Michelle G Brown | Mixed Media Art

Halloween Tag

This project was created by Joanne Hughes with products supplied by Mixed Media Art, as part of the Mixed Media Art Design Team 2021.

Materials List

To create your tag

Begin by spraying gloss sprays onto your craft mat and lightly spritz with water.  Swipe tag through until you are happy with coverage.  Use yours fingers to move colour around if necessary, especially around the hole.

Select a suitable person from the Paper Dolls pack and cut the head off to use as a seat!  Cover the white edges of the doll with black ink.  I use Ranger Archival Jet Black but a marker or paint will do.

Using the Jet Black Archival Ink, stamp the bird in a position to replace the head of your chosen doll.  Keep in mind the positioning of the head too!

Stamp the diamonds, 13 and birds around the tag using photo as a guide.  Ink the tag edges with black.

Choose, cut out and ink the edges of an appropriate Small Talk Sticker to match your doll and  position around the tag.  I found these stickers were sticky enough not to need glue, even after handling to ink edges.

Lastly spray the gloss spray direct to the crinkle ribbon and note the vibrancy of the colours!  The acrylic paint dries quickly and makes the ribbon stiff and easy to handle. 

Finish by tying the ribbon through the hole on the top of the tag. 
Use white and black pens to emphasise the eyes of the doll and bird.


Joanne Hughes loves to share her knowledge and ideas with anyone who will listen,  and has worked with Michelle and Mixed Media Art at the Picture to Page shows for many years, demonstrating and behind the make’N’take table.  She is thrilled and honoured to kick start the Mixed Media Art Design Team 2021.  There is a story behind each of her pieces and she is only too happy to share with you.

Joanne is mum to three adult children and lives in the same house she and her husband bought in 1982 and has been craft making in various forms for as long as she can remember – from macrame in the 70’s to considering herself a Mixed Media Artist, Joanne is a “Jill” of all trades, focussing on her love of stationery and everything that goes with it – paper, pens, inks, paints and stickers, along with the tools and techniques of the creative process.  When she is not making a book, she is thinking of the next one, be it a journal, letter journal, hand made or altered book.  She is a hands on crafter, loving messy play with glues, inks and paints.

Art by Marlene Acrylic Paints Review

Art by Marlene and Studio Light have released a new range of acrylic paints! And they have just arrived at the Mixed Media Art Studio, Melbourne, Australia. Michelle takes you through the colours in each of the 4 sets, and then swatches each colour onto a display board, showing you the colour and transparency of each paint. Colour swatching your new paints is a great way to get to know your craft supplies, and helps creating layers in your mixed media canvas or art journal.

Materials List

Art by Marlene Studio Lights acrylic paint melbourne australia

You can see the full range of craft supplies and art journals at Mixed Media Art Studio online store

Using rice papers in your art journal

Michelle was delighted to join the P2PCrafts Winter Online show, where she ran through the keys to using rice papers in your art journal or mixed media canvas collage. We touch on using water to get a nice tear; using our favourite gel medium – The Crafters Workshop Matte Gel Medium – to get the perfect adhesion, and then how to embed and embellish your rice paper images to fit smoothly into your art journal.

Here MIchelle has used two different art journals; the Dylusions 9″x11″ journal and the Art by Marlene Rainbow journal. The rice papers are from ScrapFX, Art by Marlene and Ciao Bella ranges, all available from the Mixed Media Art Studio online store.


Watch the full video here;

Materials list:

Thanks for joining us!

Fundamentals of Gel Printing

Michelle joined the line of of P2PCrafts Lockdown Lives, May 2021, and with Wendy hosting, Michelle joined us to play with gel printing and share the fundamentals for getting started with gel printing; what you need to get started with gel printing. Tools and supplies needed for gel printing. Using Stencils in gel printing and using Art Foamies in gel printing.

Material guide

All links are to the Mixed Media Art Studio online store, Melbourne Australia. If you would like to visit our store, see here for details.

Thanks for joining us!