Scraptastic! Use Up Your Papers with Mixed Media

1. Introduction: One of the best things about mixed media and collage is that they're sustainable. You can reuse materials that had former lives, saved them from the landfill, and make them into something beautiful. But after all, the trimming, ripping, and cropping, sometimes you wind up with more scraps in the trash than projects on the shelf. Am I right? My name is Jennifer keller. I'm an artist and instructor with over 20 years working in the arts. And one of my favorite things is to find creative ways to reuse materials. So in this class, scrap tactic I share six, must try many projects so that you can use up all of those pretty not so interesting paper scraps. And then at the end, we'll do a couple of finished projects to put all of the components into action. In the lessons, I'll cover Simple Techniques for composition, texture, balance, layering papers with a bit of acrylic paint, and how to use my favorite adhesive for a stronghold. Many of the projects are so easy that you can do them while you relax during your downtime. This class is right for you. If you hate to see your beloved papers go into the trash and you wanna rethink the possibilities of your materials. So are you ready to get scrappy? I'll see you in class. 2. Materials: Hello and welcome to the Materials lesson. So I encourage you to download the materials lists PDF document that I've attached to this class. The first thing that you'll need is a palate, and that could be a paper plate or a palette that you already have. Next, you'll wanna paint rag. I have a slip sheet for putting under your gluing projects and an art journal for making a background on which is one of our projects. You can use an art journal, a canvas, a panel, any substrate that you want to make your next mixed media work on. I have acrylic matte medium, which I pour out into a little squeezed to, to make it easier to apply. I have some gel mediums gonna be our adhesive. And it has a really nice grabbed to it. And I have my acrylic paints out. I ended up just using the titanium white in this class, but you could add some color if you like. I have some permanent pens. Next I have synthetic bristle brushes and a couple of sizes. I have some water for washing my brush and my paper scraps. And you'll see here I use the longer margins that I'd take off for one of my projects. So many of you are familiar with these if you collage and also my paper scraps, I've got some sheet music, some written papers, even plain papers are great. Some packaging material, maps, tissues, things with metallic elements on them, or great newspaper. And just a variety of different scraps that I wound up with after all of my projects. And you might want to consider some of the scraps that you wouldn't necessarily normally use. Those are great to use when we're doing some of these scrappy projects, get rid of some of those papers that you don't typically go to. And also the negative space on some of, some of the imagery is really great for some of the uses that I'm gonna show you. And then some card paper scrapped. This is just a box from some crackers and some corrugated cardboard scraps are also great. We're gonna be working with some thicker materials as well. So here's everything. And up next, we're going to get into some label making. So I will see you there. 3. Labels: Hello and welcome to the scrappy labels lesson. And so here are some labels that I've already made. I just used my normal handwriting for these and then back them with some decorative papers. And I just Googled some romantic words. And so those are the words that you see there. And here's an example of a label that I used on a little project where we do a little pocket with a card in it, and we'll be getting into that later in the class. So that's kind of where we're headed here. And I'm going to start with some strips of paper. These come up quite a bit when you are trimming down your papers and you cut off the margin. I recommend looking for some vintage papers, something that's kind of old because they'll have that nice yellow look and give it more of a vintage feel. So if you want to pick a theme, go right ahead. I'm gonna do spring words because spring is the next season coming up and I figured I'd get a little head start. So just a quick Google search and I found some words that I would like to make my labels with. And so I'm going to copy these into a document so that I can change the font and have a little bit of a different handwriting with these, so that I have some variation in my look of my labels. So I've got hatch flowers, butterfly, thaw, spring, and nest, and bloom. And then I'm going to make them all begin with a capital letter. And then I'm going to go into the funds and change the fines of all of them into something that is a little bit cuter than just Arial font. So play around with your funds if you like. Or you can just do all of this with your own handwriting. That's fine. If you're better at calligraphy than me, then go at it. I brought up the font size so that I can see it nicely. And I'm going to change one last font there. And let's try Sign Painter, That's a good font. And then just make them a little bit bigger. And I'm gonna have a go at calligraphy. Haha, I am not that great at handwriting, fancy lettering. So for those of you who are, you can have a good laugh at my attempt here, but hey, it's OK because I'm giving it a shot. And it turned out kinda cute. So I'm starting to notice here that the texture on my table was coming through the paper a little bit and I wanted a smoother line. So I put another piece of paper underneath. And then I'm just looking at my computer while I do this and getting the general idea of how these letters layout. And I wrote them once with a fine line, just one pass. And knowing going back into thick in my line work. And make it a little bit more scrolling. So here I'm doing flowers. This one is more like a typewriter print or font. And so I wrote flowers out. Then I'm going back for the little tails on my word. Just little lines and embellishments on those letters. And I worked my way through. You wanna give yourself plenty of room for margins because we're going to be cutting these down later and snipping off some of the corners and rounding out the cutout. So give yourself plenty of room around your word. And then after I have it all written out, i'm going back again to thicken up the letters. So if you have nicer calligraphy pens, please use those. Just do what feels best to you because it's your personality that's coming through right now. It doesn't have to be perfect. And I kind of