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.

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!

M is for ... Magasin

Hello again!

I'm taking part in the Dictionary Challenge over at The Craft Barn you can find details here if you want to play along. This weeks challenge is letter M but only words from Ma to Me - a cunning twist to stop people cheating! I'm using an old French-English dictionary - so my word for this week is Magasin which means shop.

Here are my pages... (remember you can click on the photos to look at them in more detail)

and here are some detail shots...

As soon as I decided on using the word Magasin I knew I wanted to use the fabulous Graphic 45 Olde Curiosity Shoppe papers and then find some stamps or images to provide additional curious "stock" for my gorgeous fantasy shop.  I had a really fun time going through my stash to find interesting stamps and rub-ons for embellishments and, of course, what would an old curiosity shop be without a  genuine flying pig?

You can just about see the acetate flying mechanism, top right in this shot...

If you look really closely at these two pictures (above and below) you can just about see the large clock face stamped on the background. It is coming from behind the left hand edge of the portrait of the Bee Lady and curving round over the fish. (I wanted to have lots of layers of interest on the page, but as this layout is in a book which needs to be close-able, I can't build up too much dimension) 

I love the dresser crammed with curios in the Graphic 45 paper and have added

• a penny farthing
• a fish
• a toy boat
• an hour glass
• a weather vane

can you spot them?

At the bottom of the next shot you can just see the alphabet washi tape I have used to "ground" the images

Hidden behind the peacock feather is a birdcage, a bicycle and a compass (you can see these better if you click on the first photo to enlarge it).

Supplies

Patterned paper

Graphic 45 Olde Curiosity Shoppe 6x6 stack

Inks

Distress Inks - Antique Linen (background inking applied with inking tool and clock face stamped behind dresser), Gathered Twigs (toy boat, hour glass, fish, compass and bicycle) Shabby Shutters (colouring on toy boat) Stormy Skies and Weathered Wood (colouring on fish)

Tsukineko Versafine - Onyx Black (bird cages, chandelier, tiny frame, pointing finger)

Stamps

Tiny frame - Studio G
Pointing finger, owl cage and chandelier - Pink Paislee - Phantom
Large clock face - Kanban
Compass - Prima #555023
Bicycle - Royal and Langnickel - Journey stamps
Standing birdcage - cArt-us - Birds with cage
Hour glass, fish and toy boat - A la Maison - Billy Bosun's 13 Stamps and Stationery of the Deep Blue Sea

Rub-ons

Bee Lady's bee - 7 Gypsies - Rubbings - Element Fragments
Weather Vane - Royal and Langnickel - Home Collage

Other

Penny Farthing, Peacock feather, washi tape - from stash
PinFlair silicone glue

Top Tip

Rub-ons and flimsy dictionary paper are not best friends! - The dresser is strategically placed over an "oops" where the adhesive on the rub-on has lifted the surface off the paper - you have been warned! ;0)

I REALLY REALLY REALLY enjoyed doing these pages (can you tell?) I hope you like them too.

Oh and regular visitors please note the complete absence of my tiny Harlequin stamp (I had a bit of a twitch but I stayed strong!!!)

TTFN

H is for Homme

Hello friends...


I mentioned in my last post that I was planning on joining in with the Alpha/Dictionary Challenge over at The Craft Barn (details here). The idea behind the challenge is to alter a dictionary, in whatever style you prefer, but following the fortnightly prompts from The Craft Barn DT.

I am already three letters behind and will have to play catch up at some point! The current prompt is the letter H and as the dictionary I am using is my old French - English dictionary from my A Level days my H is for Homme - which fits in very nicely with the Sunday Stampers Challenge #245 which is "Man of the World" - lucky eh?

So here is my  first finished altered dictionary page...

I began by using a  tiny frame stamp to highlight my word (as per the challenge remit) then used an ink blending tool to apply a light coat of Antique Linen DI over both pages (leaving the definition un-inked).

  

Next I built up layers of subtle colour and interest in the background using stamped images in Scattered Straw and Tea Dye DIs and Jet Black Ranger Archival. The rather dapper gentleman is stamped directly on to the page using Jet Black Archival - I love the look of stamping faces on text paper (you might remember my mixed media angel here).

Despite the background stamping the page still looked a bit flat and uninspiring but the problem with altering a book - unless you gut some of the pages, is that you can't go for  full on chunky embellies and texture as it will be impossible to close the book or work on future pages very easily. So - I had to find something with as little dimension as possible to add interest. A quick sortie round the boxes, drawers and cubbies in my craft room produced some washi tape and American Crafts embellishments that started me off in the right direction...

