Mixed Media - make your own background

I have been playing a lot more with my messy scrapbooking products including my inks, stamps and infusion stains. I see so many wonderful layouts where designers are making their own backgrounds and I wanted to have a play. What this meant was that instead of my usual three or four layouts for the ATDML gallery, which I make from the kits sent by Mel & Jill, I did six for March! It certainly makes your supplies stretch further that's for sure!

My adventure layout was the first I made where using a sheet of white cardstock and some watercolour paints and distress stains I made soft sweeps of blues, greens and greys across the page. What I learned from this is that I should have primed my paper first with a wash of Gesso to prevent the colours from seeping in to the cardstock and causing it to warp! (nothing however that a night with a album on top didn't flatten out for me!)

Once my page was dry I drew on my circles using plates, and cups and lids of different sizes. Next came some stamping of leaves using similar coloured inks so they didn't stand out too much but blended into the background. I then flicked some splats of ink and finally added some sprinkles of infusion stains for the darker, inkier patches.

This was my background completed and I then built up the rest of the page with my layered photo on tissue paper and then off-cuts of coordinating cardstock, held together with some tiny attacher staples for more interest. Small elements from the papers including words, anchors and envelopes and lots of doodling completed the page.