like the human touch to this. I don't need to get caught up and having it look exactly like a font on a computer. And also, you know, there are lots of kids where there are labels already printed and they, you know, sometimes they're printed on stickers. You can buy them at the store, but those have more of a mass-produced feels. So doing this by hand will actually make your art work seem more personal. So I really recommend having it, just giving it a shot with your own written words. So I sped this up because I don't have to go through them one by one. And some of them, I did run out of room. So I'm going to show you ways to work around that if that happens to you. So let's begin cutting. I'm gonna do a rough cut on these just to get them off of the paper so that they're smaller to work with. And then on this one I ripped into it. This paper here has vintage and pretty brittle, so I just ripped into it and it practically fell apart in my hands. And then just moving through, cutting off the words and save your smaller scraps for the end, I'm gonna do a bonus lesson on what to do with these small little tariffs. So just save those in a little pile for later. And okay, so here I have Nest and I'm going to trim in pretty close to that. That's my smallest word I think so. That'll be a smaller ones. So save those scraps. I'm gonna put them aside for later, just those little tiny snippets. Okay, so here I have a scrap. I have a lot of these scraps from something else at that have a hole punched in them. So I didn't actually have to do that. It was from a catalog of art papers that I was gifted. So their samples and they're kind of thin and so nest was the one that would fit on that and I like the whole punch. So if you have a hole punch, you could try something like that. It makes it look like they're meant to be labels. And so I'm just going to set that aside and then work through picking some scraps to back the rest of my words. And you want at least an eighth of an inch, quarter inch, however wide of a reveal on those back papers. So this one flowers. I can trim that down and just get the darker green on that striped paper. I'm going to leave the ends a little bit longer because I think I'm going to trim that up, which I actually do now. So I'm bracing the scissors with my fingers and just snipping off the corners to give it a different shape. And that kinda makes it look like it's part of a catalog. And something you'd see like at a library or a like an old fashion Bureau kind of label where you slip him into the metal thing. So there's flowers and I'm not gonna glue them down yet. I'm just going to batch these together. So here's another really old paper that I'm going to back blossoms with. And I'm just going to trim that up so I can see what it's gonna look like against that strip of paper. I wanted more of a reveal and then in the moment I decided to round off the corners. So I just go about to an eighth of an inch, quarter inch from the corner. And then as I cut really slowly, I turn the paper and get that nice rounded corner. And that'll look really cute. Okay, butterfly, that'll look cute on this purple paper with the fibers, more of a natural paper. And so I have everything selected. And now I'm going to choose my smaller brush and I'm going to dip into my gel medium. And you don't need a whole lot, but you want enough so that it does stick. So I'm just going to paint that gel medium on the back of the paper. And for this project we're not getting too in depth. So even if you had a glue stick, that would be fine. But I'm just going to stick with what I have, which is the gel medium for this. And so thaw is kind of I just stuck it down with about a quarter inch trivial there. And I'm gonna do the same thing for all of my labels. And butterfly wanted to change it up a little bit. So I'm going to trim the corners off and just clean up my lines a little bit on that. Snipping the paper on the corners once again. And then I'll do the same thing to the background paper, but for now I'm just going to glue it down. And then I'll trim all the background papers at once. But if you want to trim the word up a little bit before it goes down on the background paper. Now's the time to do that, because once it's glued down, you can't alter it. Alright, so that's cute. Okay, so I got all of those glued down and thoughts kind of wonky and I'm just going to embrace that and let it be imperfect because it'll give my artwork mark characters. So there's my first one. It's a little bit funny. But as I go through, I get some really good ones. Here is flowers. I'm trimming off the lighter green there and following the lines that I already cut on label. Just working my way around and trying to keep my cuts as parallel as I can to the original paper that the word is written on. So remember to save your small scraps for later. And there is flowers. I think that's super cute. Okay, here's this one. I'm just going to trim off the edge at about the same width as the the top and the bottom. And that got a little smudge on it. And I can just cover that up with another piece of paper later. I actually use that one and I put a flower over that just to embellish it and cover up a flop. Okay. Hatch was ripped off, if you remember. So I decided to rip the background paper as well. And this is kind of a fluffy natural paper. So it's going to lend itself to the look of the first grit paper. And to get a close rip, you just have to be really small about your reps. You don't want to just go gung-ho into that, just inch by inch, little by little, rip into that. And then here we're going to do the same thing with the scissors, except I'm going to round out those corners. So following around, trying to keep things as parallel to the original paper as I can. But it's going to be in perfect. And that's gonna give your labels a nice handmade look, which I think is almost preferable to mass produced printed labels. So that looks really cute. And once again, we're just going to trim those corners and do a nice margin on that. So you see the fibers and the character of that purple paper. This paper is pretty thin. It's almost a tissue. And that's okay because once I glue it down, it's going to retain that color. And B flat on whatever surface I decided to put it on. Ok. And then spring I did off-camera, but here is everything. I think they turned out really, really cute. They have a lot of personality and kind of that handwritten old fashion look. And they're going to embellish anything that I do with that spring seem that I was going for. So I'm excited to apply these to some of our future projects. So again, here is something with my own handwriting. I didn't work very hard on that. And then we have the other fonts that I attempted to copy. And I just think they look really Darling. So up next, we're going to use these on a scrappy packet project. And I'll see you there. 