Deep in the old forest lies ancestral bones and secrets...It's the perfect line for the opening of a book, isn't it? I often like to approach my mixed media projects through the art of storytelling. My best projects always have a little story behind them that I've made up in my head. 

That storyline gives your piece purpose and helps you showcase a focal point. So for this one, I imagined an ancient, dark forest. Deep inside it, you find the witch's hut of Aurelia. She is known for healing potions and the gift of foresight. Inside her home, she casts bones carved with runes to see into the future. Outside, she tends to a garden of magical mushrooms and flowers that go into her healing potions. But that was long ago, and now, all that remains are echos of the ancient, magical past...

With this story in mind, I began building my mixed media canvas from the forest ground up, so to speak. So let's get right into this tutorial. To match with my storyline, I first picked out some elements that I knew would go with this project's story. The mushroom ephemera and gorgeous poppy flowers from the Return to Wonderland collection along with Finnabair's Wings and Bones Mould take center stage here. I also mixed in some floral ephemera from The Home Baker, one of the frame ephemera pieces from Return to Wonderland, and the peach colored gems from Cherry Sweet. 

Start with a 5x7 canvas covered board and apply Finn's Modeling Paste through the stencil. Set this aside to dry or use a heat tool to speed up the drying time. Prime your moulds with either Clear or White gesso.

Once dry, wet your canvas with a spritz of water and apply Liquid Acrylics in Umber, Crimson, Powder Pink and Ochre. I continued to spritz the canvas to help the paints mix. I applied Crimson to the top, Umber to the bottom and mixed the other 2 colors throughout the canvas. 

Also color one of the small square Baroque Frame Moulds or frame mould of your choice with this same color mix and water. While still wet, place a paper towel over your canvas and the mould and gently pat it to lift some of the color. Paint 2 of the bone mould casts with the Umber paint then pat or wipe off the excess paint with a paper towel while it's still wet. Set all of these aside to dry or dry with your heat tool. 

Once the canvas and moulds are dry, dry brush everything with Finn's Heavy White Gesso to show off that contrast. 

Next, add a pice of brown and cream floral ephemera from The Home Baker collection and a red flower ephemera from the Return to Wonderland Forest Finds to your canvas, with the red flower closer to the top and the brown and cream flowers closer to the bottom, so they line up with the color gradient on your canvas. I used a bit of foam adhesive to pop them up a bit.

Then add one cream flower ephemera to the top right of one of the large square frames from the Return to Wonderland Vintage Frame ephemera. Then add a brown and cream flower ephemera to the bottom left of the frame--I used foam adhesive for both. Then add foam adhesive to the back of the frame and pop it onto the center of your canvas. 

Next, add some of the poppy flowers--I used foam adhesive under them where needed to create a level surface for the next layer--the Baroque Frame mould. I placed the cream ones toward the lower end of the floral cluster, and the red ones toward the upper end of the cluster.

Add the Baroque Frame and one more of the red poppy flowers. Then glue the bones on top of the red and cream flowers while tucking in the mushroom ephemera--some behind and some on top of the bones. 

Add a bit of Finn's Soft Matte Gel to the bottoms of the mushroom ephemera and flower centers and sprinkle on the red-brown glitter from the Autumn Glitter set. Then pop on a few of the peach gems from the Cherry Sweet collection! 

I hope you feel inspired to create stories for your mixed media projects. It helps you focus in on a theme, but it also helps elicit emotion in your piece. Until next time, happy crafting!

Adrienne

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Below are products that I used for this project.