Two for the Price of One

I think I've been very clever this week, I've used one LO sketch and created 2 totally different layouts.  I followed this sketch from Artfull crafts

 

Here is my 1st layout which I will be entering in the Artfull crafts monthly challenge.

 



This was fun to make, using lots of plain, bright coloured paper & scraps, matching the colours in the photo.  Using the TH filmstrip allows lots more photos to be added also.

All the time I was making 'Legoland' I had ideas churning around in my head for a totally different looking layout using this same sketch and this is how it has turned out, looking nothing like above.

Lots of different elements have been used here.  I started by spraying some Dylusions Ink Spray - Lemon Zest in the areas where the photos were going, then used Dylusions Crushed Grape to colour the burlap, Elegant Frame DA869, Heart Arrow #2 DA1026.  Dylusions Slate Grey was used on the Page Pebble #10 DA11154. All sprays were dripped over the page.  Prima bling and random flowers finish the page.

 

 

 I am entering this one into the Dusty Attic challenge and have used their Inspiration Board for the colours.

 

It really helps when you've got great photos to work with, both layouts were make with photos I 'borrowed' from facebook.

Bali Canvas

Today I'm sharing a canvas that has been a long time happening.  Lots of new techniques were attempted (and mastered I hope).  Many a time I put this aside and infact on more than one occasion it was nearly gesso'd over to begin again.  So please leave me some feedback (good or bad) so I can attempt another such creation.

 

 This is a 9 x 12" canvas, featuring a photo of my son and his partner during their holiday in Bali.  After a coat of gesso I followed a tutorial to create the textured background, full of crackle, dry wall tape, stamping, embossing, spray mists and magical powders. 

 

Sharon at Lindy's Stamp Gang showed her tutorial here.  LSG sprays I've used are Ramblin' Rose Pink and Sea Mint Green.  I've also used  Peony Scarlet Red and Bells of Ireland Green from the Prairie Wildflowers Magicals.

 

 

I did a lot of random embossing using a couple of stamps, the extra texture is fabulous.  Under the photo I've placed this awesome Dusty Attic Number Panel DA1050, which was coloured with a Dylusions Ink spray - Dry Martini.  I've also used the stamp randomly on this panel.

 

Lots of Finnabair ingredients were added along with metal embellishments from Faith Pocock .  I love the 'pop' of colour provided in the peacock feathers.

 

I hope you like this very 'busy' description.  I am entering this canvas in 2 different challenges:

 

Lindy's Stamp Gang

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge

 



Not the End

To chill out and hopefully help find some mojo again I've been having a bit of fun with another page in my art journal.  Lots of bright colours to cheer up these dreary days we are having at the moment.

This is the first time I've used my Dylusion paints - love them to bits, with everything being outlined with a black gelato.  TH Distress inks were used thru lots of different stencils.  Black and white sharpie pens finish the smaller details. 

As well as trying to brighten up this dreary day I've used the inspiration board from Scrap around the World whose monthly challenge I will enter this into.  I've used all the bright colours, the flowers and the steps in my page.

 

I just love the quote I've used  - "You can't run out of Creativity so this is not the end".  I may even use this on a page I've got to create in an journal swap I'm doing at the moment as we are very close to the end.  This page is my interpretation of one of the masses of works I've seen on facebook, thank you to the original artist.  

Let's Upcycle

Time for another blog hop with Imagine if . .  and for this week Jo has left it open and has allowed us to do anything we please.  If you are following the hop correctly, you should  have come to me from Katrina's  awesome creation,

 This has been a great chance to do a bit more with my storage boxes, as I have planned to ultimately have all boxes looking pretty - yeah right ! !  I store my individual and random papers by colour and decided to paint several pizza boxes for the job, to be decorated as time permitted.  So here is my first decorated box.

 

This box obviously is for all my green paper, so I wanted everything to be differing shades of green.  I started by covering the box with scraps of green papers, then added some texture by using texture paste through several different templates, added random scraps of laces, dry wall tape, & random flowers.  These were all gesso'd, then all was coloured with various layers of green paints, Dylusions ink sprays & Lindys stamp gang sprays.  The grey Prima flowers were painted, then sprayed; the old black flourish with black felt flowers were painted, the quote was distressed then inked to match as well.  The peacock feathers add a bit more dimension and interest as well. 

 

When it was all assembled and glued down I thought it would look great with a face in the middle, so if you look carefully you will see I've inked thru one of the Imagine if . .   face stencils.  Sadly with all the texture and with the flowers already attached its hard to see, but I wasn't brave enough to use a stronger colour incase it didn't look good.