The details

Stamps

Background - IndigoBlu - Crackle Glaze Background; Crafty Individuals (freebies) - Crown and flourish; Tiny harlequin stamp - unknown

Tiny frame - Studio G
Dapper Chap - Inkylicious - Mr Blaketon
Pointing left finger - Pink Paislee - Phantom
Pointing right finger. clock and pen - Pink Paislee - Daily Junque

Inks

Distress Inks: Antique Linen, Scattered Straw, Tea Dye
Ranger Archival: Jet Black

Other

Washi Tape - Cavallini and Co - Numbers
Leather Fleur de Lys - American Crafts - Townhouse
Red embroidery floss - Anchor
Postage stamp

This was a fun project, challenging in both finding a french word to fit in with the prompt and in keeping the page flat, but I really enjoyed it - ready for the next one now...

Thanks for stopping by

WOYWW 194 and finished Art Journal Page

Hello happy blog hoppers and a warm welcome to you and also to my new followers. Thank you for visiting and for your lovely comments.

If you're visiting for the first time and are wondering what WOYWW is all about visit Julia's blog to find out more and join in the fun - try it - you'll be hooked!

This week I am big on multi tasking as I am working on three projects at once - my Art Journal page which you could see the makings of in my WOYWW 192 post, my Art Journaling class homework task (a spring themed page - hmmm - needs more work) and my submission for Sunday Stampers (of course) which I am also going to submit for the Craft Barn's Alpha / Dictionary Challenge - yet another challenge I am late starting!!!

Anyway - here's my desk - and I admit I did have a quick tidy up for two reasons

1. It was awash with scrap paper I had been using to protect everything from the over spray from my Dylusions inks
2. I had lost my tiny harlequin stamp UH OH - and as you'll know if you've been following my blog recently - I don't seem to be able to complete a project without using it!

And this is my "pens n tools" end of the desk

I remembered to do some close-ups this week. Here's my Dictionary Challenge/Sunday Stampers piece in progress...

And here is my finished journal page...

Credits for the digital collage elements are as follows:

Sun, border and birds - Nancy Baumiller (Crowabout StudioB) Love the World: Sun, Border3, Bird2
Girl - Nancy Baumiller (Crowabout StudioB) Joyous Journey: Woman Dancing all from Deviant Scrap.com

Leaf stamps are Dyan Reaveley Further Around the Edge, Inks are Dylusions spray inks

Song Lyrics are Green Garden by Laura Mvula - the deep green and blue colours in the background made me think of the serenity of a shady garden and the lyrics seemed to fit with the solace I find in my own garden.

Got to dash now - will post my link and then blog hop later... see you soon and thanks for dropping by.

Get me - not crawling in under the wire! Sunday Stampers #244 and ABAC #12

Hello and Happy Valentine's Day to you and a very big thank you to all my WOYWW visitors who inspired me to carry on with a project which - if I'm honest - was a bit like pulling teeth!

Any way... 

I can't believe this is my THIRD post of the week - (OK I'm only managing this because I'm ironing on a need to wear basis!) I wanted to get my submissions in for Sunday Stampers (Endless Love) and Anything But A Card (Share the love) without having to rush (too much).

So here is my offering...

And here are some detail shots

(Handmade lace flower)

I have never done a project that has been such a roller coaster ride as this one! 

I loved my initial background stamping, but OH DEAR when I added colour to the canvas AAARGH!!! I hated it, not even my favourite crumpled tissue paper trick worked - it looked more like something from Chainsaw Massacre than Endless Love! So on Wednesday (gosh was that only yesterday?!) a coat of gesso and a rapid retreat were called for. 

After a spirit lifting voyage round the WOYWW world and some kind and uplifting reciprocal visits, I hit my craft room in a flurry of lace and flowers this morning and - in my eyes anyway - a phoenix has risen from the ashes! (or maybe that should be splashes? - groan)

Here or the (now not so gory) details

Canvas

8x8 ins Daler Rowney canvas board

Die

Sizzix BigZ / Tim Holtz Alterations - Caged Bird

Stamps

Background text - Paper Artsy Hot Picks HP1006; Tiny Harlequin - unknown

Winged heart and rose vine - Kanban Stamp 09

Inks

Images - Ranger Archival - Jet Black (second impression used for rose vine)

Background - Distress Stains - Spun Sugar, Fired Brick, Weathered Wood

Bird cage - DI - Vintage Photo

Scroll - DI - Antique Linen

Markers (for colouring heart) - Promarkers - Ruby, Cardinal  Red

Wings - highlighted with Sakura Gelly Roll Clear Star

Paint

Bird cage - Hobbycraft acrylic - antique gold

Other

Embossing powder - (bird cage) Stampin Stuff - Vertigre

Cream cotton lace

Vintage brass button

Mulberry paper roses

Red foam roses

Heart shaped deco pin 

Well that's all for now, I'm off to post my links, hope you like the end result, see you soon.

