Every Inchie Monday - Home

This week at Every Inchie Monday the theme was "home".  I truly do love my home and my yard, especially at this time of year when everything is green and we're planting new things. 

This inchie was made with colored foreign text pages and acrylic paint and a very pointy detail scissors.

Tutorial: Checkered Art Journal Background

Here is one of my favorite techniques for creating a multi-layered background that can be as colorful or as subdued as you want it to be.  Plan to get a bit messy with this fun process.

 

 Start by taking text printed pages from vintage books and give them some color.  Using inexpensive acrylic paints, squirt a line at the top of the book page and drag the color down with a plastic gift card or old credit card.  Watery, inexpensive acrylic paints work best for this...save your expensive acrylics for a later step.

Make a  bunch of pages like this with lots of bright colors.  Brighter, dark colors work best for this.

Rip the pages up and make a patchwork page of the ripped pieces.  You can paint the background pages first if you want, but here I left them white. Glue the colored text pieces down with a glue stick or gel medium.

Put a thin, watered down layer of white paint or gesso over the colored patchwork.  The less you use, obviously the more color that will show through.  I vary the amount of white, but on this spread I used a lot of white and really blotted out the colors for a more subtle effect.

Use a cosmetic sponge to create a checkerboard of squares using white or off white paint.  Here I tend to use a higher quality brand of acrylic paint that isn't so watery because it's more opaque.

Fill the entire page with a checkerboard.

Outline some of the squares with metallic acrylic paint in a random pattern using a paintbrush.  I outline about 1/3 of the squares.  My favorite brand of metallic paint is Utrect Iridescent Gold. This adds just a touch of interest to the entire layout.

Now you have a background ready for all different applications and lots of layers if you so desire.  Below are two ways I've used this background.

On this page my background papers were dark red, green and purple.  I put ripped pieces of a paint blotter page on the left and right side filling in the page with writing.

For this page I used all blue and turquoise text pages for the under layer.  I also used a glaze of blue paint on the outside edge and then filled the inside with text and babblings.

What do you think?  If you try this technique I'd love to see what you do!

Step-By-Step: A Striped Page in Beth's Journal

About once a month, Beth and I exchange Moleskin journals.  We were paired together from one of my online art journal groups last Fall and it's an absolute blast getting her journal to work in and see what she's put into mine each month.  Here is a spread of pages I did in her journal...

I started by stenciling through scrapbook paper with acrylic paint in dark purple.  I then put a wash of lighter purple paint to color the spaces in between.

 This piece of cardstock I decorated a while ago with splatters of watercolor paint.  I then drew random swirls around the paper with a black Pitt pen.  Using a ruler and Exacto knife I then cut the paper.

I cut the paper into strips that weren't uniform in width for interest.  Using a glue stick I attached them to the page leaving about a 1/4-1/2" in between the strips.

Because the book is so fat, I found it easiest to simply cut off the excess with a detail scissors.

The last step was to fill in some writing.  I used a Glaze black gel pen on the purple parts.

I hope she likes this spread!

Every Inchie Monday - Fancy

 

I was almost going to skip this week at the Every Inchie Monday challenge...I'm just not a "fancy" type of person (fancy being the theme this week)...but then I remembered all the tiny rhinestone flat backs I have and once again I was able to jump to the challenge.  I love when I work outside my comfort zone...I think it makes me a better artist.  This inchie was created with a weave of watercolor splashed paper and 2mm rhinestone flat backs from Preciosa.  I love Preciosa crystals...they're about 1/2 the price of Swarovski crystals and the sparkle and colors are amazing.  I hope your week is full of sparkle!

Every Inchie Monday - Pink

The theme for Every Inchie Monday this week was pink.  Honestly?  Ick...I hate pink.   But...I love a good challenge and stepping outside the familiar color themes I usually use was actually kind of fun.  I dug through my scrap bins looking for pink...there wasn't much to choose from, but I found a piece of watercolor paper that had been splattered in both orange and pink and things just fell into place after that.  I love working on such a tiny little canvas and seeing what I can put in such a small space.

This inchie was created simply with a bunch of little scraps of paper, all different shades of pink.  The paper flower was colored with ink and the rhinestone was glued on with gold glitter puffy paint.

 

 Here are two of my scrap bins.  The one on the left is a Godiva chocolate box filled with itty bitty scraps and the shoe box size box on the right is filled with smaller scraps.  I also have a medium size scrap box.  Soooo many scraps...what to do with them all?  Join the Every Inchie Monday challenge and start using your little scraps!

Link Love:

Take a look at this amazing paper cut out work of Emma Van Leest.  I try to work at having more patience with things, but I couldn't even fathom doing such gorgeous work as this.

Playing in the yard

Not a whole lotta art going on this weekend, instead we've been playing in the yard.  It was a bit too early to buy all the annuals we wanted, so we got what we could and will do the rest of the yard next weekend.  This weekend we mainly did the pots for the deck and planted a couple of perennials.

 

Empty pots waiting to be cleaned of their leftover dirt from last year and filled with new dirt and flowers.

 Our back deck is shady so impatiens are about our only choice for bright color.

I love our two new perennial additions to our sun bed, these are spring blooming Columbines, one in pink and one in a bluish purple.  I have to admit I'm a junkie when it comes to blue flowers...they're not very common are they?

It was a gorgeous sunny weekend here in Pennsylvania, not too warm not too chilly.  I hope it's gorgeous where you are and filled with spring flowers!

Step By Step Calendar Page - May

I finally got started on May's calendar page just a couple days before May started...it came to me pretty quickly...my backyard is starting to green up and I wanted the page to mimic all the gorgeous greens!  Here are the steps I went through to make the page:

First I splattered two pieces of card stock with green and turquoise watercolor.

