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.

Craft Barn Q & L Challenge - Strong

Ooops - I'm sneaking in a bit late with this one!

Time for another challenge at The Craft Barn and this time I have chosen the word STRONG for my quote book.

I am trying to find quotes which are meaningful to me in some way or another, and this one spoke volumes...

"Even strong women need an arm to lean on now and again" J D Robb

I've gone right out of my comfort zone with this layout. As you probably know, I don't rate myself as any kind of an artist, so to put a face I've drawn on my project is a bit of a biggie for me.  I've been studying YouTube tutorials hard and I was inspired to paint this Whimsy Girl, and she seemed to fit the quote, so here she is...

 
Backgrounds are brought to you by Dylusions ink sprays in Bubblegum Pink, After Midnight and Vibrant Turquoise.

And Whimsy Girl II is brought to you by Caran D'ache Neocolor IIs and a few details added with Midnight Blue Cosmic Shimmer Mist.

I hope you like her.

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.

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 - October

Hello and welcome. It's been a busy month here at Moonshine Manor and it has been difficult to find time for crafting. That said, today is my birthday so I have treated myself to some me time in the old Chambre de Craft and am delighted to have started AND finished my October Tim Tag.

You can see Tim's original design here. Once again I have had to work around my woeful  lack of TH supplies but I'm really pleased with the results.

I'm enjoying my Halloween crafting and seem to be getting a dedicated "spooky corner" in my craft room.

Thank you for visiting.

Creepy Castle Tag

I have finally finished my Creepy Castle Tag for the textured Halloween tag challenge at Our Creative Corner. My plan was to create a tag which gave a view in through the window of a long deserted haunted castle.

I started by die cutting a tag from cereal box board and inking it with Black Marble Dylusions ink then randomly stamped Paper Artsy ink splatters in Black Soot DI to add some extra interest. I die cut the window shape and applied multiple layers of Black Soot DI to the frame.

I used texture paste and That Special Touch Stone Wall mask to form the bricks and the same ink splatter stamp pressed in to the almost dry paste to add some extra texture. When the paste was fully dry I blended Pumice Stone and Dusty Concord DI over the bricks. I dried the ink with a heat tool and applied pewter gilding wax lightly over the bricks to further emphasise the texture.

I stamped partial images of spiders webs randomly over the tag to add more interest. The Beware embellishment is stamped and heat embossed and the cardstock aged with Pumice Stone DI and a paper distresser.

I stamped spiders webs and bat stamps on some seam binding with black StazOn and then inked the ribbon with Pumice Stone and Dusty Concord DI.

The tattered curtain is a piece of tulle which has been torn and inked with Pumice Stone DI.

A mini plastic skellie and some metal embellies finish the tag.

And finally, the tag in all its spooky glory back lit by flickering LED candle light!

Hope you like it. Thanks for looking.

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 - September

Once upon a time (30 or so years ago) I was a Girl Guide. I'm not ashamed to admit it, it's a big part of what has made me the independent and practical person I am today. 

When I was a Girl Guide we had a District Commissioner called Mrs Armstrong a lovely (very posh) lady for whom we all had affection and a great deal of respect. Mrs Armstrong was the lady who, apart from her role as Commissioner, tested us for our Camping Badge and the Commonwealth Badge for those few of us who became Queen's Guides. As such she was a stickler for things to be done - just so. Mrs Armstrong was  a "tough cookie" but she was also an inspirational leader whose words have stayed with me to this day. In a difficult situation she would always exhort, "Stick-ability girls! You must have stick-ability!" What she meant, of course, was that however difficult or frustrating a task is, you must keep at it until you've completed it, that you never give up.

Why am I telling you this? Because my September Tag has been an exercise in stick-ability. My completed tag is my fourth attempt at what should have been a pretty straight forward layered stencil technique (you can see Tim's Tag here). I really don't know why I had such a nightmare with this tag, but the problem came not with the layered stencils but with THE most basic step - Distress Staining my tag!

In the end I did admit defeat (I was running out of tags) and switched from DS to Dylusions spray inks and was MUCH happier with the results - I'm wondering if the root of the problem lay in the fact that I don't have a full arsenal of Distress Stains and the colours I do have just weren't working for me - who knows?

Anyway, I hope this explains the sentiment I've used on my tag, and you might notice the brass tag attached to the ribbon - a lucky find from my stash of random stuff!

I really like the effect of the honeycomb stencil on the seam binding.

I used a That Special Touch mica mask (swirls) inked with Gathered Twigs DI in place of Tim's Rays, I really like the effect of the subtle darker shade over the vibrant Dylusions. (Cherry Pie, Lemon Zest and Squeezed Orange)

Love that Cherry Pie ink, it looks great with the black stamping.

I'm pleased with the final result, so sticking at it definitely paid off!

Thank you for looking, please leave me a comment so I know you came and I'll try and visit you too.

Faux Batik (resist) Technique - Tutorial Part 2

Hello again and welcome to Part 2 of this tutorial.

You can find Part 1 here
and the evolution of a journal page here

In Part 1 I showed you how to use heat embossed stamped images as a resit for sprayed Dylusions inks. In this tutorial I am going to take a different twist on the technique and show you the results when using the same basic principles with an embossing pen.

