Art Journal Walk Through

It's been so long since I blogged, that the journal art cover I posted is now full of art and done.  I really loved this journal.  The sizes of the pages were large and perfect...probably the biggest I've done yet.  I glued every two pages together so the spreads I worked on were heavy and substantial. 

 Here is a spread with paint and patterned paper in stripes and rectangles.

I love the stencil on this page and the next page with different colors.

Yummy magenta and purple colors

Stripes of patterned paper and rectangles again.  Love the cool colors.

 This is probably one of my favorite spreads with warm and cool colors mixed together.

Delicious cool colors all mixed together here...

Dying Easter Eggs

I admit it.  I'm 42 years old and Allen and I still like to dye Easter eggs although we haven't done it in a while.  This year we did a dozen...used crayons...mixed the dyes together near the end.  It was fun.  You should do it.  You still have time to run to the store today and get a package of dye.  Heck, go do it now.

Happy Easter!

Tutorial: New Art Journal Cover Design

 It was time for a new journal and I wanted to try something bigger than I'm used to working in.  Allen and I went to the library and hit the book store.  I found this spiral bound book with great hard covers and the pages had pretty good weight to them too.  Not hugely excited about it being a pregnancy journal, but I'll live.

 The first step was to cover both the front and back covers with text pages.  I'm a junkie for Latin, but anything goes really.  I used an ordinary glue stick to attach the pages to the covers

 When the glue stick was dry, I scribbled with NeoColor II watersoluable crayons in green and blue.  I didn't really think about where the color was going...just scribbled...what fun!

 Then I applied water and the colors melded together...

 Next I used my soft brayer to roll on some watered down acrylic white paint.  When that was dry I started using stencils and spray on ink...sorry to say the pictures of these steps didn't turn out.

Next I made a title and added some inchies I made in the Every Inchie Monday Challenge from last year.  The green paper is again some text pages painted with green.

The last step was to add black acrylic paint with a credit card.

I'm enjoying working in this book.  The larger size was intimidating at first, but now I'm liking it.  The cover is a bit "cute" or "pretty" for me, but I love the colors and I'm glad these three inchies found homes.

Step-By-Step Journal Page - Positive Thoughts

I thought it would be fun to document making an art journal layout step-by-step so here is a page I worked on for a few days.  The fist step above was spreading acrylic paint with a credit card to create the background color.  Next I did some writing that I wanted to just get out of me and not read again.  Then I added some colored music collage bits to the sides.

 Next I added more paint on the edges and blended it it with a baby wipe.

I love stamps that are loaded with pattern so that came next.

Gotta love paper tape or washi tape...they came next.

More paint was stenciled through punchinella or sequin waste to create the little dots.  I also added some metallic paper strips and black ink with a wine cork I carved that makes squares.

Lastly I added some more uplifting words so the page would be a positive reminder with all the bad thoughts I was having buried underneath.  I love my Wite-Out correction pen for making white lines and lettering.

I hope you enjoyed seeing one of my layouts in a step-by-step process!

Blue, Green, Purple Journal Pages

Joanne Sharpe over at Whimspirations posted a little challenge to make a page out of blue, green and purple.  I'm always putting blue and green together, but loved adding a bit of purple to some of my layouts too.  The background layout above I made just for this challenge, the very back color is a seafoam green but photographed blue.  I think it still needs a bit...but like so many art journaling folks, we just keep layering right?  The pages below are still evolving, but I'm trying to add the blue, green and purple to all of them (they started out just green and blue...I love the purple additions too!). 

Calendar - September

I finally finished September's page and filled in all the dates that I had saved on a post it note.  The background was watercolor and pigment inks.  The daily squares were painted with watercolor.  The borders are thin strips of text pages in Italian and Latin.  Overall I'm sort of happy with it.  I wanted the background to be red, but my watercolors were not cooperating this time.

Every Inchie Monday - Sparkle

The theme for Every Inchie Monday this week was sparkle. Ooo, gimme gimme...I can do sparkle with the best of them!  I started with a splattered watercolor background and added Pearl Ex powders, inexpensive larger rhinestones, tiny little 2.5mm Preciosa flat back rhinestones in peridot and then a bit of glitter puffy paint.  The border was done with silver metallic pen.  Yum!  Although I'm not a sparkly person in real life, I do have a lot of sparkly bits in my studio.

Every Inchie Monday - Kiss

The theme for Every Inchie Monday this week was "kiss".  Hmm...what to do...what to do.  I wanted to make an inchie I could leave for Allen.  I think he'll like this one.

The background is different shades of pink acrylic paint that I spritzed with water so they blended together.  "Smooch" was written with a Glaze pen and I put a layer of gold glitter puffy paint on top of the whole thing. 

What do you think?

Calendar Pages July and August

When summer hits I tend to live on my deck.  It's hard for me to go down into my art room, even with it's windows...I really just want to be outside.  I did manage to make my July page and fill it in.  I admit that I was keeping most "events" for July on post it notes and then occasionally making it downstairs to fill in the days.  July's page was made with splashes of watercolor and the large flower stamps are actually a packing peanut.

