I quickly discovered that there are countless wonderful mixed media items in digital scrapbooking. There are brush strokes, watercolor elements, stamps, stitching, collage pieces, torn edges, doodles and much more.
Of course, what we can’t achieve digitally is the tactile feeling of painting or stamping. We can’t touch everything and work with our hands. But we can achieve wonderful mixed media looks, even digitally. Mixed media was immediately my favorite style in digital scrapbooking, too!
Let’s take a look at some pages to see what we can do here digitally.
The first thing I think of is to play with painty elements to create a page from scratch on a plain white background. Just click on the images to enlarge and see a litte further desciption.
Digital product used for the first page: Allison Pennington Foundation: Practical Brushes v.3 | Just Jaimee Storyteller April 2019 | Just Jaimee Storyteller April 2020 | Just Jaimee Storyteller July 2017 | Kim Jensen The rain is gone | Little Butterfly Wings Feeling Blue | Little Butterfly Wings March is for rainy days | Little Butterfly Wings One thing at a time |Lynn Grieveson Retro Pop Frames | nbk Over the rainbow | Rachel Jefferies Welcome every moment
Second page: Anita Designs & Rachel Jefferies Snap | Kim Jensen Twilight | Lynne-Marie LIFE in Color | Lynne-Marie Vogue
Third page: Lynn Grieveson Europa Worn Photos |Rebecca McMeen Blake | Rebecca McMeen Fable | Rebecca McMeen Fern | Rebecca McMeen My Everyday Life No. 1: My Favorite Things | Rebecca McMeen Pia | Rebecca McMeen Sweet Solstice
Or you can let the mixed media papers do most of the work and just add some elements:
First page: Anita Designs & Lynn Grieveson & Rachel Jefferies Interlude | Lilypad Collab Guilty Pleasures: Books | Joyce Paul Gratitude | Lynn Grieveson Positivity | Lynn Grieveson & Studio Basic Don’t Quit | ninigoesdigi Stitious
Second page: Gina Miller Strawberry Lemonade | Just Jaimee Storyteller July 2017 | Lilypad Collab: Family Portrait | Lilypad Collab: Life Portrait | Lilypad Collab: Self Portrait | Lilypad Collab Splendiferous | Rebecca McMeen Fable
Third page: Kim Jensen Ragged edges | Little Butterfly Wings One thing at a time | Little Butterfly Wings Stay wild | M3 January 2022 Let it go | nbk artCrush No30 | PRD Metamorphosis | Rachel Jefferies Anisoptera
There are even certain styles that can only be achieved with digi scrapping and that are awesome for mixed media pages. One thing I use quite often is blending photos (or papers) into the background. The easiest way for this is using premade masks. You just clip your photo to the mask and, depending on your chosen mask, you have a more or less mixed media style photo blending. Additionally, you can play with the Opacity to blend your picture into the background.
Here are some examples of pages and the masks I used for them:
First page: Little Butterfly Wings A trip down memory lane | Little Butterfly Wings Details recorded | Little Butterfly Wings One thing at a time | Little Butterfly Wings Under the sea | M3 September 2021 add on | Sahlin Studio After dark
Second page: Bella Gypsy Magic Moments: If I Didn’t Have You Collection | JM Designs and Just Jaimee Another Year Storyteller September 2016 | Just Jaime Storyteller August 2021 Daily life | Lynn Grieveson Retro Pop Frames | M3 September 2020 | nbk Urban garden | nbk Wanderlust | PRD and ngd | Downtown Collab | PRD Masquerade No2 | Rachel Jefferies Be here, now
Third page: Just Jaimee Grunge Masks Brushes | Just Jaimee Remember December Collab | nbk Dear Diary {Out of the Box Frames} | nbk Winter Memories | Paula Kesselring Winter time | Rebecca McMeen Sweet solstice | Rebecca McMeen Winter in the woods | Rebecca McMeen Winterland 2
Fourth page: Bella Gypsy Summer Nights | Just Jaimee Grunge Masks Brushes | Kim Jensen Stringbats 5 Weather | Rachel Jefferies Captivating Basics | Photo Ready 2 | Rachel Jefferies Seasonal Stamps and Brushes | Rachel Jefferies Seasonal Woodsies | Rachel Jefferies Sweet December Stories
Fifth page: A Whimsical Adventure Groovy Glam Papers | Kim Jensen Torn Tape Dates 1 | Lynn Grieveson A New Page | nbk artCrush #65 | Paula Kesselring Paper Pack #18 | SwL Memories Templates
If you want to learn more about techniques that are unique to digi scrapping, check out Misty’s post about the advantages of working digitally!
If you have children or grandchildren this is the time of starting a new school year. And it is a good time to reflect on your year. Did you have any resolutions? Any specific goals? Laurie talked and, even more importantly, scrapped about her scrapbooking goals here.
And even though I have neither children nor grandchildren, I made something like a back-to-school layout this summer! It was a lot of fun and reflects my journey with a coaching program. I used some mixed media papers for the background and a lot of different paints and stamps to give the page a mixed media feel.
credits: Bella Gypsy Autumn nights | Designed by Irma Family Templates | Gina Miller School’s Out | Grace In Color School Days | Kim Jensen Pieces of You | Kim Jensen School Zone | Lilypad Collab Guilts Pleasures: Movies | Rachel Jefferies & Lynn Grieveson Hear My Voice: 04 – Learning | Rebecca McMeen Majoram home
Reflecting my year so far, there was a major change and I had to adapt. We had to let my horse go in May. He was 30 years old, which is really, really old. And I had time to prepare, but it was hard to find the right time. And so sad. That’s also a big change in my everyday life, and I still have to get used to it.
This is one of the pages about saying good bye and the day the vet came. It was pouring awefully the whole day and we had to do it outside, because you need the horse to be in a place where it can be picked up the next day. In the end, we were lucky and had an hour’s break from the rain when the vet arrived. This page is about that aspect of the day.
I used different masks to blend the big photo into the background and to add to the rainy mood of the page.
You could also create your own masks from digital elements, like I did for this page:
Stay tuned for our next digi scrapping post, when we will dive into creating our own masks from all kinds of paints, splatter and mixed media elements!