4. Pockets: Hi there and welcome to the scrappy pockets lesson. In this lesson, I make some cute little pockets that you can put a card in and collage to go with anything you like with your scraps. And I use a label on it to embellish it. So I have here some card board. It's not cardboard, corrugated cardboard, but it's basically the box of from some crackers that we can act on. So I want to save one of the folds for the pocket. So I'm thinking this other side could be the actual card. It's a little bit ripped up, but once I tear away the, that layer of board, intellectually thin it out, it'll make it a nice thickness for slipping the card into the pocket. So I'm just ripping that up and cleaning it up. And then I'm going to save those for more scraps. Then I fold it in half because I think I can get two cards out of the pocket and I just do a one sided card. I didn't do a folded card, but you could absolutely do this and make it more of a card that you open and can slip into the pocket. So I snipped it into, and I'm just going to see how much they stick out from the pocket that I'm going to make. And I'm just centering it so that I can cut the pockets out. So I'm just gonna give it a wide margin at this plane and then cut all the way up to the top and keeping them in place to see how much room. Because I'm going to glue the edges. So I want a little bit of space for the glue to hold. And depending on what kind of material you're working with, you can decipher whether you need to glue the sides inside the pocket or just do it. The way. Another way which I'm going to show you shortly, but I have some more scraps that I can save. And then on my original one, the card sticks out higher than the back of the pocket. So I'm gonna cut that a little bit lower from where the cart is going to stick out. And then the piece I trimmed off, I was like, hey, that makes a pretty good size two. So maybe I'll use that wine because it wasn't ripped down. And that's a possibility. Ok. And then for the second one, I am going to just kind of mark where I want to cut. And then I pull the card out and then I can trim off the top. And do I want to use that top piece or not? We'll see. Okay, so now I have two sets of pockets and cards. And I ended up actually just making one of them. So you'll see the process and then I have another one ready to go for when I'm ready to make that one. So I have a strip of paper here that I like. It has a floral element. Anna. A text element on it. And I'll cover the bottom of the pocket with that momentarily. But it gives me an idea of where it might head for a color palette. I don't necessarily need this to be really matching. Matching. I just don't want it to clash. So I'm picking out some neutrals and some blues and T-bills here. So it's not necessarily the same color palette, but it build go together. And so I'm gonna take my slip sheet and do some gluing. So what I wanna do is just cover up the card on the back and the front. And I'm gonna wash my brush from the previous project and dry it off really well so that I can go in for more of that gel medium. So I'm going to cover the page on the back that I'm gonna go down first and just go over the area that's going to stick down to the card. And you can kind of glide it into place. You have a moment of wiggle room with that paper. So I'm just getting it nicely adhere down and then I'm going to layers. So I decided to rip that one down just to get that neat circle, which is kind of like an emblem on the front. So I'll put that up in the corner and then just stick it down. And then I liked that little snippet of the sheet music coming down from the circles. So I'm going to glue that down. And you can glue, you can apply the glue to the back of the paper or to the face of the card. But for this, I'm just doing the back of the paper because it's more precise. Ok, so a little bit of map there and just painting on the gel medium. And then applying it down. Simple as that. In some of my other classes, I use the the acrylic medium that's more fluid. You could use that as well instead of the gel medium. But the gel medium grabs really, really well. And then you don't have to coat the whole thing with the fluid medium. And you can leave the face of the paper dry, which I kind of like. So trimming off the excess and then getting it all pushed down and nice and flat and scooting away my scraps from my scraps. Now i'm trying out this magenta piece. I thought it was a little too out of place. So I decided to go for this strip as well. And you'll recognize that punch hole from it's like the other scrap that I used in my label lesson. And you'll see these a lot where I have these graphs that have the punch holes in them. And so I'm going to let the background show through that little potential and then fold the access to the back. And that looks really cute for the front of the card. And you could write on this, or you could attach a note to the back. But I'm just going to decorate it as another pretty side. Kinda like just pulling out a work of art from the pocket. And I can still attach a note to it or write a little something on the card like Happy Birthday, like I could put it on another card. The whole pocket on a on a different card or in a book. I could write something on there. Or I could just have it be for our sake and just collage it. So just finishing off the back, I'm gonna make the back a little bit more neutral. I'm not overthinking it. I just want to cover up the label from the cracker box. So I'm exceeding over the edge a little bit so that I can trim away any excess. I don't want any of that just show. And I like this graph a lot. It has some fibers from embroidery thread in it. So that's really interesting. So I'm just going to get that glued up and get it nice and set and down on my card. And that's going to look really nice. So I need one more piece to go over the top corner. And I selected this sheet music that's really, really old, very brittle. And I'm going to save those pieces for later. So I'm just scooting in them aside and going to pop that down. So this one, I'm going to put the acrylic or the gel medium on the card because that paper is really brutal and I didn't want to tear it As I was applying that. So I'm just going to have it pop over the edge so I can trim away the excess. And there it is. So I'm gonna get my scissors out. Just clean up the