Some Altered Art / Mixed Media…

If I were to pick an area of ‘paper crafting’ that was my fave, I’d have to say that altered art-mixed media would be it – especially altered printer trays and shadow boxes.  I’ve done quite a few of the 7gypsie printer trays as gifts… I’ve never actually done one for myself, but I tend to never keep any of my projects – giving makes it more fun 🙂  I did, however, find an old vintage printer-press tray a while back that’s been sitting in my living room, waiting for me to do something with it. I have plans to do a family-themed college in it, but it’ll have to wait until the holiday rush is over – then we’ll see;) My project list is always a mile long….

Anyway, I think the main thing I like about creating an altered printer tray as a gift is the care that goes into making it unique & personalized.  When the person it’s intended for opens it and sees all the little things that went into making it just for them, they know you spent time making sure they felt special:)

So, I’m including 2 sets of pics today of a couple mixed media trays/shadow boxes I did – one’s personalized & one’s not:

The first one is a 7gypsies printer tray I made for this last fall’s Annual Archiver’s Scrapfest Wall Decor Contest.  I used Fancy Pants Design’s ‘Baby Mine’ Collection, which is absolutely adorable! Unfortunately, I didn’t win [ 😦 ], but I did have a lot of fun making it and I still think it turned out really cute… I was actually going to make a printer tray for a long time friend that had just had a baby anyway, so I just decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone in using that gift for the contest:)

Here are some close-ups —

Isn’t it cute? I mixed and matched the embellishments with little trinkets I found in Antique Shops (like the old key), or gift shops (the Angel Circle & baby charms), and others that I put together using the Cricut & stuff around the house (like using a sewing needle with a fancy giraffe button to make the Happiness flyer!) This one took me about a 3 days total to complete from start to finish – I actually took it up to the cabin with me the weekend before the contest’s deadline and finished it up there, so it was a little stressful with some procrastination on my part:)

The 2nd set of pics is an altered Christmas Shadow Box using Crate Paper’s ‘Snow Day’ Collection.  The shadow box I used is actually a doll clothes container that my sister-in-law was going to throw out. I saw it in her garage last summer and asked her if I could take it.  It has sat in my craft closet up until this last month when I decided I needed to use it or lose it.  I fell in love with the colors in ‘Snow Day’ & decided to use it for some Winter/Holiday Themed Home Decor! It’s sitting on my front table in my living room on a mini easel as of right now – I’m not sure who to give it to yet, but since I’m making most of my gifts this year, it’ll go to somebody:)

Some Close-ups….

Again – most of the embellishments I used are pretty random; I circled an old wooden thread spool with a piece of paper to make an easy, colorful enhancement (another antique shop find), and I wrapped up some 1/4 inch wooden blocks to look like presents – all easy, unique things to prettify a mixed media project. Also, Dimensional Glaze is a staple in my house – it can dress up almost anything. I couldn’t get the chipboard accents for this paper line since it’s last year’s collection, so all I had was the paper punch-outs & stickers. Well, the key to any mixed media creation is layering and dimension, so I glazed almost everything – and then added some glitter before the glaze dried for some sparkle:) It really made the candy & snowflakes pop!

This project was a spur of the moment ‘I-need-creative-zen-time’ project, so I actually shot this one out pretty quickly – plus, it’s not personalized to anyone, which always accelerates a project’s completion time:)

I hoped you liked some of my altered stuff – I have a couple of more projects in the works (as usual), so there will be more to come:)

Have a great week!

~Carrie