Not so Messy Monochrome

Hello and welcome.

I have been in somewhat of a creative slump lately and not spent much time in my craft room, but I have been enjoying the delights of YouTube and the hours of amazing videos of other people's creativity. Just entering "mixed media" in the search box has turned up loads of inspiration and some interesting artists.

One in particular is Jennibellie and I have decided to join her Journal Workshop ning site. One of the groups on the site is the Monthly Challenge and the challenge for this month is to create a messy monochrome art journal spread with the use of a maximum of two highlight colours.

OK - so as my post title suggests, I didn't score too highly on the messy part of the challenge - but this is where the inspiration took me, and after such a dry spell, I went with it...

The background is Dylusions Black Marble, and, although you can barely see it there are also random stampings of various Kaiser Craft texture stamps in Jet Black StazOn. Additional texture was added by flicking water splashes on the Dylusions and then picking up the colour with kitchen towel.

The trees are white and green acrylic paint and applied thorough the Crafter's Workshop  TCW171 Tree of Life template. The green tree was outlined with charcoal pencil and over painted with Cosmic Shimmer Meadow Lush mist to give a hint of shimmer.

I'm making a real effort to do some stash busting this year so I've used letter stickers from my stash for the page title. The white letters are American Craft Remarks "Sarah Script" and the green letters are Making Memories green Puffy Alphas. I coloured over the Puffy Alphas with Promarkers to try and match the green to the tree a little better (It changed colour from a yellow green when I applied the shimmer mist).

Finishing touches were to outline the white letters with a fine black pen, outline the green letters with white ink, apply watered down white acrylic splashes over the whole page (masking the green tree first), draw a line and dots border around the page with a Posca paint pen and finally add three die cut felt bird embellishments.

It isn't a messy monochrome but I'm really pleased to have felt creative again!

Thanks for looking.

Sssh - Pray Silence for The Craft Barn's Q&L Challenge

Hello and welcome fellow crafters!

Time for another entry into The Craft Barn's Quotes and Lyrics challenge. (Click on the link to get all the details). This time the prompt words are silence and dazzle.

You may be aware that I'm putting together an AJ style quote book with blank spaces on my pages so that I can collect more quotes as I go along. For this challenge I have chosen the word SILENCE and a beautiful and thought provoking quote by Ruth Fishel,

"I will take time to be alone today. 
I will take time to be quiet. 
In this silence I will listen... 
and I will hear my answers"

It is VERY unusual for me to use my own handwriting on ANY layout, but for some reason today I don't seem to hate it quite as much as usual, so it is making a VERY rare appearance!

This layout has been a bit of a love/hate project. I hated the background when I first painted it. It is two colours of blue acrylic over a VERY loud and busy floral tissue paper. The paints seemed to be really grungy and produce a miserable January-esque sky colour - topical, but NOT what I wanted!

A quick spritz with some London Blue Dylusions lifted things immediately and I could see that the layout had potential. Additional background layers came from an Indigo Blu circle dot background stamp, randomly stamped in black Archival and some texture paste layered through a dotty mask. I had hoped that the texture paste dots would remain white for some contrast, but as it dried it soaked up the colour from the underneath layers - oh well... A few splats of White Linen Dylusions completed the first "go" at the background.

The die cut clouds were inked with Faded Jeans DI and adhered to the page using  Scotch quick drying glue. I didn't use matte medium as the Dylusions are water reactive and would have "run". When the clouds were dry I went round the edges of them with a Faber Castell Big Brush marker and smudged the line to blend. This really anchored the clouds on the page. The title is made from Papermania Mini Alpha stickers (keeping up with my stash busting resolution!).

Next I die cut the birds - I was originally going to keep them white, but ended up colouring them black, and stuck them to the page - this time with a smear of matte medium on the back but not on the front.  They are birds but I think this layout has a bit of a look of a Battle of Britain skyscape about it - the tiniest birds could easily be confused with Spitfires!

Finally I went in with my Paper Artsy ink splatter stamp and randomly stamped with black Archival, making sure to get some splashes on the clouds to ground them on the layout. I used a Craft Stamper freebie grungy border stamp to partially frame the page.

Close up showing: grungy border stamp, ink splats, 

FC Big Brush blending and Faded Jeans DI inking

All in all I'm pretty pleased with this layout, especially as I really wasn't keen on it at first! Please do let me know you came - I'd love to see what you are up to.

Smile - it's The Craft Barn's Q & L Challenge

Hello again and welcome.

It's January - so it is time for a new challenge over at The Craft Barn.  This year it is the Quotes and Lyrics Challenge. Each fortnight the DT give a two word prompt and you have to find a quote or song lyric using either or both words and design a project using your chosen quote or lyric. If you want the full explanation go here. The current challenge words are "smile" and "up".

