Art Journal: If Only I Could Write It

This spread is shimmery and has ultra shiny gold accents thanks to Pebeo's Gilding Wax.  The quote is about all the things that happen in my life (good and bad) that I wish I could get round to writing about... but it all happens so fast and continuous!  The only idea in my mind was to play with a way to colour over texture medium.  Scroll down for close up photos, speed video and list of ingredients.

Ingredients

• Pebeo white gesso
• Stamp: Tim Holtz School Desk
• Stencil: Tim Holtz Lace
• Tissue tapes (collected from Hobbycraft)
• Distress inks: Victorian Velvet, Wilted Violet, Tumbled Glass and Broken China
• Pebeo Modelling Paste
• Spectrum Noir Aquatints (inc. Gold to make a purple/gold mica spray bottle)
• Alphabet stamps (various)
• White and gold ribbon
• Pebeo Gilding Wax: Empire Gold
• White Gel Pen
• Black Archival Ink 

 

Colouring: Gabbie Halloween Witchfire

I’ve missed doing some proper Spectrum Noir colouring lately and didn’t quite know where to pick it back up… so along came Kit and Clowder!  A monthly subscription colouring tutorial.  This is the result of this October’s class and as you can see from my attempts there’s a plethora of techniques!  The cat is fabric and alcohol solution lifting, two tone colouring and check out the glow reflecting about!  I loved this!  The digital stamp is by Faery Ink over here: http://faeryink.com/product/gabbie-halloween-witchfire-digital-stamp/ 

You can find Kit and Clowder here: http://kitandclowder.ning.com/ 

Bird Crazy Picture Book 2 (HALLOWEEN)–Part 2: Assembling the Birds

Welcome back to part 2 of the Bird Crazy Picture Book Series (Halloween). In this part we are going to stamp the Tim Holtz stamps and use the Crazy Things to dress them up. Everything is coloured with distress inks and a bit of liquid pearls.  Scroll down for a video Talk and Walk through and a full list of ingredients and full close up photos.

If you need to catch up on Part 1 (creating the backgrounds) you can find it here.

Ingredients:

• Stamps by Stampers Anonymous / Tim Holtz: Bird Crazy and Crazy Things
• Sizzix Dies: Bird Crazy (I don’t have the dies for Crazy Things but you can use them here too)
• Distress Inks in lots and lots of colours (in the video I am named the colours as I go)
• White Stamping Card (Sheena Douglass)
• Ink Daubers and Mini Round Ink Tool
• Googly Eyes in various shapes and sizes (I found mine in a garden centre)
• Black sharpie pen or Spectrum Noir pen
• Black fine line pen
• Liquid Pearls – Onyx, Pumpkin and Mint
• Stickles glitter – Stardust
• Copper chain off cut or Scrap
• Orange vegetable sack
• Crafting or beading sting
• Black foam pads by Stix2
• Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue
• Crackle Accents by Ranger

Art Journal: You Say Witch Like it’s a Bad Thing

Halloween/Samhain is my favourite time of year and this was a fun page to make using Halloween stamps from Tim Holtz, distress inks, stencils and a bit of old veg sack!  Scroll down for video, ingredients and pics…

Ingredients

• Spider web decoupage paper
• Stamps – Tim Holtz (Halloween Sillouettes)
• Alpha stamps – Craftwork Cards
• Distress Inks – Wilted Violet, Spiced Marmalade, Black soot, Smoked hickory, Ground Espressp 
• Distress Paint – Fossilized Amber and Picket Fence
• Stencil – Tim Holtz Lace
• Recycled packaging from Holtz stencil and sweet potatoes!
• Ranger black archival ink 
• Stickles glitter – black diamond
• Twinkling H2Os – Mango Mamba and Mango Freeze
• Halloween Ribbon (from Hobbycraft)
• White gel pens
• Sand paper
• Sparkly brads from stash
• White Gesso

Bird Crazy Picture Book 2 (HALLOWEEN): Part 1–Backgrounds

I've started my second Tim Holtz Bird Crazy picture book because I finally had my Crazy Things stamps delivered!  Scroll down list of ingredients.  My first bird crazy picture book starts at this post.  In the next part I will stamp the birds and build them up with their crazy things!  The final and third part will be assembling the mini book.

