So that project that had me all in knots last week? All done and up over at Gauche Alchemy today!

I got to play with the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Mixed Media Paper Crafting Kit and I’m really having fun with all the pieces and parts. My first project was, perhaps, a bit ambitious, but it never hurts to go all out.

It started with the frames and fabric.

I used a trapunto quilting technique to stitch and stuff two of the faces in the fabric.

Then I trimmed them up nice and neat. Hint: there are commercial fray-stoppers out there but I couldn’t find mine. Instead I used clear fingernail polish on the prone-to-fray taffeta ribbon and it worked just fine!

The frames that came in the kit are these awesome Victorian bubble frames that not only have 3 layers to the front of each frame, making the different cuts customizable, but also rounded “glass” (plastic) so that you can place non-flat things behind them.

It was fun to work with the frames, and they have so much potential, but I went with a simple prep of charcoal gray paint highlighted with bright fabric paints around the edges to make the layers really stand out.

For the background of “portraits” I Mod Podge’d some of the book pages to the frame back and then spritzed them with Art Anthology Colorations Mist in Asphalt. After some dry time all around, the faces got paired with some punched film strip (from the Black Out Mixed Media color kit) and a purple feather from my stash for the female face, and two of the milagros (charms) and metal flowers from the DotD kit for the male face.

Originally this was going to be it for this project, and the canvas was going to be a separate project altogether, but I decided that they’d make a better project together, so on we go!

The canvas was one of those pre-primed things that I picked up on sale at the craft store with no particular project in mind.

First I layered book pages and sheet music onto the canvas with Mod Podge, then sprayed it with the Colorations like the frame backgrounds.

Then I used the sugar skull mask (as in stencil, not the type you wear on your face) with the Art Anthology Gelate in Splashed, and created a skull image on the layered canvas. When I couldn’t scrape all the gelate off the front I decided to flip it over and use it as a pseudo-stamp just to see what happened.

After the gelate dried I realized what LOOKED like white with sparkles in the jar actually dried clear. That’s okay, though, as I wanted the background darker anyway so just kept spraying and blotting the mist on until I’d reached the right shade of dark and the gelate was standing out nicely. And the secondary “stamp” turned out awesome.

Since the whole idea of Dia de los Meurtos is the remembrance of those who’ve passed on before us, I dug up some pictures of my grandparents in their younger days and printed them in a few different sizes. I ended up using the largest and the smallest of each to decorate either side of the canvas. A few details added with more puffy paint (make fun all you like, those precision tips are awesome) and then the single word, freehanded along with some scrolly bits.

To finish the canvas I glued on some burgundy ribbon from my stash, then attached the frames to two wide pieces of taffeta ribbon, the lace from the kit, and more black ribbon from my stash.

Finally, I declared it done.

And you know what’s even more awesome than having a completed project from one of the awesome Gauche Alchemy kits? Having tons more supplies left to do even more fun stuff. There will be more projects from this kit, but first we’re going to get back to the woodworking art for a bit.