Hey scrappy friends! Today’s adventure is a family affair, and a no rules kind of project I hope you try with the little people in your life.

I was wandering the Dollorama aisles – Big side story coming: If you follow me on Instagram (@reallycheryl) you’ll know this doesn’t align well with my goal to shop consciously and avoid fast fashion/unethically produced items. I do the best I can, when I can, such is life. Back to the project – for some small organization containers and spotted the wooden embellishments you see below. The variety of owls, butterflies, birds, letters, flowers and more for just a few bucks got me thinking about what my daughter and I could create together.

Since we all tend to save/hoard/stare wistfully at our most beloved embellishments, spending less on them can take the pressure off just using them, and give us a little more freedom to throw some paint on and see what happens.

I pulled out all my paper scraps, a few colours of paint, a few different kinds of glue, clear gesso, matte medium, some brushes, brayers and texture tools and set us up on our patio table so we could be free to make a mess. My daughter’s bestie had joined us at this point, so we needed space to make three masterpieces.

I didn’t grab canvases while shopping, but I always have tons of cardboard pieces (backing from paper pads, cardboard from shipping, etc.) in my stash and a coat of clear gesso is all it took to get those ready to go.

We painted wood embellishments while the gesso dried, added layers of paper, paint or anything else we felt would fit the vision and played for almost two hours.

Here’s a look at the process:

We had so much fun. I cannot think of a better way to spend a cloudy afternoon. Here are the finished collaged works of art!

Thanks for stopping by! I’d love to hear from you if you dive into a scrappy, collagey, mixed media-ey afternoon with your favourite little or big people. Take care!

Cheryl