Hi friends, its Jodie with you today for some Mixed Media Monday fun!  I’m working with the August kits and have been challenged to back a cut file with mixed media for this project.

I love adding inserts into my 6×8 inch project life album, and decided to work with the gorgeous September Subscriber Butterfly cut file and turn it into a mixed media insert. Because the butterfly is vertically symmetrical, you can fold it in half, or cut it down the middle, and its the same on both sides.  I featured mixed media on the front and back of the butterfly, and used the inside pages for a separate full sized photo and some journalling.  I love how it turned out!

 

 

During this week our son was admitted to become a legal practitioner and it was such an exciting day and a big achievement for him, and I had about 323,208 photos to scrap!  So as well as my butterfly insert I have a 2×2 inch, 6×8 page protecter that I’ve trimmed the right 2×2 column of pockets from, to make it 4×8 inches.  I love having layers of inserts that you can see just a little peek of from the main page.

 

 

To create the butterfly insert I imported the png file to my Silhouette Studio software and resized it to be 8 inches tall.  After tracing it to create the cut file path, I pulled the png off to the side rather than deleting it (so that I could use it again for the next step).  I cut this on my Silhouette and moved that cut file off to the side as well.

 

Then I pulled the png back onto the canvas, clicked on the trace tab, and changed the trace style to ‘Trace Outer Edge’.  As the name suggests, this traces just the outside of the  shape and none of the detail in the middle. Once this was traced I used the offset tool to add a border around the edge of the butterfly for my backing piece.  I left it at the default offset of 0.125 inches, and deleted the inside piece to leave just the outer offset cut file path.

 

 

I used a combination of Lindy’s products from recent months of colour kits.  I’ve used all blues and greens, since they work with the colour palette of this spread, but also because blue has always been my son’s favourite colour, and this day was all about him.

 

After priming the backing cardstock piece with clear gesso I mixed, blended and splattered Lindy’s Tilt-a-wheel Teal Magical (April Colour Kit), Magical Shaker Afternoon Delight Denim (May Colour Kit), Mad Hatter Mint Starburst (March Colour Kit) and Blue Hawaiian Blue Starburst (July Colour Kit).

 

To finish off the mixed media I also added some of the stamps from the exclusive stamp set in the August 2019 Colour Kit with black Stazon ink, followed with some splatters of white watered down gesso.

 

After I dried this with my heat tool I added the top piece and stitched over some, but not all, of the intricate butterfly pieces.

 

 

For my title card I used a Pretty Little Studio frame and spelled out ‘August’ by tracing different letters from the Vicki Boutin stencil set in the Colour Kit.  There isn’t a word that says ‘August’ on the stencil, but there are so many letters that you can really just about spell anything by combining different letters!

I’ve also stamped ‘Today’s Story’ straight onto this photo with some of the phrase stamps in the Colour Kit.

 

 

I love how the middle of my butterfly turned out!  I printed a photo at 8.25 inches of my son with his partner and her Mum outside the Supreme Court with the scales of justice behind them.  I didn’t have much margin for error to fit this photo where I wanted it to be, so rather than cutting it on my Silhouette I traced around half of the butterfly and cut the photo by hand.

I journalled and added a few embellishments on the right, arranging my journalling to fit within the curved edges of the shape (part of this story is private so I’ve smudged a few lines on this photo).

 

 

You can see more of the mixed media on the back of the butterfly, and how the 2×2 inch insert lets you add so many more photos in a smaller album.

 

 

My hubby and I also went to a food festival this week and I had a bunch of photos from there as well, so that 2×2 inch pocket really came in handy!

 

 

On the back page I used one of the 3×4 cards from the Pocket Life Kit and also created a super simple journalling card with a piece of patterned paper trimmed on the diagonal, layered with a Paige Evans wood veneer piece from the Pocket Life Kit.

Thanks for stopping by today guys!  I hope I’ve inspired you with some ideas for pocket page inserts and incorporating cut files and mixed media into your pocket pages!