edges. And there we go. Very nice. So now it's time to work on the pocket. So I want something for the back, the interior or the face of the inside of the pocket. So I'm gonna use some I'm gonna use a page out of the book. And so I was just reading it to see if I liked what it was saying. And it was about mythology. And so I think that'll be nice to have visible. So I cut it a little bit bigger. And now I'm going to glue the card and get a nice layer evenly brushed on so that when I stick that paper down, it's gonna be nice and adhered. Just kinda clean that up, and then put the paper into the fold and smooth it out. And that looks pretty good. So there we have that. And I'm going to trim away the excess. So I have a visual idea of how big it is. Just for designing. And save those little scraps. Okay, so now I'm going to add that strip. It was the perfect height. And so I'm just going to do a little small area on the edges. And I'm going to check it against the card to make sure it's not going to stick too much into the pocket. And I'm going to fold over the pocket so that it's closed. And then I'm going to do the same thing on the front that I did on the inside, which is cover the card with the gel medium and then stick down my paper, get it into place. Get it nice and smooth it out. And then I'm going to fold that over to the back. So not only is the paper going to hold it in place, but the gel medium on the inside that I painted just like a quarter inch into the pocket on either side is going to hold it in place so it will be nice and strong. And I'm just going to fold that around and glue it down. Nice and smooth. Gluing that last little bit of cleaning up any glue. And now I have my pocket for my card. And let's trim off the bottom. Don't want to trim off the sides because that's going to hold. It should be nice and folded clean to the pocket. And then I'll do a little bit more collage over the top. So here I have some floral paper. Then I'll look really cute. I'm gonna raise it up and kind of bridge that sharp edge. So I'm going to tear it so that it's a little bit softer looking than not harsh printed line there. Just cover that up, allow some of the written area of that paper to show and the floral area. And just keep layering that way. Okay, so that looks good. Let's add a little bit of blue because I have some blue in my cart and so that will tie it together and you can see those look nice together. Now that's still drying, so I didn't want to put it all the way in there. So I'm going to glue that down. And that's a beautiful marbled paper or really like that. Letting the background show through that little potential and then folding it over to the back. Very cute. Lets pick out a label. And I thought that nest would look really cute here because the card kind of nests into the pocket. So I have that connection as well. So I'm going to glue that down. And remember nest, this label had a smudge on it. So I'm going to show you how to cover up any imperfections. So I'm just going to cut out a little piece of flour from that paper. So it's tying it together with the paper that I already used. So the repetitions gonna make it a little bit more cohesive. And it's small enough to cover up that tiny little smudge next to the T. So I'm going to just put that down, folded over around the back and we're good. So there it is with the card. And it's a little interactive component that I can put in a journal or on another greeting card or whatever kind of project you're working on. So I thought that was just really adorable and fun to work on. And I hope you like it. So there we go. So up next, we're going to work on some scrappy ribbons. And those are tons of fun and I will see you there. 5. Ribbon: Hi and welcome to this scrappy ribbon lesson. In this lesson, you'll see I make some really long strips of scraps. And these are not only super cool, but they also have a purpose. You can rip them off at any length you want and add them to your works of art or you're crafts, anything you wanna do, you just rip those off. And then you have this really textural element with lots of pattern in it for your projects. So Let's get into how I made this. So here I have a scrap from a book that I trimmed away. It's the margin of an image on a book page and you want something strong. So all I'm gonna do is add the gel medium and then add my scraps there. The scraps are wider than the strip of margin paper that I'm using. And I'd say you can exceed that by, you know, the same width as the strip of paper on the top and on the bottom or on the sides of it, however you want to look at it. And so you can also break it up. So if you wanna do some strips and repeated throughout the ribbon, you can space them out as you go and then fill in with other smaller strips. So you can do things sticking off of one side or bridging the whole thing and showing on both sides of that strip of paper. And I'm just layering at different angles. You could have them all going in one direction and kind of layout like dominoes folding down on the paper. But I'm gonna make them a little bit more crazy and haphazard. So I just want to watch for the width being sort of the same. And I will show you a little trick for filling in any gaps that you might have. But I'm really just going for it. I'm not overthinking this too much at all. And you can go forward and back as well. So you can go down the line and start applying your papers and then you can move backwards to places you've already done to fill in gaps or just space out similar patterns throughout so that it looks more cohesive. So every once in a while you want to lift up from your slip paper and just to make sure that you're not going it down to the actual slope paper. So here I am doing this zebra paper and just filling in one of those gaps that I was talking about there. And I'm going to actually go back. And I want you to notice that for the most part, everything is about, I don't know, 2.5 or three inches wide, so I'm going to clear space around it. So, you know, that's the same with that's the same width, that's the same width. But I have a A little pocket there that I could fill in. And this is not totally necessary. You don't have to make it perfect, right? But you can flip it over and glue papers to the back as well so that things seem like they're peeking out from behind, like that zebra print is pretty bold. And so it's nice to have it peeking out from the back. And then it has a buddy down the line. So we have that recognition there. Okay, so I'm going to fill this into the end. And there I have my first length of ribbon. But I want to make this longer. So I'm