tiny houses mixed media canvas

I recently participated in Smooth Pebble's Tiny House Swap and I have to say, I really struggled with the idea of tiny houses. Which is odd, because I really love the shapes of houses and whatnot, especially in mixed media. I signed up before I spent a week in New Orleans, thinking, oh, I have a few weeks to get it done. I even created a Pinterest board dedicated to tiny houses for ideas. 

The Garden District and architecture of New Orleans sparked nothing. The board did not a thing to inspire me, despite all of it being exactly that: inspiring. So as I am wont to do, I came up with something with a scant two days left before the mailing deadline. 

The particulars: 

I took a flat canvas panel and covered it with pages from a vintage book. (And by vintage I mean the 20's, so that it would flake apart and off the canvas in some spots, mostly the edges) I covered the seams of the pages with some 7Gypsies masking tape, then added two doilies. Those little white round things? Those are hole protectors, you know, the kind you use on the back of a hole punched document to keep it from ripping?  Then once I was happy with what I had, I gessoed over the entire thing. (Which I did not get a picture of) 

To achieve the color that I did, once the gesso was dry, I simply sprayed. I used a combination of Tattered Angels Jazz Blue Glimmer Mist, Dylusions Fresh Lime, Mister Huey's Color Mists in Shine and Seafoam. Spray a few layers, wipe off with a baby wipe. Repeat, wipe, repeat, wipe, letting it dry in between layers. It was mostly just happenstance that it came out the way it did, but using a baby wipe seemed to be the key.  

I ran a length of vintage ribbon along the bottom and each house is different. This one is paper covered grunge board. 

                                                      

This one is a manilla tag that I ran through my cuddlebug and inked to give it that brick look, with a paper roof and door. 

This one is a vintage Bingo card with some vintage pom-pom trim. 

This one was a vintage postcard and vintage stamps I cut into the right shapes and then glued to a thin sheet of plastic. I used one of the postmarks as the door (you can see the tiny little dot handle!) 

The banner is actually banner pieces off a sheet of Girls Paperie paper that I'd been hoarding for awhile now, layered over some colorful twine. I didn't get a pic of it on it's own and you can see it here, but I did do some light stamping all over the canvas with stamps from Paper Wings Productions. I took my favorite white pen and did some very light doodling. 

Finished product!