Another Journal Page - Appreciate Beauty

When I was using the modelling paste for my ALAD/ASAW journal page, I wiped some excess on my square journal (that I'm loving)

Yesterday was time to add to it. 
I thought I'd taken a picture of just the stencilled background, but hadn't.   I sealed it with clear gesso as I didn't know then what was going on top, but didn't want the colour to soak into the paste.

The colour is Portfolio pastels, chosen randomly

 I blended the colours with a baby wipe, and then spritzed the page with water and dried it.

I loved the reaction of the portfolios over the paste

 but it was bright, so I added a coat of white gesso, using not the brush in the picture but my Prima silicone brush.

Stencilled the wildflowers with Paperartsy Little Black Dress paint - Tim Holtz stencil (the big one, not a layering one)










Created a Distress Oxide background on Paperartsy Smoothy card - various bright flowery colours.

Die cut the TH wildflowers
Over the journal, I stencilled (Crafters Workshop) , ringlets stencil in blue and green distress oxide, but it doesn't show up much
so used a stencil brush and pounced some blue and green on as well.

Spent ages gluing the diecuts onto the background, getting very sticky in the process.
Added a border of walnut stain and black soot DO ink to the page.

 sound some TH Big Chat stickers for my title/quote and outlined it in a black ecoline pen












Finished page

For Manchester...

The tragic events of Monday night's bomb attack in Manchester have affected everyone. There are no words...

This journal page is to show solidarity.... the background started with loads of leftover paint and Lindy's sprays smooshed about,  and I can't remember what else!  I don't have any pictures of it in progress

the wall is Tim's mini layering stencil, with crackle paste (Deco Art) which makes lovely aged brickwork.

The bees are the symbol of Manchester that were already seen around to represent Manchester's worker history, but are now everywhere apparently (not living anywhere near I cannot say I have seen them, but the radio has been talking of it)....

The bees are by JoFY and stamped on the original (discontinued)  Paperartsy tissue paper (hoarding it!) and coloured with Fresco paints in Yellow Submarine and Brown Shed (over the black stamping)

Two very different journal pages

Been working on 2 different pages in two different journals - the first, my A4 hard cover journal which I started ages ago.. finally finished!

 I brayered Frescos in Blueberry, Snowflake, Bubblegum, errr  probably some other pinks too.. added stamped circles (mostly Emma Godfrey and EverythingArt) more paint, more stamping, more layers..

 Drips (Bombay Ink); added DecoArt crackle paste,

 Dylusions stencils and Little Black Dress Fresco, (decided just to use the two larger stencils) and text stamped on tissue (Invoke Art stamps)  added some more mark making stamps (Emma) and text (Sara Naumann)

 and some black Bombay Ink splatters

 loved the big crackles I got

used some Blueberry paint round the edges too.

I decided not to doodle within the stencilled girls, but I may go back and do that, you never know!








Next up, the A5 soft cover journal I use more regularly, and Infusions over a mop up paint background - before I got up yesterday I watched a You Tube video Leandra tweeted a link to.. and which I now can't find... how annoying.. it was by Vicky Papaioannou for Simon Says Stamps and used Infusions... as soon as I got back from shopping I set to to finish my page..

 this was where it had got to, paint left over and scrapings... lots of layers before I took to the Infusions, but no photos until...

 I had got to the stage where I had my stamps laid out on the background.  I can't tell you how many layers of colour I used until I was vaguely happy (it's still a bit dark in real life!)  Like Vicky, I mixed my Infusions with gel medium. (have now ordered a soft one, my regular gloss was a bit thick for this)

 stamped some of the flowers onto separate card, coloured with Infusions mixed with regular gloss gel again and added some white pen marks on he flowers and bubbles on the background (Snowflake, Lin B's stencil)
Stencilled (Darcy's) a border in LBD Fresco and scribbled white Sharpie round the edge of the black, round the border of the whole page.

 stamped the caterpillar on white card and coloured with distress markers, stamped him on the journal page so I could cut off his antennae safely,

and added the sentiment from the JoFY stamp set the flowers/caterpillar come from.

Had huge fun with the Infusions and gel on this one, might have to do another one now!

Thanks for looking.

Wanderlust Book Prompt 4

It has taken me forever to think of something to interpret for the fourth Wanderlust book prompt for the Everything Art course.. "the bravest moment in my life"  - it totally stumped me.

In the end, I just started making a background in my Wanderlust journal; with heavy gesso and Infusions, those gorgeous new Paperartsy dye powders infused with colour and walnut crystals.

 I put some heavy gesso on the page scooping it out of the tub with an old credit card,and spreading it with a brayer.  I added some sprinkles of Infusions (you don't need a lot!)
and spritzed some water.

let it drip and run then spread with the brayer again - totally just playing  got some great marks in the gesso.

 I dried the Infusions quickly then so the colours remained and not too much of the walnut came through  I sealed the main areas of colour with a matte varnish, so they wouldn't re-activate with another wet layer of whatever would come next!



Left this overnight, hoping the next stage would come to me...



found some lace in my collection which is a kind of sage-green colour (one of the Infusions I used was the sage one) and cut some lengths for the side of the pages,
 added some torn book page painted with the White Fire Fresco (love love love this one)
and some fibre paste (mine's by Golden)  with a palette knife, randomly on the background..


Still not sure what I could interpret that I had ever done that was brave in any way...  but as you can see I have written something so...

Today is my bravest day!!