Next I painted another piece of cardstock with a pale green watercolor and cut out my squares.  The leaves are cut from Latin text pages painted with green and turquoise acrylic paint.

I then outlined the leaves with a water based Sharpie paint marker and spritzed watered down ink on the squares.  

The last step was to outline each day with the Sharpie marker and number them.  I also lettered the large "May" in Sharpie paint marker and colored it in with darker turquoise watercolor and used the same paint to outline the days of the month.

Now it's time to start filling in the days...

Calendar Pages

At the beginning of the year, I saw a lot of people making calendar pages where there was a little space for each day...write an event or something special that happened each day...sounded like a fun project and I jumped right in.  Here are the pages I've made so far this year.  The square for each day measures 1.25 inches...

 January was made with splashed watercolor, Perfect Pearls splashed on, swirls drawn with water based Sharpie paint markers and a snowflake stamp.

February was made with hearts painted with masking fluid and the heart cut outs decorated with medium point gel markers.

March was made with splashed on watercolor (can you tell I love this technique?), watercolor on bubble wrap printed on the splashed background and swirl stamps were highlighted with metallic paint pens.

 

 April started out with a watercolor background, gold paint sponged through punchinella and rabbit stamps around the border with pigment ink.

As usual, I waited until the last minute to start May (where do the days go?) but I hope to finish it tonight and I'll post it tomorrow.  Lots of green is going on to mimic my backyard that is starting to green up so beautifully! 

Every Inchie Monday - Heart

The theme for Every Inchie Monday this week is heart...easy, I love working with hearts.  I used different foreign text pages and some tiny little scraps of handmade paper.  Like last weeks inchie, I used black acrylic paint and a cosmetic sponge to apply black paint to the edges of the inchie and the heart...the heart was tricky since it was so tiny.

Camera Playing

 I am in love with my new camera.  I had been shooting with a Canon Rebel and the pictures just weren't turning out right no matter what I did or what I tried.  Two weeks ago I finally ordered a Nikon D3100 with the intention of "just trying it and sending it back"...that ain't gonna happen.  This baby is mine and I'm keeping it.  No present for my birthday, anniversary, Christmas...for the rest of my life?  In order to justify keeping it I told myself I need to figure out how to shoot totally manual and lots of subjects.  So today I tried things that were in bloom in our yard...yum!

 

Gorgeous deep purple Azalea in the backyard.

I'm not sure what this pretty little white "weed" is that comes up in spring in Pennsylvania...do you know what it is?  Please let me know if you do...yummy isn't it?

Yummy Cool Colors

Sometimes you just need to play don't you?  This page started with a smear of green paints with a credit card...then I smeared emerald green paint through punchinella to create the large dots.  The next day I really needed a play release so I glued down lots of foreign text pages that had been colored with acrylic paints.  I also stamped some commercial stamps and my own swirl stamp in black StazOn ink.  I still think it needs a bit more, but I'm loving the playing.  I doubt this page will have writing on it...too much going on without the writing.

Every Inchie Monday - Joy

The theme this week at Every Inchie Monday was joy.  A bit tricky...I always associate the word joy with Christmas, but it's April...a Christmas inchie would definitely not be appropriate for April.  So I thought of something that brings me joy and one thing is definitely music.  I love listening to music whether it's at work, in the car, while cooking dinner or working in my art journals. So I went with a music theme...

This inchie was created with vintage music paper splattered with lime green and turquoise ink (reinkers with water added).  Two strips of painted vintage text were added to the right and the "joy" is written with black puffy paint.  The fuzzy black edge was created with black acrylic paint applied with a cosmetic sponge.

Quote: Domino with another bout of stasis

I've been a little absent from my blog lately because we've been dealing with another bout of stasis with Domino.  It's a pretty common ailment with rabbits where their digestive systems shuts down, but it can cause death in 24 hours.  We had to administer drugs, food and water by force for days to get him through this but luckily he started eating and thus taking his drugs voluntarily after 3 days.  I kept thinking of this quote every day and knew I had to letter it.  He really scared the sh*t out of us this time.  Usually he snaps out of it pretty quick, but not this time.  Allen and I can handle this and we always seem to nurse him back to health but it's so hard...and this time it seemed particularly tricky.  And you feel so terrible bun-handling him too.

I did this quote with Micron pens and colored it with watercolor.  Domino and the border were masked with masking fluid to create the white.  He's such a bright white, shining star in our lives.  We just love this little guy but I really, really, really hope this is the last time he'll get sick.

Leave a note for your sweetie

Allen is on a pool league on Thursday nights and comes home pretty late...way later than when I go to bed so I like to leave him a little note sometimes.  I have to admit that I run out of ideas though what to write or what the little note should look like.  This week I realized I had a ton of shipping tags and wouldn't it be fun to leave him a really big message made out of these tags.  Sometimes it's amazing how "free" I get when I make things for Allen...these tags took less than a half an hour...he must be a bit of a muse in my brain somehow. :)

These manila tags were painted with inexpensive watercolors, detailed with Micron and Pitt pens and I added an extra bit of color with Prismacolor colored pencils.  My favorite detail is the black lines made with StazOn ink on a piece of corrugated cardboard from a disposable drink cozy.

Should you leave a little note for your sweetie, roommate or best friend this week?  I promise they'll love it!

Every Inchie Monday - Friendship

When I thought of the theme of friendship this week on Every Inchie Monday Allen was the first one that sprang to mind.  He's my best friend in every way imaginable.  A girl couldn't ask for a better friend...love that guy!

I was picked at random as the featured inchie this week...how fun!

This inchie was made with Micron pens and colored with Koi Watercolors.