going to flip it over and then I'm going to grab another strip of paper. And this is from the same book, it's about the same thickness of paper, but even if you had another margin from another book, that's fine. You just want it to be sturdy, so not too thin or old of paper so that it's, it's not brittle or going to tear too easily, but the papers over the top are going to strengthen it as well. And then I put another piece of paper over that joining of the joint of the papers, I suppose you could say where they are layered to just hold it down on either side for an extra bit of strengths. Ok, and now I have another length of paper and I can keep going as long as I want. And you can change the color palette as you go down. And it's totally up to you how you want to do this. And then if you have any areas that you want to cover up, just go back and do that so that it has a nice kind of rhythm to it. And the colors are working for you, so it doesn't have to be one thickness or one layer. You can keep going until you're happy with it. So I am just working my way down. I've got written journal entry there that blue writing that I'm covering up without piece that was from one of my written journal entries. And just changing the angles as I go. Making it interesting to look at just ripping and gluing down the ribbon. And then if you want to add something around the back, you could just glue the bottom of a scrap and then tuck it behind. And this gel medium is so strong that I promise it's going to hold on and on. We go until we get to the end. Just having fun with this and letting it be a really loose, don't worry about covering things up. You're going to cover things up. Not everything's gonna show. And that's part of the charm is that things peek through from behind and you can play with that layering. Okay, so now I have it with the one I made before. Here's what I just did. And I think it's adorable. So just a little inspiration for you. And then I'm gonna show you in one of the future lessons about how I use this. How you can tear off little sections and use it in your mixed media journal or you're crafting, or you're finished artwork, whatever you wanna do. So there we have our ribbon. And I think it just looks super scrappy and fun. Okay, up next we're going to work on some scrapping cardboards. So let's get into it. See you there. 6. Cardboard: Hi there, welcome to the scrappy cardboard lesson. In this lesson you can see that we're going to texture eyes, some pieces of corrugated cardboard this short lesson. So let's get into it. So I have a small portion of cardboard. It's just kind of one of the flaps from the top of the box and part of it's ripped away and you can see the corrugated area of the cardboard. So here's one I already did. And all I'm doing in this lesson is dry rushing on some white acrylic paint. So I'm going to expose more of the corrugated area. I do like some of it to not be exposed because the flat area of the paper on top, it's going to make it easier to glue things down to it. But along the edges, I am ripping away that top layer of the cardboard. And those lines are going to be really fun for dry brushing on top of and it'll just give it a nice like shabby Sheikh look. Kind of a weathered look. So here now I have my corrugated area shown. Sorry, I got a little bit off camera. So I'm gonna make two out of this. So I'm just cutting down. The center is kind of hard to cut. Once you get in there a little bit. I think everyone's cut cardboard at some point in their life. But I'm just going to flip it over and meet in the middle. And there we have two. Ok, so I'm gonna save those for later because this is a scrapping class. And I'm gonna get my palette out. I got my cardboard, I'm gonna grab my bigger brush and squeeze out some titanium white onto my palette. And from here it's pretty darn easy. So I'm gonna tap in, load my brush up quite a bit and then just start painting on the paint. But I'm letting some of the Brown of the cardboard show through and I wanna get some soft edges and kind of let the paint do what it wants here because this cardboard is so absorbent. It's not primed or anything, so it's going to just suck up that white paint quite a bit. So you would have to do several. You wouldn't have to do another coat to get it fully covered in white. And so that's what we don't want. I want some of that Brown does show through. And I love how it looks with the ripped line of the first layer of the cardboard. And then how the lines show up so much and even just make it look kind of aged and old. So there's one it was so fast. So you just go along until the paint kinda gets used up on your brush. You can play with how much pressure you use on the brush to see how much you paint you want applied to the cardboard. The harder you push, the more paints gonna come out of your brush. And you can kinda drag it along the edges to get more out as well. Kind of scrape it off on the edges and then pull it back into the cardboard. And if you want it to be softer and more transparent, you can use less pressure. And it's okay to have some parts really opaque and some more transparent. You're just getting a first coat down and that's it. So let the texture do what it wants to do. Those are done now there, ready for crafting for later. So not only have we use paper scraps, but also cardboard scraps from the house. So up next we're going to work on high scrappy background for your next work of art. So I will see you there. 7. Background: Hi there and welcome to the scrappy background lesson. And as you can see in this lesson, I've got my art journal out. You can do this on a canvas or a panel or a piece of wood, anything you want to use as a substrate for your next piece of art, for your next collage. First off, I have my art journal and I'm going to flip through. And you can see that in some of my other journal entries, there are pieces of paper that are peeking through from the focal points that are the background. And then I paint a layer of transparent white over the top, similar to how we did in the last lesson with the cardboard. So I'm going to flip to a new blank page and just dive right in. And so I've got my thicker brush. And this is some of that packaging that I tore off of the cardboard. And I'm going to apply the gel medium to the back. And I'm going to line up the straightest edge on that to the edge of my page. And just smooth that out. And you can use a little bit along the edges to get a nice, clean adhered edge on that. And then we're just going to follow through and do the whole page with different scraps. It's pretty straight forward. You can get as