WOYWW 193 - Warts 'n' All

Hello and welcome

A very quick post today as I am zooming out to do the school run in 25 minutes.

Here's my workdesk in a bit of a tip as I am mid project on my hearts submission for Sunday Stampers Challenge. I walked away from this last night feeling much disgruntled and not liking the background on the canvas I am doing - (so much so I covered it with gesso as a mark of disrespect!) Today I'm seeing possibilities and a resurrection may be on the cards.

Almost inevitably you can see Distress Inks and even this time Distress Stains and my go to tiny harlequin background stamp is making another appearance far left, apart from that it's mainly a mess of kitchen towel and tissue paper.

I noticed on my WOYWW hop last week that some of you were discussing Distress Ink swatches - you can see mine far right. You can download blank ones (updated with new colours I see - guess what I'll be doing later!) HERE - it is also worth doing this on a sheet of Kraft cardstock as the effect of the ink is different (tattered rose disappears completely) You can also download side labels for your Distress Inks at the same link (Ranger Industries).


Anyway apart from proving that I am a bit of an organisation freak (I was a Civil Engineering Librarian in a former life - old habits die hard) I hope this has been a useful visit for you. Hope to come visiting later but...

TTFN

Sunday Stampers Challenge #242

Hello!

This weeks challenge theme is WISH - which is Hels' word for 2013. You can join in the Sunday Stampers Challenge here.

As I said in my WOYWW (What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday) post (here) I was very much inspired by the new Craft Stamper magazine which arrived this week, so my project, my first tag of 2013, is my take on Christine Dark's beautiful "Cut and Collage" wall hanging (pg 8 March issue of Craft Stamper) with a little bit of  Penny Bennington's charcoal shading (CS pg 28) thrown in. Thank you ladies!

Some close ups

I love the effect of the Inka Gold on the edges of the butterfly

This piece really evolved as it went along.

I started off with a greyboard tag (cut with a Movers and Shapers die) which I coated with a thin layer of gesso. I then stamped with a Prima text stamp and Jet Black StazOn at the top left and bottom right to give my first layer (you can JUST see this top right of photo above).

Next came a layer of white tissue paper which I crumpled up and them smoothed out and adhered using matte medium - I wasn't too careful how this was laid down as the extra wrinkles gave more texture.

When this had dried (with a little help from ye olde heat gun) I lightly inked all over with various Distress Inks (listed below) and applied some Vintage Photo around the edge to "frame" the tag (Top Tip - thanks Hels!).

Next came the floral stamp, again in Jet Black StazOn. As I don't have any Distress Markers I used Ranger pen nibs to colour the floral image with more Distress Inks. At this stage I had an "Oh no I don't like it" moment, as the inks I'd chosen for the flowers (Mustard Seed and Picked Raspberry (duh)) were too vivid. Thinking  a step ahead I decided that I could tone the colours down with another layer of tissue but that it would give a nice effect if my die cut elements also had the crumpled tissue texture. So I adhered the butterflies with glue stick and then added another layer of crumpled tissue as before.

When this layer had dried, I stamped the butterfly wings with my tiny harlequin stamp in Saddle Brown StazOn. Next I painted the butterflies with slightly diluted Folk Art acrylic in Berry Wine. When this was dry I went carefully around the edges of each butterfly with a charcoal pencil and then used my fingers to blend the charcoal back - this really made the butterflies pop off the page - but the wings still needed a bit of "something" so I rubbed some pale gold Inka Gold around the wing edges, antennae and bodies - perfect!

Finally I printed the text out on the computer, cut it in to strips, lightly inked with Antique Linen to soften the bright white, and ran a Ranger Archival coffee ink pad round the edge for definition. A glue stick, foam pads and a bit of lace finished the project. I do hope you like it!

Those all important details

Stamps

Text - Prima #555146
Flower - Paper Artsy HP1109
Harlequin - unknown

Ink

Background, Distress Inks - Tumbled Glass, Chipped Sapphire, Wild Honey, Vintage Photo
Flower, Distress Inks - Forest Moss, Mustard Seed, Picked Raspberry
Images, StazOn - Jet Black and Saddle Brown

Paint

Plaid Folk Art - Berry Wine

Chipboard

Butterflies - Crafty Bitz

Other

Greyboard, Inka Gold, cotton lace, staples

And finally, because we were discussing how tidy or otherwise our desk are on WOYWW here's a picture of my desk at the end of the project - bit of a difference!

Thanks for looking.