 

Here is how it now looks back on the shelf with the other plain boxes, you can see why I've decided to 'pretty' things up a bit.

 

Next stop on your journey through the hop is Carol where she is also touching on the subject of storage.  I hope our ideas give you inspiration to sort out your own collections.

 

 

Creative Dreams Journals

The 12 months have run their course and I have now finished and returned my last art journal to its owner.  I have been showing you the pages monthly as I've finished them, but here I've brought them all together. 
Firstly here is my last page, which is in Louise's journal (I'm sure by now she will have received it).

 

This page started with gesso randomly splotched around the page thru a template to create a resist.  Next I glued on some ripped pieces of dictionary paper.  This all got a good coating of Dylusions Ink Sprays in several different oranges, pinks, yellows, greens.  I love the effect I've got here.  Once this was dry I got out my latest template to create the foreground (flowers & butterflies) where I used several different coloured Distress Inks.  This is the first time I've had the chance to use my Prima 'lady' stamp, which I stamped onto dictionary paper, then coloured with gelato's & cut out.  The house was created the same.  The bricks were created with a Donna Salazaar stamp & chalk ink.  I then stamped the wording & framed the pages with Dylusions stamps.

 

Here are the other pages, starting with my own book right at the beginning:

 

 

Wow what a lot of variation, I really did try to do something a bit different everytime, especially if there was no theme.  I am proud of what I've created and now can't wait to get into some more of the same sometime.

Thank you to all the ladies who have contributed their time and talent in my journal.  At the time of publishing this post sadly it has not returned home yet.  I wait with baited breath.

July IARDC

Time for another challenge at I am Roses where this month they've asked for something to be recycled, along with their regular criteria of using a minimum of 2 of their gorgeous products.  Here I've recycled an old CD, attaching it to a chipboard key from Imagine if . .

 

To start I covered the CD with old book paper, then attached the little chipboard house (again from Imagine if . .), the lettering followed then the gorgeous flowers. 

The IAR flowers I've used are Daisies, carnation, mini rose (which I sprayed with Dylusions Ink Sprays to get the vibrant violet), little S10 blooms & of course the buds (again touched off with Ink Spray).

The key was painted brown then I heat embossed it with TH Distress Embossing Powder, which I then inked.  The pearls then link everything together.  This measures 9" x 3" so will look very nice hanging on my wall.

 

Thank you for visiting, and please have a happy, scrappy day.

Art Journal page 11

Who would have thought it, we are now only one more journal away from finishing this epic journey in our Creative Dreams art journal swap.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the freedom to experiment and try out new techniques/colours/products on these pages.  Here again I am trying new ideas, what do you think?

 

Only days before I created this page I received my latest parcel of goodies I've just purchased online with all these gorgeous coloured Dylusions Ink Sprays.  The 'bubbles' template was also new, so of course I just had to play with them all.

 

I started the page by firstly splashing a bit of gesso on thru the new template, then once dry I got a bit crazy with the Ink Sprays.  What a gorgeous result I got.  I then hand drew the flowers which I filled in with random background stamps.  On top of this I've used some new Dylusions stamps & templates.  All stamping was done using Stazon inks.  Black & white sharpie pens were used for the highlights & lettering.  Black buttons finish the flowers.

 

I'm really please with how this page has turned out, so much so that I recreated it in my own journal, where I usually do a practice run first.  Thank you for visiting, please let me know what you think.

Mothers Day card

For a change I've decided to try my hand at cardmaking, something I very rarely do.  Our latest theme at Creative Craft Cottage is 'flowers and hearts', which immediately struck me as being a great theme for a Mothers Day card.

 

Mum loves her bright colours and wears a lot of these strong pinks and blues, so why not go with those colours on her card??

 

I love the combination of burlap with the softer ribbons & flowers, so started by fraying & stitching the edges.  The blue heart is actually a paper doily which got a coat of Dylusion Ink as it was too fragile to paint or ink.  The 'I am Roses' flowers compliment the colours of the hearts nicely,  then the card is finished off with a seam binding bow.

 

Come and see all the lovely examples the other DT ladies have on site for your inspiration.  I hope to see your entries there soon, until then happy crafting.

Art Journal 8

Its quite amazing how fast we are getting through these journals, as here we are already with No. 8 done.  Not long now until I get mine back all filled up with loveliness from all the wonderful new friends I have made.

For this journal the theme was 'Things with Wings'.  All the other ladies have done birds & butterflies, so I decided to try something different.