crazy as you want. You can use up a lot of the papers that you've been avoiding for awhile because we're gonna do that acrylic layer over the top of this and it will mellow them out. So if something is really bright or just not a colour or a pattern that you're really drawn to typically, but you have it in your scrap collection. Right now is an excellent time to use that and get rid of it. So i'm going for lots of texture. It might seem a little bit busy to you at this point, but with that acrylic layer, we're going to really turn it down. And, you know, I rarely use yellow in my art. And now is the time where I can go ahead and use up my yellow, that paper has a really interesting texture to it. So I feel comfortable with that because the acrylic paint is going to look really nice over that texture. And just moving along now, I wouldn't necessarily pair all of these papers together typically, but it really doesn't matter that much right now. So it's a great way to get rid of, you know, just anything you have on hand. So working the corners into the corner of the pages, really handy to win. Your scraps are trimmed off of the edge of a book page or a sheet of paper. Sometimes you get some corners and straight edges on it that you can work into the outside of the page where it's already Street or has a corner. And that'll save you some trimming. And then I can just use some of that acrylic medium over the edge of anything that has like a rip damage or kind of a framing edge on it with some of these natural papers. And they'll be glued right down to the page. So you can use this over the top. You can use the gel medium over the top or not. It's up to you. It's okay even to have some of the edges not adhered like if you only use Joan medium to like an eighth of an inch from the edge and it's kinda flapping up. You know, no big deal. This is at least what I'm doing right now is an art journal. So it's not like a finished work of art, but even with a finished work of art, if something's not perfectly seal down from all the edges, it's not the end of the world. You can be as clean about it as you want. So, and I'm really embracing the purple in this layout right now from my background, which is something that I don't typically go for either. So yellow and purple are complimentary colors. They're opposites on the color wheel, and they're going to enhance each other when they're next to each other. So that's a little tidbit for you. Complimentary colors are really nice when you pair them together. So the complimentary colors are red and green, blue and orange, and purple and yellow. So that's just like a little bit of color theory for you. As you move around. If you want something to pop, you can put a complimentary color next to it. And I have a color mixing classic color theory class called color quest, that's on skill share. If you're curious about color mixing and color theory, how to work color into more of a cohesive composition in your artwork. You can check that out. It's okay if there's a little bit of white peeking through. That's a really interesting texture and paper. So the more tactful This is the Marfan it's going to be, but the more textured something is, the more it's going to raise up your next layer of paper. So whatever focal point you decide to put over the background. So you can keep that in mind as you move forward or something's really, really textured, you might wanna put it towards the outside of the page. Because if you come through with like a cutout of a bird, anything with a ton of texture might show through the paper layers. And I'm going to park my brush in the water and let this page dry up just a bit to help it along. Okay. So you may or may not want to use some matte medium. You can mix matte medium in with your acrylic paint to make it more transparent. So I'm going to demonstrate that. But for the most part I just use the titanium white paint by itself. So first I'm going to just tap into the white paint. I loaded up my brush up about halfway. And I'm just going to start blurring the edges of my paper scraps. So I'm paying a lot of attention to I'm applying it especially to the edges of my scraps and then letting it feather out from there. And then here we have it with the acrylic medium in it. And it's just a little bit softer, more transparent luck. So that might be nice for you. You might want to play with that. And it's especially nice when you have some colour, you can mix a little bit, a tiny, tiny bit of color in with your white paint to make it light. You can also wipe it away for a little bit before it dries if you wanna keep something more revealed. But I'm working the paint in different directions so that I don't get like a really streaky one way brushstroke where the my arm is just moving in one direction. So I'm going up and down side decided at a diagonal and also letting the edges of the paper show up a little bit more. So the colors coming through a little bit more and then putting more weight down in the middle of the page. But now everything's kind of worked in together and it has kind of a painterly textured look. So up next we're going to put this all together with some of our previous projects in a journal spreads. So I will see you there. 8. Put it All Together: Hi there and welcome to the lesson where we put it all together. So here I have everything out on my table. I have my background, I have my cardboard scraps, maybe I'll use those. We'll see they're kinda thick. I have my scrappy ribbon, which I'm definitely going to use here. I have the pockets with the labels on them. And I'm also going to bring in some focal points. So I have a vintage photograph of this woman who's just in a nice pose. I have some birds, I have a couple different scraps from books. I have an empty vintage match book that says Western Motel on it from willows, california soul work that in. And let's have a look at how this could all play out. So the first step is just kind of dancing around with my materials, holding them up to each other, seeing if the composition is pleasing. So the ribbon looks a little bit busy right up against the background because they're both super scrappy and kind of busy. So I was thinking if I separate the two and put a layer in between the ribbon in the background would separate it and it would be easier for the eye to pick it out. So here I'm layering the cardboard and the ribbon and the photograph and just seeing if that's pleasing and it seems a little bit too busy, but I'm gonna rip into it because I know that I like that size right now because I want to back my vintage photograph with my scrappy ribbon. And she's looking