Doodle backgrounds for my altered book

Since this is the week we are working on our Altered Book lessons, I thought I would try a couple of backgrounds in preparation of the next class. Instead, I got sidetracked by


Bleubeard, where he normally sits when I am working in my main floor craft room. For those who visit often, note that I have changed his scratching pad. This one is starting to shed already, as is evidenced by the pieces he has gleefully spread around the living room.


You normally see the other side of my craft table, but today I was in a hurry. I wanted to finish these bits of art and get the photos off my camera. It was hard, too, because we had one less hour in the day today. I was thrilled to be able to use some of the white tissue I saved when I unwrapped my gifts from Annette (shown here). My supplies are simple: tissue paper and various colored Sharpies.


I colored two pieces of tissue paper using the Sharpies. This is a play on the graffiti background I found in Doodles Unleashed by Traci Bautista. If you missed my review, you can see it here.

About that time Bleubeard decided to actually move around and stretch. The lighting was so bad, I had to lighten the image to the maximum so you could see him. Yes, the lighting was that bad!



One more view in a close-up and I was ready for the next phase of this background.


Out came my mica powders. I already had glue mixed (50/50 glue to water mixture) and was ready to get started.


Oh wow! I have not only gotten my mica powders out, I have gotten my Twinkling H20s ready for a different project. Talk about a day for making art!

Before we precede, I want to explain that these mica powders are made by LuminArt. There is no binder in them. You have to apply your binder to the colored minute mica flakes. Your binder can be just about anything that "binds." Sorry if this sounds simplistic, but when I first got these powders, I was told you HAD to use certain binders, most craft store bought, or alum, which you can get at some grocery stores/food markets. Not to seem redundant, a binder can be paint, glaze, glue, alum, or any binding agent that will encapsulate the mica chips when dry.

For this project, I used a foam brush that I dipped into a bit of the glue/water mixture, then dipped one edge of the brush in dark green mica powder and the other edge of the brush in apple green mica powder. I wanted to show Maggie at Silvercrafter how I used Elmer's glue/water mix as the binder for the mica powder. I tried to answer a question about them for her, and think I did a horrible job. Maybe this will help Maggie understand what I was getting at.


Here I have just added the two greens to the first tissue, and after


moving the mica powders out of the way, I dipped my glue laden foam brush in two colors of lavender, then a combination of bright pink and gold. I didn't clean my brush between the pink/lavender combinations, but I did clean it after I was finished with the greens. Once these are dry, they will make great backgrounds. It won't be difficult at all to cut them into bits the size I need them. These are truly mixed media using Sharpies, tissue paper, a glue/water mix, and various mica powders.

Thanks for visiting this week. I'm glad you had the chance and time to drop by. Here's hoping you have a stunning art filled week.