Allen and I quit smoking on July 30th.  We're really, really good smokers so I tried to keep my hands busy the first few days.  August's page was washes of watercolor and then one of our first nights not smoking I just doodled and doodled swirls on the border.  It took about an hour or so and really kept my hands busy.

September is coming soon...right now I'm again keeping a note on each day on post it notes. 

Every Inchie Monday - Books

The theme for Every Inchie Monday this week was "books".  I loved the theme!  I am a complete foreign text book junkie.  My favorite are Latin books but they're so hard to find...or if you do find them they tend to be too expensive..I've been lucky to find 4 Latin books over the years that weren't too pricey.  I have over 20 other books in my collection including Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Russian, Japanese and some American dictionaries.  For this weeks inchie I pulled pages from my foreign text books and cut strips of text as thin as I could get them.

I started with layers in two directions from every foreign text book I owned.  I cut the strips thin, removing all the blank white space and glued them down with a glue stick and let them dry thoroughly. 

To finish off the inchie (although I liked it without color) I added swirls of colored chalk in various blues and greens.  My favorite way to add chalk is to use little pom poms that you can get at Micheal's or AC Moore.

What do you think?

Card: 17 Year Anniversary Card

Every time I make a card for Allen, I try to do something "out of the box" that he hasn't seen, because of course he's seen just about everything I've done before.  A couple weeks ago, I saw Joanne Sharpe's blog post at Creative Imaginations Blog  and I knew I had to try drawing with my dimensional paints.  I've used them before to add dots or lines to a piece, but never thought of drawing with them.  I had so much fun!  I didn't have any of the Radiant Rain paints she suggested for filling in...but they're definitely first on my "time to treat myself/what to buy next" list.

The background of this card are pieces of foreign text pages covered with watered down acrylic paints and splattered with gold metallic acrylic paint.  The heart and "iloveyou" was written with the $1 dimensional fabric paint in shiny black they have at Micheal's.  I cut out the heart and made it raised with double sided puffy tape available at Office Max.

Allen loved the card.  Inside I wrote a list of things I love to do with him.  We had a really fun anniversary yesterday and sometimes it feels like just a few years even though it's been 17 years together!

Thanks Joanne for the inspiration!  And Allen, it's been an amazing 17 years love :)

Every Inchie Monday - Sweet

When I thought about the theme this week for the Every Inchie Monday challenge, I wanted to use the yummy colors of candy and I thought about the inchie I made a few weeks ago that was orange and pink and sort of delicious looking.  I made two new inchies this week and put them together with the inchie from a few weeks ago and made them into a card to send my Mom.  She really loves my inchies, although her sight is a bit compromised being a bit older, she always comments on the details that I include in my inchies.  I really love trying to squeeze as much as I can into a little inch...it's such a fun challenge!  The card I made from her is below.

Card: Marvin and Annette's Wedding

 Last week was my nephew Marvin's wedding.  He found Annette about a year ago and she's so bubbly and fun!  I'm so happy for them both!  I of course had to make them a card and found this little phrase a few months ago and wrote it down, I think it's perfect for a wedding or anniversary card.

The background is painted vintage music paper ripped on the edges and splattered with gold paint.  I also splattered the envelope and inside of the card with gold paint.  The middle ground papers are two different gold foil patterned papers on cream from India.  The front paper is card stock that I had lettered.  I think a border was needed around the lettering, but I didn't have the room once it was done.  This card took about 4 hours to make...not sure if I'm poky or picky! ;)
I hope they like it!

Step-By-Step: June Calendar Page

I finished June's calendar page a few days after June started...I always seem to do that.  Anyway, I am so into the green in my yard and all around me this time of year I thought the page should be as green as possible.  This background is splattered watercolor and watered down acrylic paint through a stencil of abstract squares.  

The day squares are made from lime green watercolor paint applied to cardstock.  There's a bit of brush marks on the squares that the camera didn't really pick up.

The finished page has June written in water based Sharpie paint marker.  I also stamped a few images around the edges in black StazOn ink.  I was really happy with how the individual day squares turned out, I just loosely brushed watercolor around each square and then added the day number in black gel pen.

I hope you have a ton of wonderful things to remember in June!  Happy green days!

Tutorial: Frosted Glass Candle Holders

 With our new table out on the deck finally delivered, I thought it was time for new candle holders outside.  I started with simple glass votive and round candle holders from Micheal's as the base.  Using an X-Acto knife on a healing pad with a ruler, I cut varying lengths and widths of masking tape.

I covered each of the candle holders with lots of strips of tape.  Using Krylon white frosted glass paint, I painted each of the glass holders with two coats of paint letting the first coat dry before I did the second coat.  Use a sweeping motion from side to side to apply the paint. 

I let them dry for about an hour before removing the tape.  Pretty fun!

I really like them when they're lit up at night.  See the wonderful patterns the cast behind them?

I hope you enjoyed this step-by-step process.  Happy summer!