Paper Bag Mixed Media

This is my second mixed media book done with lunch brown paper bags.  Lots of fun!

 This one I sent to a swap partner for a swap I joined at the Yahoo group Altered_stArt.

 

After giving each bag a white paint coating, I used paper napkins, stamps, glimmer mist, rub-ons, pearls, gesso, lace, vintage images and photos, stickers, acrylic paints, Silhouette die cuts, book pages, tags, ribbon, paper doily, silk and paper flowers, a coffee filter and a piece of air dry clay that I stamped, painted, sprayed with glimmer mist and sealed with clear varnish.

The completed book

Front Cover

That big pink flower is a paper napkin

Here's a piece of air dry clay, on the 2nd page, which I used acrylic white paint, a blue glimmer mist and clear varnish.  I used the same foam stamp to produce the indent embossing that I used on the background and also embossed one with pink glitter powder.  On the left, I used a paper doily as a stencil and sprayed it with glimmer mist for the effect on the background.

The papers here was a background paper I made a while back painted with acrylics on the background and the purple stenciled images are done with a dimensional paint.

Love how the library card turned out.  More embossing, this time with a white powder.  The fish strip is fabric from a ready to cut and sew craft of some sort that I've had for years.

Magazine cutouts I loved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had to include some beachy graphics.  AHHH!!!!

In the middle of these 2 pages is the cone coffee filter which I painted in a pink wash.

 This is the other side of the coffee filter with paper flowers I cut with my Silhouette

 

Crepe streamers stamped and some corrugated cardboard with a crackle effect and prettied up with an antique earring.  The Italian quote says: What beautiful thing have you made?

On the left is an attempt I made to transfer an image with Mod Podge.  Not all of it transferred; still it gave it a cool effect.  I think I was too anxious to see the result and didn't wet the image enough and it was my first attempt. 

Tag tucked in one of the paper bag pockets

A butterfly I printed on vellum and tucked inside one of the pockets.

I also painted and decorated the inside folds of the bags

Back and front covers

If you haven't tried working with brown sandwich paper bags, you should. It's so much fun and you can make it into something useful if you embellish it with family photos or something beautifully artsy to enjoy!

I'll post photos of the paper bag that was sent to me in return soon too.

Have a great week!