Unity Artist Trading Card Binder

I decided to try my hand at a little mixed media this weekend. After having taken a class, I’ve been anxious to get back into it before I forgot the techniques. I wanted to cover the bland binder I had purchased to hold the Artist Trading Cards from the 2 swaps I’m participating in. So, I got out the Art Anthology gel products I had purchased and the following items: white gesso, Stazon ink, brushes, texture paint, distress stain, metal frames, Unity stamps, spatulas, Charvin pastel chalks, fabric tec glue, gold cord, and Tim Holtz stencils. I applied gesso yesterday and let that dry. Today I started applying paints to the front. Once dried, I painted those areas again for deeper color and allowed it to dry again. I then used the stencils I picked out with texture and sand pastes and developed random patterns. I painted those again and applied some stain. After drying again, I then applied some black and other color pastels to highlight the textures and even out colors. I then glued on the metal pieces and applied gesso to those. While that was drying, I stamped out several images and sentiments from the following Unity kits: Hug, Beautiful Every Little Thing, 6/17 SMAK Kit and the 12/12 KOTM kit using Stazon ink. I then painted the metal pieces and applied a little more paint in different areas. I took some chipboard letters and added my initials in the metal frames.

A lot of this effort was trial and error, rework, overzealous stenciling (love doing that), and impatiently waiting for various mediums to dry. Since I completed this after the sun went down, I may end up fixing things a little more tomorrow. But, in general, I think it’s a perfectly imperfect first attempt and I definitely like it more than the original binder cover. In a few days I’ll turn it over and just paint the back. I intend to also paper over the other sides of the covers either with my own designed paper or some of the beautiful patterned paper I own. I’m hoping this binder will complement the beautiful ATCs I receive!

Hope you enjoy seeing my efforts and, of course, I’m open to any suggestions you have! Thanks for visiting!