Ingredients

• White Stamping Card cut to 10 x 14cm (I am using Sheena Douglass stamping card)
• Matt Black cardstock (crafter’s Companion)
• Extra paper for layering and inking such as manilla cardstock or chamois cropping block
• Doflex (optional – stencil) and Large circle punch (Martha Stewart)
• Distress Inks – Various
• Fine liner black pen
• Cut and dry foam / inking and blending tools
• Scissors and guillotine
• Stencil – tree scape (Sheena Douglass)
• Textures embossing folder (Crafter’s Companion)
• Stamps – Crazy Things
• Large metal jump rings
• Alcohol pen (optional)

Art Journal: Be Bold

Aiming for a “bold” theme I was inspired by the Inverse Silhouette art journaling over at super talented Neil Burley’s blog.  Originally I wasn’t going to stamp on this page but there was a gaping space in the corner that needed filling and that’s how the space theme developed.  I found it easy to cut the letters out like windows as this guaranteed a neat edge and no wobbly painting whoopsies.  Materials used are below the video…

Ingredients

• Spectrum Noir AquaTints – Brights set and Silver (essentials)
• Pebeo Black Gesso
• Scalpel
• Gloss Gel Medium
• Craftwork Cards Plasma Alphabet Templates
• Pebeo Empire Gold Gilding Wax
• Stamps – Sheena Douglass A Little Bit Magical
• Perfect Medium ink pad and Ivory Embossing Powder
• White gel pen
• Liquid Pearls – Platinum
• Stickles Glitter – stardust

Altered Mixed Media Printer’s Tray: “The Witch’s Cupboard”

I have a bizarrely large collection of glass bottles stacking up and mostly I’ve collected them ‘just in case’.  I’ve been inspired by the different spooky/gothic assemblages popping up but it was Neil Burley’s “The Apothecary” that really pushed me into making this.  Unfortunately – I haven’t picked up any printer’s trays along my travels.  Fortunately I recently discovered foam core board and have a new sharp scalpel! 

The pictures below show my progress which surprisingly only took a few days in all

N.B. I find my hot glue gun to be the best for foam board and PVA was used for the papers

1. I knew the space that I wanted the tray to fit (a shelf inside a glass wall unit of mine) so I measured for the back panel and cut this from foam board.  Let’s call these measurements Width x Height
2. Using my largest bottle I measured the bottom to work out how deep I wanted to cut the sides.  Let’s call this Depth.  The top and bottom pieces were cut exactly to W x D.
3. The width of the foam board = 5mm which is important to know.  The left and right sides were cut to exactly (H-5mm) x D.
4. Using the rest of the bottles to gauge their height I measured as I went and cut out the inside walls.  I didn’t waste time making plans or making it perfect as I wanted it to look hand made in mass like the old printer’s trays.
5. painted in three stages as follows: – Acrylic paint mixed from 1:1:1 Pebeo Brown Ochre, Docraft Metallic Bronze Crafter’s Acrylic and Pebeo Bindex Brilliant (this is a bulking agent for acrylic paint to make your colour go further) and let dry.  Then, I painted on Americana Weathered Wood which is a crackling medium.  Finally once that layer was dried I covered in a single coat of Docraft metallic black which crackled away just like weathered wood as it dried.

   

6. The rest of the decoration included Tim Holtz Ephermera, some black cobweb decoupage papers that I picked up in Hobbycraft, Time Holtz idea-ology from my stash and Pebeo Empire Gold gilding wax.  The ephemera pieces were inked with Vintage Photo and Black Soot distress inks.

Art Journal: Ducks / Above the Water Calm

This was a fun page to make!  Using the prompt “3 Ducks in a Row” I think the results are charming and bright!  I really liked how easy and almost instant the background was... beautiful papers (as always) from Craftwork Cards and glittered modelling paste is Fabulous!