in that direction. So I'm going to put her on the left-hand side because she's facing the right hand side. So that's going to draw the eye in kind of like an arrow so that we're circulating our view around the journal. Okay, so I realized here I want, you know, I want something else to break up the business between the Ribbon and the background. So I trimmed off a little piece of paper. And then I found on the other side that there's this decorative element on the page, which could be even more interesting. So let's play with that. So I'm going to grab dot margin that just Clean cream paper. Put that down. And now I can see where the scraps on the ribbon are kind of broken up and there's negative space between that and the background. Maybe I need something darker. I'm looking around for something that has a little bit more contrast. Maybe like a craft brown color might work. I don't think I like that. Packaging though. I'm going to switch that out. So what else do I have? What else do I have? I have this black paper. It has a little bit of gold to it. But it seems to dark now, but it is very contrasted. And I probably could've tied in more black on the page and it would have balance that out. But for now I'm just doing the dance as I like to say, figuring out where things want to live. Okay, so I really like that corner element on that page. So what if I layered with that? I like that very much. I'm going to rip it out carefully and back my photograph with it and the ribbon. And that lets try the black again. That really has a contrast for my jacket edge on that ribbon. But no hairs more packaging that could work. But I could live with that. But I found this. This is a faux aged paper. It was part of a game that we played where you solve a mystery about some pirates. And there were some pieces in the game that were meant to look authentic and old, like it was out of a pirate's treasure. And it has this cool old fashion handwriting on it as well. So that I'm dig in, I'm going to use that. I'm going to use this other corner on the other page to tie that together and balance it. So the more you can tie things together with design, pattern, color, scale, things like that. It's always going to be fun. And I brought in my birds on my pocket and my match book on that page. So we're almost ready, but let's try. Let's just see. Yes, I like balancing my pages with that. I'm going to call it the pirate paper. And almost there I'm gonna move that down so that it fits under that corner. So maybe I want to switch these around. Not so much. Something felt off about that. I think it was the curve of the rep. I think I like the straight edge showing up. So I'm going to put them back. Yeah. That just frames that out a little bit nicer with that 90 degree corner. But I want to rip that paper needs to be cropped and maybe a label. But I already had the label from adore, which would have been fine. So I'm gonna tear that down, pop it down. That'll bridge the gap between the two time together. And now I'm going to trim up my birds. And I just need to do a little rough cut on this. Doesn't have to be perfect because it's just my journal. If you're doing a finished piece, you might want to be more precise. But I left a little bit of margin around my birds. Just some of the white of the paper is showing. And that's going to help them stand out against the papers around them. So, ooh, I had an idea and was like snap and in the moment, more, my scrappy ribbon would look really cute. Right under the birds tails kinda tucked in there. So filling up some of that space between that corner piece and my pirate paper and my, you know, everything there. It's just going to even that out. So I really like that composition. I'm going to take a picture of it so that I remember where everything is. And that way when I come back and glue it down, I'll know kind of where I had the layout going because I have to take things away to glue them down. Now this word, Daydream stuck out to me because she looks like she's daydreaming. She's got a fist under her chin. She's kind of gazing off into the distance and her garden. So I'm going to dry off my brush. I had, I had it in the water, so I want I want it not dripping wet. And it's time for the glue down. So I am just going to put a nice coating right up to the edge on these papers, getting them fairly close to where they were before. And even if I hadn't taken a picture of my layout, of my composition, I can kind of remember where things were sitting by picking out a landmark on the page. So this one, I eyeballed it against the rings on the notebook. So I was like, okay, that line in the paper is going to line up with that rain. And that was right under that word or that area of the paper. So picking a landmark on what's underneath it is going to help you out. So I think I want Daydream. There was, there's a word in that paper on my pirate paper that I didn't really like. It was kinda aggressive word. I forget when it says I should look up closer. Anyway. I want to cover it up. So I'm putting down my ribbon. And then I'm going to adhere down the scraps that are gonna go under the photograph because I want those to be really nice and secure. She is going to sit right there. And I was thinking, oh, it could go on two sides of the photographs. I'm going to tear off a little bit more for the bottom. Yeah. That looks really fun. So let's get that down because it's gonna go under the photograph. And we'll get that nice and positioned. Which way should I go? Let's go that way. And then the corner is going to line up right there. So I'm going to put it on the back of the photograph. I did 1.5, I did the top half. I'm getting that glue down to get the position. And then I'm going to put down the bottom half. So it's a little bit easier when you only have half with the gel medium and then you can kind of do happen a chime that helps with getting precision. Okay, so let's get that nicely stuck down. And that's my left-hand side. Okay, next thing, we're going to remove those top layers. And I'm going to do my little corner piece here. And I could've worked that out more, but I'm going to cover up all of the writing on the page. And I like having it as a base, just a nice clean base there. Okay. Now I'm gonna put my scrapped down and that actually covered a little bit of that design element. But I realized that maybe I should put my pirate paper down first. So I'm gonna do that. And that's, that's gotta be done in two parts. So I did the one side and then the other because I wanted it to be precise with how it covered up the text on the page that's underneath it. Okay. Next I'm doing