lauralooloo: Mixed Media Holiday Houses {Fun Stampers Journey & Gel Press}

A few weeks ago I had the best time creating my colorful mixed media houses. (If you missed that post, you can find it HERE.) I used my Gel Press, along with some white tissue paper, and a variety of stamps and stencils, plus acrylic paint. This past week I decided to do another set of houses with a holiday spin!

To create these houses, I started with the House to Home Trio from FSJ. They're bare wood houses, ready for paint, decoupage, stamping, paper, etc. I gave them a coat of white paint, and as they dried, I began getting messy with the Gel Press, pulling prints with Candy Apple, Cool Pool and Whip Cream acrylic paints. (Please check out the blog post with my colorful houses, for a step by step on the prints I made. I followed the same techniques for these!)

After my tissue paper prints dried, I tore all the pieces up and decoupaged them onto the houses, using FSJ's Gel Medium. It works like Mod Podge - I just painted it on, stuck on the tissue, and brushed over the top to seal it. It dries clear so it's perfect for decoupage!

Next up, I started to embellish my houses. I used stamps from Winter Doves and Holiday Script. And I must say, I am SO very in love with these little wreaths (Spruced Up) and trees (Pine Tree Elements.) (My kids totally tried to steal my tiny trees for their Lego village, but I'm not sharing!) I attached the wreath and tree using my trusty hot glue gun (and I didn't even burn myself, I might add!) Then I layered on the bows and stamped pieces.

(Crafty service announcement: I learned the hard way that if you hot glue an embossed image, it will remelt the embossing powder and smear if you touch it. True story.)