Forest Ferns

Good Morning everyone

Its the first friday of November so time for a new challenge over at Creative Artiste where the theme is anything mixed media goes, using at least 3 different mediums.

I found this lovely fern moulded frame in the charity shop years ago, now the urge came to finally turn it into something else. I decided to go with a forest theme with the ferns, fungi and wood nymphs.  The middle inked panel is like a light emanating from deep in the woods drawing you into the magic within😁

Frame size approx 9x7" (19x23cm) 

See below for how i painted the ferns & frame.  I then printed out some digital fungi at different sizes and adhered among the ferns and to the bottom right of the aperture.  I added to mini tim holtz paper dolls sitting on top of the smaller background toadstools and used a bigger paper doll and added some green holographic acetate wings to him and adhered him to the front of the picture as my little forest nymphs. 

I felt it needed something red/orange in the top left corner to balance it but none of the toadstools worked and i found this orange/red acetate butterfly in my stash which fit perfectly. 

You can just about make out the light hitting the holographic wings here - in real life they really do sparkle

The glass isn't removeable so i covered that first to protect it.  I then coated the whole frame in black gesso.  Then i got layering up various green paints, starting with the darkest ones first and getting lighter with each layer.  

My last green layer was a very bright almost yellow green just added where the light would naturally hit the leaves.  Then i added a light touch of gold cadence dora paint to give a little subtle shimmer and coated the whole frame is glossy mod podge to help seal and protect it. 

I added green and yellow alcohol inks to the back of the glass to give the effect of dappled sunlight through the leaves, keeping it almost free of ink where i wanted my quote to go....here i just used a felt pad to lightly dab the ink.  As you can't remove the glass the only option was to stamp my quote onto white card and add it behind so I didn't want the ink obscuring it too much. 

This is one of my favourite quotes.  Its from Inkylicious and an oldie but goodie. 

And this is how it started out with an old gold finish

Items Used:

Inkilicious stamp 'forest quote'

Toadstool digitals 'Mixed Media Toadstools' from Double Helix Digitals on Etsy

Tim HOltz paper dolls

acetate butterflies

Cadence Dora paint

Folk art matt acrylic paints

Tim Holtz alcohol inks

Mod podge glossy and matt

 Hop over to Creative Artiste to join in, anything mixed media goes - atc's, cards, journal pages, 3d projects, wall art, small or large, everything welcome as long as you mixed your mediums 

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Trust the weather to turn cold with a bitterly wind the week we are having the heating replaced so wrapped up like mummies to keep warm and then we now have a giant hole in the ceiling where the electrician fell through - oh what fun.  It might have been comical if it hadn't been 9.30 at night and I then had to sort him out and the mess....Plus the reason he fell through is because it was all soaking wet from a water leak from the team that installed the system the 2 days before!   My MS is really complaining now sitting in the cold!    So with the mess that has created im so glad i did box everything possible up, far easier to clean a plastic box than all my craft stash and decorative tatt.

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Id love to enter the following:

https://mixitupchallenge.blogspot.com/2026/11/miucb-86-anything-goes-optional.html

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https://paper-rocks-scissors.blogspot.com/2026/11/november-22-challenge.html - used scissors to cut out the toadstools which were printed onto paper

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https://www.simplyellibelle.com/2026/10/i-spy-with-my-little-eye-autumn-in.html

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https://tuesdaytaggers.blogspot.com/2026/10/make-it-magical.html - magical wood nymph

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https://daranddiane.blogspot.com/2026/11/double-d-textures-challenge-2026.html - textures - the moulded ferns are very tactile and deep, along with the glossy shiny finish of the acetate and wings

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https://tolanythingbutacard.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-outlawz-anything-but-card-november.html - anything goes option