Muskrat ribbon. When I tear them off, I like to call them a scrappy patch. Scrappy patches. Okay. So yeah, that looks great. I'm gonna do a little bit of layering over that design element in the corner and just get it down real quick. See how easy that was. The ribbon makes it so fast to get a lot of texture and pattern and color. Without having to think too hard about it. Burns up at the top, bridging the gap from the background to my papers, my paper and all those layers. So the more you can connect things with some embellishment over the top and bridge the gap between what, one or two papers. It's gonna make it very cohesive. Okay, so now I'm doing more playing. I'm gonna put that match book down at the corner and my pocket right there. So I'm just kind of mentally taking a snapshot of where that was sitting and then pop in that down. Don't glue the car down, don't go all the way up. You want to be able to slightly card out. And my matchbook. Let's lower that a little bit. So that line is broken up between the bottom of those two elements with the pocket and the match book. And then I could put something under the flap of that matchbook. Um, but nothing was really standing out to me in the moment. So maybe I'll wait. But here was the little something I played with. Now, I'll come back to that. I could be a little something for later. Ok. So that is looking fantastic. I can slide my card out. I have little moving parts that are interactive, which just make a journal entry so much more playful. And there you have it. I love it. So up next we're going to work on a cardboard card with a couple more things that I didn't use in this journal entry, so stay tuned for that. 9. Cards: Hi there and welcome to the cardboard card lesson. This is super fast. I just wanted to show you how I put a couple more things together then I didn't get to in the last lesson, the light started getting a little bit weird in my studio, the son was blocked by some rain clouds. So sorry about the shadows from the overhead light. So I have my nest pocket that I made in a previous lesson. And I have two of my dry brushed cardboard cards. And I chose the bigger one, but the pocket was a little small, so I wanted to add just a little something in there. And I went for the pirate paper because it is a lovely texture. And it goes with some of the brownish beige is in the card. So I was deciding whether I should make it asymmetrical or symmetrical and I went for symmetrical. So here it's just peeking out. I'm going to have the ripped edge at the bottom. And then I'm gonna put a little bit more of the gel medium on this time because of the broken up corrugated area of the cardboard. So that the the you did here's down into those that corrugated section just a little bit. Mars doesn't have to cover the whole thing, but I just wanted a little bit more coverage. Sorry, I went off cameras just slightly, but I bring it back up really quickly. I'm going to use the handle of the brush to get that smoothed out. And now we can see everything. And I'm going to glue That down over the top. So that's an option for you. I can give this as a card to somebody who's having a birthday or a special event. Maybe even a baby would be cute, like a little baby shower card because it says nest on it. So on the other side I might write a note, pop it on the back. This is not something you would send a link your standard envelope. I would probably trim down like a padded envelope for this. And then I just put some weight on it so that the corners would adhere really nicely. But here it is, that's the finished look. And I could put a person's name or just put a short message on the card that goes into the pocket and then write something longer on the back of the cardboard. As a unexpected, very unique greeting card or special special occasion cart. So I love it. I think it's super cute. I have one last little scrappy bonus for you in the next lesson. So let's go there and have a look. 10. Scrappy Bonus!: Hello and welcome to the bonus lesson, which is confusing. So all of those little tiny scraps that I asked you to save after we trimmed are scraps down even more and we're going to trim them down all the way into confetti. And not everyone likes confetti, I understand. But it's kind of fun and it's a way to use up every little bit so you can cut these out one by one, just snip, snip, snip. Or you can grab like a full handful and do more than one at a time. If it's a really thick handful, you're gonna have a hard time getting your scissors through it. But just going through real quick. I've sped this up, but I'm just cutting and it's kind of just like chopping vegetables or whatever. You just keep going until everything is kind of a uniform size. And then you'll have some really unique fun confetti. Now, how might you use this? My mother-in-law and sister-in-law always send me cards with confetti in them. And I've learned that I have to open them over a surface where I can collect it later, but, you know, now I can get them back. You could throw this at a party and do it outside. And all of these papers are probably biodegradable because our vintage papers, you don't have to worry so much about cleaning them up because they're not plastic. And you can also work them into some mixed media projects as little dots are and things like that. So that's really cool. So I had such a blast. And this class, I hope you did too. I really enjoyed putting my scratch work. I still have a ton more. But hey, now all we have accomplished a lot with some tiny projects that you can and to bigger projects and just keep going deeper and deeper and rethink the way that you approach some of your materials. So I hope you had fun. This has been a lot of fun for me. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for joining me for this class. I had a blast making these crappy projects with you. If you would like to share your project or would like some feedback, I encourage you to post a picture in the project gallery and let me know about your experience. And also if you have any questions, I hope you'll ask me in the discussion section. I check skill share a lot and would love to interact with you. And it might help another student toes wondering the same thing. If you enjoyed this class, please consider following me for future updates on new classes that I offer. And I also have several other painting and mixed media classes that are all ready for you now, which you can view on my profile page. And remember, arts and crafts are meant to be fun. So if you show up and practice with an open mind, you'll learn something new every time. Happy creating mudslides.