The white fire paint was looking a little bright, so I added a small amount of white gesso over the top, wiping it back with some paper towel to remove most of it... it tones in a little better now.



the next prompt is up now -   oh my it is another toughie!!  it may be a while before that one gets done too!

Wanderlust book prompt 3 - write lots...

Friday saw another prompt in the Wanderlust Book challenge run by Everything Art.. "write lots" ...

Regular readers of my blog will know that my journalling doesn't usually include much writing, it's not my "thing" but in the interests of following the challenge... here goes.

Kasia made some great videos (it's not too late to sign up to this year long on line class - I'm already way behind

working in my large journal I've set aside for this part of the course, I added some black and white gesso to the page, and some torn book pages, pen scribbling.....

 added some stencilling (new Fresco colours - zucchini and white fire) and some texture fibre paste,
 drew some lines to write between

 and started writing...
I decided to limit my colours to black, white and green.

I can't for the life of me get a decent picture of the full page, sorry!

Despite the writing - not my actual writing, that's not too bad - the words mainly, being nothing much - I am pleased with this overall page.

May Tag and ATC swap

Been meaning to write this for a while... the tags/atc swaps that I did for the May swap are now wending their way to their recipients so I think it's time to share my makes..

The theme this month was script. or words

 for the atcs I used purple and lime (a colour combination inspired by something Sam had done just as I was planning my makes... I can't remember what colours I used as I didn't make a note... I imagine the lime was Limelight.. the script background on the atcs is one of my favourites, from A Stamp in the Hand and then I stencilled some hearts using Deco Art  Texture Sand Paste   The top quote is by Kaisercraft.

For my tags, I think I used Mermaid.. but again, no notes..  oh no wait,  I used the Lin Brown limited edition paints for these... Caribbean Sea then! Torn book pages glued down first.
The butterflies are from JoFY32 and the big text are Invoke Arts, the little ones, Finnabair for Prima.
Coloured some white satin ribbon with Caribbean Sea fresco.

I made these quite early on in the month, next time I must write the post as I make them so I know what I've been doing... 

Dragons Dream TIO #183 - Red - Flowers

This fortnight it's my choice of colour theme over at DragonsDream Tag it On - and I've gone for red, with flower(s)
I decided to stencil my flowers, and used the stencil I got last April when I went to VersionScrap in Paris

 I forgot to take  much in the way of step by step photos, but I stencilled Prima Light Paste with a spatula, through the stencil and let it dry.  I love this paste, its soft but reasonably thick, and spreads so well.

Once dry, I took some red Fresco paints - Cherry Red, Blood Orange (ok, so it doesn't sound red, but it's quite a dark orangey-red colour),Claret and London Bus.  Letting them dry before adding touches of the next colour to get shading on the petals.

The flower centres are Zesty Zing and the leaves, Limelight with Hyde Park over.  The background is Guacamole.

very nearly forgot to use any stamps!!  no room on the tag, so stamped two of the words from JOFY12 on scrap card and used foam pads to mount them.

A piece of red ribbon to finish.


Do come over and see what my talented team mates have conjured up.

Scruffy bird journal page

Shortly before Christmas when I was buying (myself) Christmas presents, I added a stamp of a bird I've seen my mate Sam use and which I've wanted ever since...

This weekend, when I was busy making secret stuff (birthday cards and some tags and atcs for a swap) that I can't share yet,  I worked on a page in my little (A6) journal.  Now that's finished, and I can share that now!

 it started, as so often, with be brushing paint on the page to clean the brush so not to waste it. LOTS of colours here!!  Caramel (possibly) Cherry Red, Amethyst (I think) and Dolly mix.  stencilling with texture paste (am LOVING Finn's Light Texture Paste) all knocked back with Gesso.

A couple of spritzes of white Deco Art shimmer mister

 wasn't using the bird (it's called Feather Bird but I'm naming him Harry, I think he looks like a Harry...) on anything I've done this weekend, but really wanted to ink him up.... owing to all the texture on the page, I stamped him on tissue and tore round him - I stamped as best I could on the page, to get the little specks mainly, onto the page and glued him over the top.

I love him, he's gorgeous!!

 Couldn't decide what to do on the rest of the page, I wanted something, so used this sentiment from Tim H's classic 16 (which is also new to me) and cut the words up.

It's pitch dark of course, so have had trouble with the camera... one is with the daylight bulb

and one with the daylight bulb but the flash on the camera too...

Had fun this weekend playing - will share the rest of the makes when I can!!

WOYWW 293 (what's in the blue box?)

Hello and happy Wednesday - time for another leap round the world snooping  looking at people's workspaces for WOYWW?. Link up and check the desks here

Last week, someone asked what was in the blue box that is here at the back of my floor desk... I think I've shared it before, but if so it would have been a long time ago.

 it's one of my overflow boxes of stamps (when I ran out of the drawer units that Ikea and the home store no longer do.)...a bit of a jumble -

just to tease you a bit there are some more overflow stamps in the bottom box here and the top one has all kinds of things - flowers, buttons, bits and pieces - will maybe open this one next week!

Did a bit of crafting at the weekend, made a start on my January birthday cards (which I can't share for now)

but also had to do a sympathy card which are always so hard.  used a light texture paste (from Finnabair, for Prima - love it!!) through a stencil, and a silvery gelato and a white (rather than black) ribbon and some paper flowers from my stash.

I'll leave you to get back off to Julia's to the rest of the desks, happy Wednesday.