Mixed Media Academy Open Studio Challenge 1

I first discovered Finnabair & her work a couple of years back, love her work! And now she's just started a new Facebook group - Finnabair & Friends - Open Studio, so many talented crafters out there... just amazed by everyone's stunning offerings!  And we now have a challenge, for a background inspired by one of her creative team's examples (on her blog).  So I had a play on several tags, & decided in the end to go with my take on Rebecca's textured background,.

Using a 5" x 7" canvas, I added strips of papers, hessian rectangles, lace trim, finishing off with texture paste through 2 different stencils.

 Then I covered with a coat of white gesso.

Then for the colour ... What to do?  I wanted to get away from my current bright pastel turquoise/teal/green/purple palette, so I decided on a fairly dark & gold 'grungy' theme...

After several false starts... sprays (the red was too red), shimmering mica powders (again too red!), it looked a real mess!

So, I still liked the texture, & it's only a canvas (!), and as I'd decided to go dark, I covered the whole thing with a coat of black gesso ... that was better, & because I'd used the shimmering powders, it ended up looking quite metallic.

Eventually, I used gold paint on the lace and stencil stripes, and most of the small stencil dots & added a coppery paint to the remaining dots.  A few days ago, I found some micro beads I'd bought years ago... the black, gold & light brown were just the thing to add a little more colour texture - background done!

After trying out several brass/gold toned embellishments, which weren't quite working, I wondered whether it would work better 'landscape'... yes, everything went together quickly after this, and so I finished my canvas...

I enjoyed this, even despite the many re-colourings!

A couple of detailed photos...