Mixed Media - ATC's and Canvas

If you are anything like me you buy things, or are given things for your hobby.  I have multiple bottles or containers of flowers.  Many are in little bottles.  In fact, I must confess, I have 2 drawers full of flowers.  I was lucky enough to use one small container of flowers and to then start on a jar.

I am part of a group of cardmakers and we do exchanges. My project for this blog entry was to make ATC's with a flower theme.  I really have no idea how I came up with the idea to make a flower tree.

I first cut out of recycled cereal boxes the cardboard bases for my ATC's.  I then added book pages to the front and back.  A layer of gesso was added .  I then went through my tree stamps (I do have lots of tree stamps) and found a good one for my project.  It had the trunk of the tree and the basic circle for my design.  This is what the ATC looked like before I added  the flowers and sentiment.

I very carefully separated my little flowers into color piles and started layering them. (sorry there are no pictures - I was not home while I did this process)  I spend lots of time at my daughter's and always try to take projects along with me.  I sit outside and work while the dogs run around in the yard.  I first used distress paints watered down to create the background for the trees.  I glued the flowers to the ATC with Glossy Accents.  I built layers until I was happy with how the tree looked and the base was all covered.   As you can see from the image above I had a stamping boo boo so I covered the boo boo with a flower and then added a couple more to resemble falling leaves.  A sentiment was stamped, fussy cut and adhered to the ATC's with gel medium.  As a final step I added a glass/bead gel medium brushed lightly on all the flowers to give them a little sparkle.

I had used up the majority of the flowers but had a bunch of burgundy flowers left so I decided to make a little canvas.  I covered the canvas with book pages and gessoed it.  This time I had to free hand a tree.  Luckily this is not too hard.  I painted the gessoed background.  Once again I started adding layers of flowers on top to make the tree shape.  I did my own sentiment and cut it out.  It was an experiment.  I had fun I did add some gesso around the edge of the canvas and the glitter/glass gel medium on top of the flowers.  

Dig out those flowers and go to town.  Make them into something unusual.