a lot of acrylic paints (mostly Dylusions and some of my Liquitex and Amsterdam Specialties paints). Also, I played with some yarn, fiber and inks.

I love pompom trims in vibrant colors so I decorated my edges with these.

I started with some pieces of fabric and some seam binding and my Dylusions ink sprays. Here is the result of hand dyeing.

This is how I started to build my art journal. I attached a hand dyed piece of fabric to my spine.  I wanted to create a completely loose project.

To achieve some interesting textures I used the faux plaster paper technique on my covers. Some matte medium, white gesso and pieces of paper towels previously used to clean all the ink and paint waste on my working surface.

I went with several layers of paper towel pieces.

You can see how super cool textures you can get using this awesome technique. 

More close up look of the back cover.

On my first page I used acrylic paints, hand dyed fabrics, Dina Wakley stamps and stencils and some of my TCW stencils. I also used my Dylusions inks to make some drips. 

Dylsuions inks, Dina Wakley stamp, TCW stencils, Dylusions stencils and acrylic paints have been used in creating this page.

I used Tim Holtz's stencils, Dina Wakley stamps,  my acrylic paints and my neon oil pastels here.

I stamped Dina Wakley's image on a piece of fabric and used my Inktense pencils to add some accents. For the quote I used Tim Holtz's stamp. TCW stencils, acrylic paints and some of my hand dyed fabric pieces have been used in creating this page. 

On my last page I used Dina Wakley stencil, her awesome bird stamp, some fabric pieces, my neon thread and my fluo acrylic paints. I also used one of Dina's stamps for the quote.

I hope that I have inspired you to Celebrate Your Style and our First Anniversary with us this month. 

Challenge runs until June 4th - we can't wait to see what you come up with!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving lovely comments! I read and appreciate each and every one of them!

Hugs! Branka xx

Challenges:

Altered Eclectics - May challenge

Country View Challenges - Use A Stencil - I used Tim Holtz, Dylusions, Dina Wakley and TCW stencils

Eclectic Ellapu - May challenge - Anything goes

Mixed Media Place - Creative Gym #18 - I was inspired by the quote to create my first canvas art journal with a lot of sewing included

Rhedd's Creative Spirit - May challenge

Art Journal Journey - Journeys - I am on a creative journey since I started to include more sewing and more fabric elements in my creations

Moo Mania - Quotes - I used Dina Wakley and Tim Holtz stamps with quotes

We Love 2 Create - Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenges - Stencil It - I used Tim Holtz, Dylusions, Dina Wakley and TCW stencils