I painted the background, then ripped up music paper and stuck down, then gesso'd.  In my stash I have some lovely 'Flower Fairy' party tablecloths, so that was the source of my inspiration. Lots of fussy cutting & modge podge later, the page was finished with ribbon & lace on 2 of the edges then I stamped & coloured the longer sides.  Glitter has been stuck in random places.

Gotta love doing these journals, its a great chance to try something new.  To see all the other pages I have done in this challenge (1 per month) they are all labelled 'CD'.  Let me know what you think.  Think about joining in a similar group yourselves.  It is so much fun with people you've mostly never met before.

Art Journal 7

For this months Creative Dreams Art Journal I've tried something new for me again.  This is a great place to try out new techniques and combinations. The theme for this journal was 'Attitude of Gratitude'.

 

I started by placing a stencil over the pages and painting with gesso, which created the 'resist'.  Next came Dylusion Ink sprays - London Blue, Dirty Martini & Lemon Zest.  Once I had the spread and colours I wanted and all was dry, I attached the roses & butterflies (serviettes again).  I then stamped on the leaves which I painted, and stamped around the edge with a Dylusions stamp. 

The saying came last "Some people grumble that roses have thorns, I am grateful that thorns have roses - Alphonse Karr", kind of puts everything into prospective I think.

 

These pages actually didn't take too long to make even allowing for the drying time and for a change the ideas came quite easily.  This was a fun page to make, I enjoyed the processes and I'm sure I'll do something similar again.

 

Thank you for visiting.

Art Journal 6

Its real fun being involved with these Creative Dreams art journals, so much so as soon as I receive the next journal I have to get straight onto it even though I've got the whole month to complete my pages.  Believe it or not we are actually half way thru the group already, as we had 12 start at the beginning to last 12 months.

 

Again I've gone with something totally different to anything I've done before, infact until I'd finished the background I still didn't quite know what I was going to do.

 

I started the pages by randomly stamping some tissue paper before gluing down.  Next I rubbed a bit of blue paint in odd places just with my fingers, followed by a bit of random splotches of gesso.  I then sprayed the 2 outside edges with Dylusion Ink spray (London Blue) and water and allowed that to dribble across the pages.  When this was all dry I got out a couple of stencils and made random patterns everywhere.

 

This is when I  struck my problem "WHAT TO DO NOW ? ? ?"

 

I found some serviettes with these cute birds & flowers so decided to go with the tree idea.  Even though I'm no artist I drew this tree using a brown marker pen, followed with a bit of texture paste.  I tore the birds and flowers up then adhered them to the page.  Lastly came the saying I found online  "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a SONG  -  Lou Holtz".  I finished the page by inking the edges with Black Soot TH distress ink.  All in all I think this probably took me about 6 hours to complete, even having to wait for layers to dry.  Infact the drying time was minimal as it is SOOOO hot here at the moment.

 

Again I have thoroughly enjoyed the chance to contribute to this great project and if any of you out there come across something like I would recommend you jump in feet first and seize the opportunity as this is a great way to experiment and learn soooo much, it really pushes you outside your comfort zone (in the nicest way of course).

 

Thank you for visiting, please leave your thoughts and check out all the previous art journal pages I have done here.

Altered Journal

 I thought it was high time for a new 'notebook' to help keep track of all my upcoming commitments and monthly challenges, so I decided to alter a rather plain Dusty Attic journal .  My poor notebook I have been using was well and truly ready for retirement.  So here it is:

 

Here I have used techniques I learnt from the lovely Dusty Attic DT's.  Firstly I followed what Belinda has done to create the textured background.  I started by painting the surface with gesso, then when dry I glued on ripped book paper.  When this layer was dry I used a stencil and a credit card to apply a layer of gel medium.  Next I rubbed over some distress ink (peeled paint, tumbled glass & mustard seed).  Dylusion Ink sprays (London blue & white linen) came next, then I finished with a stencil and some texture paste

 

 

 For the next stage I followed  Gabrielle in her stunning video.  I started by gluing on all my embellishments,

 

 

Then it was all given a coat of gesso,

 

Then I painted it all with Pearl Blue Lumiere paint,

 

When this was all dry I touched everything up with a very light dabbing of gesso, sprayed patches with glimmer mist (Crème de Chocolate), again more gesso, then finished with another few squirts of the Dylusion Ink spray just to give it a big more brightness.

Here are a few closeups before the last squirts of Dylusion Ink. 

 

 

 

I love doing these collages and must find the time to do more.  I am very happy with how this has turned out, and am very impressed with the Dylusion Ink sprays, which I've not used before (it might be a good excuse to get some more).

 

Thank you for visiting, please leave a comment I love to hear what you think about my work.