Making Mixed Media Art With The Munchkins

I like to keep my kids crafty. My daughter is much more into this idea than my son, but I’ll win him over with enough dump truck tire painting. In the meantime I can’t crack open a bottle of Tacky Glue without Tallulah running into the room wanting to craft with me. I try to always foster this urge and let her work on her own version of what I am playing with. Yesterday was all about mixed media.

It all started when I bought a bag of rollers at the thrift store. I was not sure what I was going to do with them, but the colors were calling my name. Baxter enjoyed putting them in his dump truck after I washed them and Tallulah loves to sort things by size and color. I watched as they played and thought deep crafty thoughts.



Rewind to a few weeks ago when I was inspired by the lovely artists Hearts and Needles and Jess Quinn of Small Art. I am trying to do more painting, mixed media and collage - expand my artistic horizons. I started making paper dolls with left over bits of scrapbooking supplies. Tallulah of course wanted to play along so I helped her cut sticky back foam and make her own self portrait.


Back to the curlers. They would look great just sitting on a shelf. I used to keep candy jars full of colorful spent shotgun shells on a shelf and these curlers were destined for the same fate. One night laying in bed I wondered if I could stuff them with foam and adorn them like vintage sequined and beaded ornaments. Even if I could what would I do with beaded curlers? I know, make a picture frame for my dolls.


First I decided to get all Traci Bautista on a small already printed canvas. At this point Tallulah was joining in painting a sheet of bird covered scrapbook paper. Using various stencils, Tulip Puffy Paint Writers, paper punches, and some Sparkly Collage Pauge I adorned my canvas and set it aside to dry. By this time Tallulah had found a piece of cardboard she was also painting to add to her masterpiece.


Next step – bedazzlement. I took a sheet of foam and pressed my curlers in. It took about 3 times to fill the entire curler up with foam. From here it was a slightly tedious process of using beading pins, seed beads, sequins and Tacky Glue to adorn the holes in my rollers. I stacked the designs on the pin and then dipped them in Tacky Glue and inserted into the curlers. As I adorned my 12 curlers Tallulah sat next to me and sprinkled beads and sequins onto the sticky side of some craft foam.


Tallulah taped her collage (using blue painters tape) to her cardboard. I decided to give it a frame of red and white striped paper straws. We also decided to cut circles out of her sheet of beaded foam and using Tacky Glue we added them to the piece. I’m kinda in love with the way it came out. She signed her name across the bottom and if you want to hire her for an art show I’m her agent. In the meantime this piece is happily hanging on our gallery wall.


Time to finish my piece. Using a thin layer of Tacky Glue on the back of my paper doll I added it to my canvas. I used a black pen to outline the doll and make it pop. Next I used a hot glue gun to add my curlers around the edges like a picture frame.


Once the curlers were attached there were a few rough edges to fix. I made yarn pom poms out of some vintage chunky yarn I found at my mothers and some fun pink stuff from Tuesday Morning. Using Tacky Glue I attached these to the 4 corners of the frame.


The final touch was going back in with Tacky Glue and aqua trim to hide the glue gun action on the inside of the canvas. I set my work aside to dry overnight.


This morning I’m feeling like I should pretty much start making phone calls to set up my first solo art show. The piece is so funky and fun, only something I could love. Tallulah equally loves her piece and is already asking to make another. Not only do I love how our pieces came out, I love that I got to show my kids that you can make art with more than paint and paper. If it will sit still long enough it will eventually get transformed into something funky in our house.

I have tons of rollers left. What ever shall I make next?