I wanted to explore the faux batik technique a little further to produce the focal image for my journal page. I knew that somewhere in my stash I had a Whispers Embossers pen and I was intrigued to see the results of using the technique with a hand drawn, rather than stamped, design.

I decided that my focal image was going to be a "sort of" peacock. "Sort of" for three reasons, firstly my drawing skills are not good, secondly because the colours I needed to use to co-ordinate with my background were NOT traditional peacock colours, and thirdly because I was going to make the tail from leaf, rather than feather shapes.

You will need:

White or Manila cardstock (I've used white)
Pencil
Black pen (see Step 6 below)
Whispers Embossers pen
Clear Embossing powder
Heat tool
Dylusions spray inks
Kitchen roll
Scrap or brown (not greaseproof) paper
Iron
Scissors
Wet glue
Graphite or charcoal pencil

Step 1

Draw and cut out cardstock for peacock body and leaf/feather shape.

Step 2

Draw round templates to get idea of overall design and number of feathers required.

Step 3

Draw round the template to create enough feathers for tail design (plus a couple of spares).

 Step 4

Draw your feather/leaf design with the embossing pen and then cover with clear embossing powder, shake off the excess and return to the pot. I did one feather at a time as I wasn't sure how much drying time my Embossers pen would give me.

Step 5 (not shown)

Use your heat tool to melt the embossing powder.

Step 6

Spray your inks randomly over the entire page. You can flick water on to the page if you like. Then roll over with kitchen towel to remove excess ink. Allow to dry.

Rather stupidly I didn't use a permanent ink to draw these shapes - so when I sprayed the very wet ink my lines bled - badly. Using the maxim, that there are no mistakes in art - this meant that I could still cut out my leaf shapes but would not have to ink the edges - ta dah!

Step 7 (not shown see tutorial Part 1 for pics)

Place a piece of brown (shiny side up) or scrap paper over the embossed design and iron with a DRY iron until all the embossing powder has been melted and lifted off the inked page - you will see greasy looking marks appear on the scrap paper. If the scrap paper gets stuck just keep ironing until it lifts off.

Step 8

Cut out the leaf shapes and arrange behind the body. I glued mine with  Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive, sticking only the bottom of the leaf to give some dimension. The body was cut from a piece of cardstock randomly sprayed with co-ordinating ink, some ink splatter stamping and the edges were inked with Black Soot DI.

Step 9

The addition of an eye, beak and top knot gave the bird some personality.

Step 10

I used a soft graphite pencil to add definition around the outside of the bird

And a harder graphite pencil to give definition between the leaf shapes.

Step 11 

Using the same resist technique I created my quote using alphabet stamps and Black Marble Dylusions ink on white cardstock. The quote is the first line of a 17th Century poem which kind of fit the bill...

So there you have it, my completed journal page using two takes on the Faux Batik (resist) Technique. I hope you enjoyed it and that you will give it a go - if you do please let me know - I'd love to see what you create.

Thanks for looking

Evolution of a Journal Page

Hello again.

In my last post on the faux batik (resist) technique I left you with an ink and resist background for a journal spread. I have been working on that journal spread and thought you might like to see how the page has evolved.

This is how the page looked when we left it:

I have been working on building up layers of interest in the background. (I am at the start of a new journal so I'm trying to keep the pages fairly flat to make working on subsequent pages easier (lesson learned from the Dictionary Challenge!) 

The first layer uses the same five colours of Dylusions I used earlier (Lemon Zest, Squeezed Orange, Pure Sunshine and Fresh Lime and London Blue), but this time randomly sprayed through a circle stencil.

I love the contrast of black stamped images on my journal pages, so I picked a flower themed stamp set, archival ink and set to work, firstly stamping two different styles of flower

and then using the flower centre stamps firstly to break up some of the white circles left by the resist technique,

and secondly to add some more intense black contrast. I don't usually mount my stamps on acrylic blocks when I'm layering in a background, preferring the partial stamped image you get when you "roll" the inked stamp over the page using your fingers. This time however I did mount the stamps as I wanted a crisp image.

The picture below also shows the next step, which was to colour with a POSCA paint pen through the circle stencil. The POSCA pen gives a lovely matte, chalky and slightly textured finish when dry.

I recently bought a Paper Artsy Minis stamp (MN72) which is an ink splatter image (I know what you're thinking - "You can achieve that look by flicking ink at the page - why would you buy a stamp?" well... sometimes I think you need a bit more control)

I thought I'd give the stamp a workout and I was really pleased with the results. (This stamp will be on the "stamps to be kept close at hand" pile from now on!)

Cunningly the next photo shows the effect of the stamped ink splatters (black) and genuine Dylusions White Linen (er - white) splatters - now, which looks more like your idea of an ink splatter? I rest my case m'Lud.

All the layers of images on the page were looking very circular and "blobby", so I decided to add a little contrasting shape by printing black lines with archival ink using a cut up credit card.

Finally I added a some stamped text (Chocolate Baroque's  Artistic Affirmations - LOVE these stamps!)

Here is the "finished" background - who knows - I might go back in and add something else at a later date - that's the beauty of art journaling...

The observant amongst you will have noticed that I've only shown you one side of my two page spread. I will be posting a Part 2 to the faux batik technique tutorial which will show a different look using the same basic technique, so do keep an eye on your blog roll or bloglovin' feed. You can now see Part 2 here.

Thank you for stopping by.