Art Journal....Be Brave & Create Art

Welcome to my blog! A place where I share my creations - art journals, scrapbooking, cardmaking and mixed media. I hope you enjoy your stay and visit often. Leave me a comment so I can visit your blog. I love making new crafty friends and being inspired.

Today I am going to share a journal page I just completed in my calculus textbook. 

Once a month I co-host a local crop for a lovely group of ladies. It's a lot of fun but I usually don't get a lot done except backgrounds in my art journal. This is how this journal page started and then sat unfinished for about month until this past week when inspiration hit.

My journal pages where prepped with a light coat of gesso. Once this was dry I took some Distress Paint - Gathered Twigs, Tea Dye & Scattered Straw - and dripped some of each colour on the right side page. I then closed the book, gently pressed down on it then opened it up again.

 Overall, I was pretty happy with how it turned out but to add another I pressed some Vintage Photo Distress Oxide on to my craft mat the smooshed my journal into it. I spritzed some water on my pages to activate the oxidation effect then dried my pages with my heat tool.

The Splash Layering Stencil from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous is a new fave. I decided to do the stencil monoprint technique with Distress Oxide - Worn Lipstick. I pressed my oxide ink pad directly on my stencil. Then gave it a spritz of water before turning it over on to my pages.

I repeated this few times over both pages and then repeated it a few more times with Cracked Pistachio Distress Oxide.

Next I took my ink blending tool and applied some Walnut Stain Distress Ink along the edges and did some spritz & flick with water. I quick dry and that is how this page stayed for weeks.

I wish I would have taken photos of what I did next - but hopefully I can described it well enough to still inspire you.


I began by collecting a few items to add circles with gesso to my page....I used bottle top, empty medicine bottle and a round piece of dense foam. I dipped each in white gesso to add random circle on my pages. Next I took my set of Brights Distress Crayons and added some colour to my circles.

Next I took a paint brush and lightly dry brushed some white gesso around the circles the into the centre of the page. This really helped the circles to stand out.
Once the gesson had completely dried I took my black Sharpie and roughly doodled around the circles.

I used my Black Soot Distress Crayon to darken the edges and around the circles before adding some script stamping. Finally I added this little dapper guy from my pack of Paper Dolls from Tim Holtz Idea-ology line. I love these paper dolls! I glued some Quote Chips to the opposite page and this journal page was done.

Stencil Monoprint Technique

Hello my crafty friends!

I'm here to share a card I made using a pretty simple technique for the background - stencil monoprint. It's one of my favourite techniques and I use it for cards, scrapbook pages and in my art journal. Here is a close up of the background.

I started with a 6"x 6" piece of Superstock from Creative Scrapbooker Magazine. My friend, Nicole, insisted I give it a try since I love mixed media. I had my doubts since I have tried many smooth heavy cardsock before and wasn't thrilled with the results. This Superstock is amazing! It can take a lot of abuse from wet media and still look smooth. I'm definitely a Superstock convert.

I took a couple of my Distress Oxides ink pads - Fossilized Amber & Fired Brick, and swiped them diagonally across a Tim Holtz Layering Stencil - Coundown, from Stampers Anonymous. I was careful not overlap the colours so as to not contaminate my ink pads.

After a few sprays of water over the ink I took a paper towel and wiped off the ink from the sides of the stencil. I didn't want to see any hard edges on my background.

Now its time for the magic - I flipped my stencil over on to the Superstock, and pressed it down lightly with a roll of papertowel. I let the stencil sit on the Superstock for about 20 seconds before removing it. I love how this background turned out. I took my spray bottle and gave the ink a quick spritz before drying with my heat tool.

My background is done and now it is time to work on my stamped images.

Thanks to my Misti & Versafine Onyx Black ink I get some beautifully crisp stamped images. I love my Misti. I stamped a Crazy Cat, a few balloons from the Crazy Accessories set and a Happy Birthday sentiment.  I used my Distress Ink and water brush to colour in my images. Then I diecut them out with the matching dies from Sizzix. 

I used dimensional foam to adhere them down to my background.

Here is my finished card. 

More Playing With Crayons - Make & Take Tag

I am still playing my Distress Crayons and learning new techniques. 

Here is one I tried just as an experiment & I loved it so much I used 

it for the make & take at our last Paradise Lost Crop.

I started with a cardstock tag covered with a layer of white gesso before 

scribbling 3 colours across the tag.

Next a quick spritz of water over the entire tag and then I took my scraper tool

to the tag.

I pulled the scraper tool across the tag to drag the colour down the tag. 

I love the rough look it made over the gesso. 

Next I ran my tag through the embossing folder. To make the embossed image pop off the tag I gently rubbed the Festive Berries Distress crayon over it then rubbed it with my finger. 