Ingredients

• Papers – Craftwork Cards Fab Fabrics
• Template – Craftwork Cards (Baby things inc. the ducks)
• Alpa Stamps: Craftwork Cards More than Words
• Distress inks – various colours
• Liquid Pearls – Key lime and daffodil
• Stencils – Sheena Douglass
• Pebeo High density modelling paste
• Ultra Fine Glitter by Cosmic Shimmer
• Googly eyes, sticker letters, white gel pen

Art Journal: Our Mind is a Constant Voyage

I do like this one it could be one of my favourites but I'm not sure if that's anything I've done or just the fabulous quote.  I also like how I included a simple tag to a page as part of the quote made it interesting.  Long words are achievable with a hyphen!  Hurray!  There is a lonnnnnng list of materials used for this one so please scroll down for details and photos.  At the end of the video you see me adding some stamps but I didn't like how it came out to I stamp onto book paper instead and voila!

Ingredients

• White Gesso
• Decoupage papers
• Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap
• Distress inks: Old Paper, Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo
• Manilla Tag
• Homemade ink spray (Aqua Tints in a mister bottle with a little water)
• Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Stamps Classics
• Faber Castell PITT brush pens
• Clear stamps from my stash of random stamps
• Black Archival Ink 
• Liquid Pearls: Brass
• Thick reclaimed Twine
• Old book paper
• Stencils – Memory Box and Dot Fade by Time Holtz
• Pebeo modelling paste
• Brass charms from stash
• Alpha stamps by Craftwork Cards
• White gel pen and Black spectrum noir
• Distress texture stamps – Sheena Douglass
• Thick Embossing Powder by Cosmic Shimmer – Vintage Bronze
• Gilding Wax by Creative Expressions in Vintage Green Gold

Bird Crazy Picture Book 1: Part 2–Creating the Birds

In this part we’re stamping our Tim Holtz Bird Crazy stamps and die cutting them with the matching Sizzix dies.  If you’ve missed part 1 where we created the backgrounds you can find it here.  In the next part we’ll get them altogether into a book but as they are they would make a super cool set of greeting cards!

Art Journal: The Key to Happiness is a Bad Memory

At first I wasn’t so sure about this quote but it finally made sense!  It really is bad memories that are in between you and happiness.  I've been experimenting with stamping and sticking on some scrappy and damaged tissue papers I've had lying around.  This was a fun page to make and I enjoyed making an abstract door knob with a rotating clock face.  This is one of those pages that you discover more the longer you look at it.

Ingredients

• Scrap tissue paper
• Black archival ink
• Script stamp by Sheena Douglass
• Crafters acrylic paint: Bronze, copper and gold
• Tim Holtz: chat stickers, number fragments, big chat stickers, clock face, screw brads, key plates
• Tim Holtz pen spritzer tool
• Spectrum Aqua pens
• Stickles glitter glue – black diamond
• Faber Castell pitt brush pen
• Large key charm, sparkly gem, brad, seam binding
• Spellbinders labels 28 dies

  

Art Journal: Yellow

My inspiration for this was simple; the colour yellow! So out came the distress inks and the alcohol inks!   There was no science behind putting this page together I just freely added what I wanted and where, relaxing! And what a happy colour yellow is! X

Ingredients:

• Distress Inks: various yellow colours
• Tim Holtz: Ephemera, tissue tapes, film ribbon, binder clasps, chat stickers, photobooth picture, dot fade stencil
• Stamps: Stampers Anonymous Classics #9 and #4
• Distress Embossing Powder - Vintage Photo
• Faber Castell pitt brush pen
• Adirondack Alcohol Inks: yellow, red, blender solution
• Calligraphy nib, mini paper clip
• Deep orange mirror card
• Black Archival Ink
• White gel pen and Black fine line pen
• Black spectrum noir pen

   

Bird Crazy Picture Book 1–Part 1: Distress Ink Backgrounds Step by Step

Play along with me!  I am going to make my first Bird Crazy Picture Book “the countryside”.  There will be three parts to this tutorial Part 1 (this post) is making six easy cartoon style backgrounds. Part 2 (coming soon) will be making and adding the birds.  Part 3 (coming soon) will be compiling the finished cards into a booklet.  Please watch the video to see how I do the backgrounds – I am doing a Talk and Walk through for you x

Ingredients (but use what you have)

• White stamping card
• Distress inks and ink tools
• Spare paper for inking onto
• Embossing Folder Woodgrain texture (Any)
• Small paintbrush
• Liquid pearls in pewter (optional)

Six backgrounds ready for the birds!

1 – Hillside

2 – Fence

3 – Rooftop

4 – Washing Line

5 – Barn

6 – Branch