It’s day two of Mixed Media week, and we are so excited to welcome our first guest, Anna Komenda! Take a look at Anna’s Instagram feed and you will see her passion for creating with mixed media! From watercolors to alcohol inks, she uses it all, and today we’re excited to share what she’s creating with a favourite product of ours available from our friends at Scrapbook.com! Anna has also created a fabulous process video which you’ll see below!

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Hello scrappy friends! It’s Anna Komenda here and I’m so excited to be with you for Mixed Media week! In today’s post I want to share with you my favorite kind of layout with a white background and mixed media layers—still very bright and light but very rewarding and joyful during the act of creating it. As fall is in full swing here in Poland, I was inspired by the colors outside my windows and made an autumn page in yellow, orange, and red with a pinch of purple using an amazing product: Pops of Color from Scrapbook.com. I scrapbooked very recent photos of my older daughter, taken during one of our walks in the nearby forest. 

Supplies | Scrapbook.com Pops of Color: Glitter Gold, Pearl Soft Lilac, Pearl Orange Sherbet, Rudolph Red, Pearl Lemon Chiffon; Cardstock: Scrapbook.com Smooth Cardctock A2 – Cools, Scrapbook.com Smooth Cardctock A2 – Jewels, Scrapbook.com Smooth Cardctock A2 – Harvest, Scrapbook.com Glitter Paper Pad A2 – Mixed metals, American Crafts – White; Ephemera, 6 x 12 sticker sheet, alphabet stickers: American Crafts & Paige Evans Bungalow Lane collection; Stencils: Scrapbook.com Little Boxes, Scrapbook.com Oak Leaves, Stickers: Scrapbook.com Sticker Book – Jewel; Dies: Lawn Fawn – Stitched Leaves Dies; Distress Oxide Ink: Crushed Olive, Spiced Marmalade, Candied Apple, Mustard Seed, Seedless Preserves; Tools: Brayer, spatula, brush, ink blending tool

I decided to play with Pops of Color from Scrapbook.com to create my background. This fun product can be used in so many ways—not only to make little dots here and there! You can apply it through stencils, smear it on the paper to make a background, or use a mixed media paper to die cut with it. Your imagination is the limit here. I like discovering new ways of using well-known products to better justify my shopping sprees! The background for my fall layout was made with a mix of five Pops of Color hues and a brayer! It helped me to get this very thin, a little bit translucent layer with a shiny finish.

One layer of mixed media wasn’t enough for me so I reached for one of my favorite products: Distress Oxide Inks. After buying a big pile of regular Distress Inks and not using them too often, I hesitated if I needed a second big pile of similar inks. Oh boy! I am so happy I gave them a try. Now I own an even bigger collection of Oxides and I love working with them. They are so bright in color—great not only for stamping but also blending through stencils and they work magic with water. I used these magic inks twice while making my page. I created little squares with the Little Boxes stencil and leaves with the Oak Leaves stencil on top of my Pops of Color layer and added a few drops of water to make the colors float a bit, adding a more dreamy effect. 

When I work with mixed media products on regular paper, I like to leave the layers to air dry (if I am not in a hurry). Thanks to that my cardstock isn’t warped that much and I know this is something that many people find problematic and a deterrent from working with mixed media. A good solution may be running your paper through a laminator or a Minc machine to straighten the paper. However, with layers of Pops of Color, I wasn’t sure how they would react to heat. You always have to keep in mind the qualities of some products before heating them up.

I love embellishing my fall projects with leaves. They are the prettiest thing in fall, and recreating them with paper is so fun and easy. This time I used Lawn Fawn’s Stitched Leaves Dies to create them. Those dies are a perfect size and shape not only for cardmaking, but also for layouts. You can easily fill up a lot of space with them. Small cardstock paper pads from Scrapbook.com are very handy if you need only a small piece of paper, so I used them to cut my leaves. Their variety of colors makes them very versatile for any theme and season. 

I finished my project adding bits and pieces from the American Crafts and Paige Evans new Bungalow Lane collection and created a title with alpha stickers from Scrapbook.com’s Jewel cardstock stickers . Everything matches together perfectly, making a very vibrant and warm page. 

You can see it all come together here in my process video:

How about you? Do you like creating mixed media projects or do you find them intimidating? It takes a bit of courage, but the best advice I could give you is to just PRACTISE! It’s that simple. I wasn’t born with the ability to use paints and inks. I learned how to control them (in some way of course, as they like to live their own lives) and how to accept the “not so perfect” outcomes. I often throw away backgrounds I don’t like and just move on and try once again. With every new product, I like to make a test page, trying various tools and techniques just for fun. I hope you will try and play with your Pops of Color and Distress Oxide Inks to make your own background!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

My name is Anna Komenda and I live in Poland, Europe, with my little family. I am a mom of two girls, cute and naughty beagle boy dog Filut and wife to a great hubby. I am a geologist by education, but when my kids were born I decided to become a stay-at-home momager. This is also the time I discovered scrapbooking, almost 13 years ago. My style has evolved a lot throughout the years until I discovered soft mixed media, bright colors, and watercolor paints. Layouts and albums are my go-to projects. I started sharing my knowledge by teaching live classes and creating my own YouTube channel. I met friends from all around the world and I no longer “get bored” in my life. I love sharing my passion and knowledge on my YouTube channel and during my live and online classes. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram, too!