I added some Black Soot Distress Crayon to the edge, an embossed butterfly from the Sizzix Butterfly Duo die. The sentiment is a stamp from Dyan Reaveley.

Mosaic Heart ~ My Tim Tag April 2016

I'm here to share my take on Tim's Tag Remix for this month. I wasn't sure about the whole mosaic thing but when I was able to get my hands on the Distress Paper Mosaic Kit. I decided to give it a go.

Check out Tim's blog for all the instructions here 

My first tag was a direct copy following Tim's. I really love the Distress Woodgrain cardstock - the fine details of the texture is amazing!

While I was waiting for my mosaic layers to dry I was thinking of some ideas for another tag ~ and I decided that I would try some hearts from the Sizzix Heartfelt die.

I liked how they turned out so I made tag base using cardstock covered in gesso then sprayed with Prima Color Bloom in Boysenberry.

I added some Ground Espresso Ink with my blending tool to the edges of my tag and it just made the boysenberry look so much richer.

I added another layer with the Ringer layering stencils from Tim Holtz. 

Its my new favourite stencil!

A few rub-ons, paper scraps and cheesecloth and my tag was complete!

Emerald Creek Dares - Anything Goes

It's time for another challenge from Emerald Creek Dares and this time it is Anything Goes!

This month I chose to upcycle some glass vases I found at the thrift store ($1 each!). These will be perfect to hold some cuttings from garden. My tulips, lilies & poppies are already starting to pop up so I hope the snow stays away!

On to my project....

So pretty and so simple to do!

First I gave the vases a quick clean up as they were quite dusty from being stored in the garage.

Next up I painted each vase then while the paint was still wet I sprinkled with a selection of pastel embossing powders from Emerald Creek.

Distress Paint Worn Lipstick & Emerald Creek Pastel Pink Embossing Powder

Left - Distress Paint Twisted Citron & Emerald Creek Pastel Green Embossing Powder

Right - Distress Paint Dusty Concord & Emerald Creek Pastel Lilac Embossing Powder

I left the vases to dry on their own before using my heat gun to heat set the embossing powders.

After the heat setting the embossing powders, I took an ink blending tool and applied Potting Soil Archival Ink all over the vases to highlight the beautiful details.

I dyed some crinkle ribbon for each vase using the coordinating Distress Stains and added some charms for a finishing touch.

Charms - Emerald Creek Vintage Feather Charms

& Tim Holtz Idea-ology Typed Token

I used Distress Crayons to add some colour to each charm. These work especially well 

on the Typed Tokens.

Charms - Prize Cameo Charm & Squirrel Charm (both from Emerald Creek) 

I painted the cameo charm with Wilted Violet Distress Paint and wiped away some the paint after it was dry. I used the Peeled Paint Distress Crayon on the squirrel.

Charm - Love Your Life Frame 

I found this charm in my stash and used Distress Crayon to highlight the words.

These were so much fun to make and I can't wait to fill them with some fresh flowers!

Products used for this project:

Emerald Creek Pastel Green Embossing Powder

Emerald Creek Pastel Lilac Embossing Powder

Emerald Creek Pastel Pink Embossing Powder

Emerald Creek Vintage Feather Charms

Emerald Creek Prize Cameo Charm

Emerald Creek Squirrel Charm

Distress Paints - Worn Lipstick, Twisted Citron, Dusty Concord, Wilted Violet.

Ranger Archival Ink - Potting Soil

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Typed Tokens - hope

Crinkle Ribbon

Vases - Thrift Store 

Thank you so much for visiting my blog today. 

Now it;s time to visit the rest of the Emerald Creek Design Team Blogs and get even more inspiration before you show off your Anything Goes project at the Emerald Creek Dares blog. I can't wait to see your amazing creations!

Cathy

Claudia

Diana

Katelyn

Pam

& Special Guest Blogger

Nicole Wright

beautiful.....April Tag

I bought the Stampers Anonymous Perspective stamp set from Paper Pastimes this week & I knew immediately that it would perfect for the April Tag challenge from Tim Holtz.

This tag was fun to make...I love how the background turned out. 

I chose Abandoned Coral, Cracked Pistachio & Mustard Seed for my butterfly color palette. The distress markers are so nice to work with on watercolor paper. 

I love this quote from the Perspective stamp set. I used Frayed Burlap to stamp it on the tag. 

Of course I had to use my fave color at the moment for the crinkle ribbon and spritzed it with a little bit of Frayed Burlap for a little more depth.

This was my first ever Tim Tag and it certainly won't be my last! Thanks for looking!

Challenges......
Tim Holtz April Tag
Inspiration Emporium  Anything Goes