I've decided to make a quote book using a Daler Rowney hard-backed sketch book. My plan is to produce an Art Journal style book with my chosen quote on the left hand page and space to include additional quotes on the same theme on the right hand page.

For my first page I've chosen the word SMILE and this sweet little quote:

“There's enchantment in a smile, did you know?
Shall I prove in a wink that it is so?
Watch my mouth grin wide and see,
How quick your lips smile back at me!”

Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway

I just liked the reminder of how irresistible something as simple as a smile can be.

The background is made using a technique I've borrowed from Vicky Papaioannou (see her YouTube video here - LOVE HER!). I've used some VERY old Papermania 12x12 stack papers cut in to rectangles and randomly stuck all over the page to create the textured background, and then two colours of acrylic paint (NOW I wish I had TH Distress Paints!) over the top, blended with a baby wipe.

I used an orange Posca paint pen to emphasise the joins between the paper rectangles and a little bit of Vintage Photo DI here and there too. I've inked Wild Honey (or Rusty Hinge - sorry can't remember which) DI over a Kaisercraft Doily template and stamped flowers and a Cactus Annie text stamp in Espresso Archival ink to add some extra interest in the background.

Showing the texture of the paper rectangle background

The letters are American Crafts Rootbeer Float Thickers (had these for years too - I'm making a BIG effort to USE MY STASH this year!).

I made the library card pocket from the same Papermania paper as the background and gave it the same inky treatment. (I downloaded the template from Ruth Ann Zaroff at Mirkwood Designs - she has loads of great printable templates)

My plan is to collect additional quotes on tags and store them in the library pocket - the quote I have already is a Paper Artsy stamp (HPXT04).

Well that's it from me, leave me a message so I know you came and I'll come to see how you're playing along soon...

N is for ... Neige

Time for another entry for The Craft Barn's Dictionary Challenge. This time round it's letter N with no twist. So before we go any further I need to apologise to Izzy for playing fast and loose with my word choice.

As you know I'm using an old French-English dictionary and I'm using the French half of the dictionary for this challenge. I have chosen the word neige meaning... snow. My interpretation, as you can see below, is a snowman, which in French is really un bonhomme de neige, but I'm hoping that since my bonhomme is made from neige (OK if you're going to be picky - cereal box, acrylic paint and ink) Izzy will forgive me?

I have used Tim Holtz's Winter Wonder die, painted with white acrylic and inked with DI. The hat and carrot nose have been flocked and the seam binding stained with Fired Brick DS. The snow and snowflakes are heat embossed with Stampendous Winter Wonderland embossing powder.

I'm really quite fond of my jolly snowman :0)

Sunday Stampers Challenge #260 and exciting news

Good afternoon all!

I hope the weather is as lovely with you as it is here this afternoon.

Two things to talk about today - the first is my entry in to the Sunday Stampers Challenge over on Hels Sheridan's blog (here). It has been weeks since I've managed to squeeze in a Hels challenge so when I saw that this week's challenge theme was the word DREAM I decided to enter my latest journal page. So here it is...

Some detail shots...

 

The background was created using three shades of blue acrylic paint sponged over a white brayered  base coat and then I had fun building up the layers with some splodges of yellow, finger painted on, black ink pressed through a Stewart Gill mask and finally loads of stamping with both Midnight Blue Staz-On and Jet Black Archival.

My Whimsy Girl's face was drawn on sketching paper then coloured with Neocolor IIs and her hair with Promarkers. After cutting her out I adhered her to the page with Matte Medium and thankfully a stiff brayering (over some scrap paper) got rid of most of the wrinkles. (Sketching paper is NOT the right substrate for Neocolors!)

A few extra stamps, white gel pen highlights and "grounding" her on the page with a graphite pencil around her outline and there we have it - my first ever "portrait" and a page I am quietly over the moon with!

My second piece of news is that my little creative space is shortly to appear in Featuring: magazine, a quarterly mixed media and art journaling magazine. Featuring is doing a piece on Julia Dunnit and the phenomenon that is What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday (details here). I was thrilled to be chosen to submit a photo of my craft room for the article. (unfortunately my photo is on the underneath page below)

You can find out more about Featuring: here.

Well that's all from me today, enjoy your evening!

P.S. I've been doing some insomnia blog hopping and I'm also going to creep in under the wire and enter this page over at the Anything But a Card Challenge #20 "Dust off your OLD supplies". I think this qualifies as the paints have been un-opened in my stash forever and the same goes for some of the stamps!