Smeared Ink Watercolor Challenge - Bustin' Out Mixed Media

I've been DYING to work with my Nymphs set again as well as a few new goodies that I received from Gauche Alchemy!! I also wanted to combine a creation with the Smeared and Smudged guest designer Jennifer's water coloring technique challenge.
One of my favorite, and most challenging, things to do as an artist is mixed media. I love doing it, but for some reason, most times when I attempt a creation it rarely comes out as I see it in my head.
So for this creation, I didn't set myself up. I simply started.

The first thing I did was trim a piece of the dressmaker paper from GA and using Mod Podge, I adhered it to my Kraft background from PTI. (it's the paper with the ticking lines in the background)

As I let that dry, I stamped my Water Nymph in Black Momento Ink. As an aside, I had stamped the aged compass from QKD on a scrap of white PTI cardstock.
I used my watercolor crayons and using a light and royal blue to color the compass. I then using a small brush and water painted the image in watching my crayon marks change to brush strokes. The effect was really cool. I then added a tag from my husband's dry cleaning as it sort of reminded me of longitude and latitude as on a map. I placed this piece in the upper right hand corner.

I then moved onto coloring my Nymph. I used the same watercolor crayons using ,mainly white, orange, brown and red. I then took my brush and again, watched my crayon marks turn to watercolor paint. I love how the Nymph turned out. I knew I wanted to use my Cinnamon Stickles on her "waves" but I waited until the end. I used a super bright blue paint marker and went over most of her gorgeous waves in the brilliant color and added it as her eye color as well.
I've been dying to use the silver holey ribbony goodness from GA so I laid that down partially on the bottom left of my creation. And I just sat there holding it, moving it, trying to figure out how I wanted it to 'be'. Finally after fiddling with it, it sort of turned into an arrow of sorts. And I liked how it looked with the dressmaker paper so I grabbed my stapler that is loaded with chocolate brown staples and made it permanent! It looked great...a little too...obvious but I figured I'd come back to it if I still found it too glaring later on.

I had a hangtag from something that I recently purchased at Lululemon Athletica. I love their logo so I used my 1 1/4" punch and popped out the logo piece. I adhered it down and then took my GA lace and stitched it all down as a border across the bottom of my piece.

I then busted out my Amuse fence stamp and stamped it roughly in my Tim Holtz distressing ink in Tea Dye. (I think that's what it's called).

I wanted a sentiment of some kind so I went to my sticker/embellishment drawer and pulled out these grey/black/white letters that I've had FOREVER! 'this way' was the sentiment that popped out immediately. The two little birds were part of the sticker set and just seemed to need to be placed where I placed them.
I then sat back and realized that my silver arrow was too glaring. So I grabbed the scrap of the pattern paper (the dress making paper) and formed a messy flower in the center of which I placed a vintage, silver rose button that was in my Great-Grandmother's sewing basket. I nested it inside of the paper flower with a couple of serious glue-dots and added it to the entire piece using more glue dots.
For the first time ever, that day, I purchased Smooch Spray on a whim in the color Log Cabin. As a last (and rather bold touch) I decided to bust it out and go at my piece with it. I was beyond thrilled with how it all came out.

Lastly, I added my Cinnamon Stickles to my Nymph's waves that I hadn't colored in blue. I set this aside to dry.
When I came back to it in the am I decided to matte it on some new grey Core cardstock that I'd purchased. I lightly sanded the edges of the grey paper and adhered my entire piece. It was the last (and more sturdy) touch that my creation needed.

I hope you enjoy and are inspired!!

XOXO-
Meredith