Art Journal Reveal - Grateful for Fall

And here it is - the reveal!!!  My friend Tracy and I had agreed to challenge each other to creating an art journal page, since we both wanted to try.  I had never done anything like this before, Tracy has but in a different sort of scrapbooking way.  So we had a month - and this is what I made:

This was a great challenge or journey I would call it - I learned a lot about the products I used, what I can and can't mix with them.  One lesson I learned is that you can not add a gel medium over top of the Dylusions Ink Spray.  Also, the Distress Ink takes a LONGGGG time to try over the Distress Paint.  When I purchased this journal, I also purchased another journal, but one with spiral ring.  I decided to use that one for my test pages.  Nothing was actually glued down, just layed out for a visual.  I tried different inks, pens, some scribbling.

When I created my test page, I used a wet baby wipe to tone down the paint while it was still wet.  I forgot to do that on my real pages until after the paint had dried so it had little effect.  That's why it is so much more vibrant.  The test page had a little more of the gesso texture show through after using the baby wipe as well.

One of the finishing touches I loved was outlining everything with the Distress Markers.  I had time to outline and blend with my finger so I didn't have harsh lines and I like how it added some depth and kind of grounded the images that were glued down.  I also enjoyed creating the leaves.  Once I was done inking, I dropped some water droplets on them to create water marks.

The last two finishing touches were to add Clear Rock Candy Stickles to the leaves and some Heidi Swapp Gold Lame Colour Shine.

The Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is Anything Goes and is highlighting Lawn Fawn, so since I used Lawn Fawn dies to create the leaves I'm going to enter :)

Please go over and see Tracy's take on the Grateful Challenge.  It's gorgeous and I can't wait for our next challenge!!

Supplies:

Ranger/Dylusions 5 x 8 Creative Journal;
Diana Wakley Media White Gesso;
Distress Paints - Mowed Lawn, Broken China, Rusty Hinge, Tarnished Brass;
Dylusions Lemon Zest Ink Spray;
Distress Markers - Mowed Lawn, Salty Ocean, Vintage Photo, Rusty Hinge;
Distress Inks - Forest Moss, Wold Honey, Spiced Marmelade, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo;
Brilliance Archival Ink Graphite Black;
Stampin Up Sanded background and Bo Bunny Distressed Textures stamps;
Liquitex Matte Medium, Lawn Fawn Leaves Die, Distress Crackle Paint - Clear Rock Candy Stickles, Maya Road Chipboard Letters, Ranger Manilla Tags, Basic Grey letter stickers, Wendy Vecchi White Embossing Paste, Rock Candy Stickles, Heidi Swapp Color Shine Gold Lame

Documenting December - progress 3

I've been busy completing more pages of my Documenting December Album.

You can find Progress 1 (pages 1 - 9) here and Progress 2 (pages 10 - 15) here.


Page 16 - I finally got around to journalling as well.  I used a Technique Tuesday stamp for the month and a Crate Paper Sleigh Ride Vellum number.

Page 17 - My boos baby pic.  Love those owls and the Thickers letters.  

page 18 - my boots via Instagram :)

Page 19 - My brother Christmas Morning.

Page 20 - Loved the idea of using this MFT 'Document It' stamp set to list our favourite movies.  

Page 21 - here I used an American Eagle tag that came on some clothing one Christmas - I just filled in the blanks :)

And how they appear in the Album:

More to come, like I said, I've been very busy!!

1st Art Journal Page - Sneak Peek

You might remember a few weeks ago I posted about my new friend Tracy and our challenge.  Well it's getting close to reveal time so I thought I would share a few sneak peeks.  We challenged each other to creating a mixed media type of art journal page with a fall/thankful theme.  I started playing with the supplies I had on hand..........

First off I stained some chipboard letters and applied Distress Crackle Paint.......

Here I was trying gesso for the first time - this is my test page.......

Applying Distress Paints......

Adding watermarks to the die cut leaves after colouring with Distress Inks.....

Okay - that's all I for now!

Enjoy the Beauty of the Season

Today was a crafty day - I took the day off and spent the day with friends at a crop my friend Donna arranged to acknowledge the one year anniversary of her concussion.  She was in a car accident a year ago today and has lingering effects still of the concussion.  So she rented a hall and got a bunch of her friends together and we created and gabbed.  It was a day off well spent :)

For one of the cards I made today, I used my new Unity Stamp 'Season Snowman' created by the sooo talented Angie Blom who I had the pleasure of meeting at the Crop & Create this last month!!  What a sweetheart!!

I used my Distress Markers and watercolored the image.  Then I cut it out and layered it on some yummy gold glitter paper and added some little stars which I thought could pass for snowflakes.  Love how this turned out :)

I am entering this over at the Unity Blog in the Friends With Flair Party.  

I'm also entering in The Card Concept #23 Challenge - A Krafty Christmas.  

Stamps:  Unity Stamp Season Snowman
Paper:  Echo Park Season's Greetings, Hero Arts Watercolor Paper, Stampin Up Bakes Brown Sugar and Gold Glitter paper
Ink:  StazOn Jet Black, Distress Markers
Accessories:  Taylored Expressions dies, Freckled Fawn Stars & Such Wood Chips, CTMH button and ribbon, Stampin Up Twine, Stardust Sticklers

{Uhggg!!!!  Sorry about the crappy pictures, that's what happens when you take pics late at night!!}

Distress - Tim Holtz Tags!!!

OH MY!!!  Did I love this class or what??!!!  Got me back into using my distress inks, and got me into a whole new bunch of products that luckily were available at the Scrapbook Cottage Store at the Crop & Create.  The class was called Fundamentals of Distress and was taught by Vicki Boutin.  She is currently on the Tim Holtz Media Team and she was a great teacher!!!!

On to the tags!!!!!

Tag 1:  Layered Masks - this was all about Distress Paints with masks and then adding Distress Inks - the paint resists the ink.

Tag 2:  Metallic Resist and Watercolour Stamping - here we used a brayer and Metallic Distress Paint to create a really cool background and then rubbed on Distress Ink.  The flowers were stamped with Distress Stain.

Tag 3:  Plastic Wrap Resist and Mask Glitter - Saran wrap was rubbed with Pewter Distress Stain and then pressed on tag.  Then we used Distress Ink to finish the background.  The metallic stain really changed with the addition of the distress ink.  Then we did some masking with Distress Ink.

Tag 4:  Shadow Masking and Water Marking - Masking first layer with Distress Stain then shadowed with Distress Ink.  Distress Ink to complete the background.  Water drops to reactivate the ink to create water marking.

Tag 5:  Distress Paint Resist and Metallic Layers - here we used the craft mat to add Distress Paint to the tag, then Distress Ink was rubbed on.  We also masked with Brushed Pewter Distress Stain.

Tag 6:  Embossed Crayon Resist and Masking - the tag was dry embossed then rubbed over with a white crayon.  Distress Ink was rubbed on over the whole tag and then the embossed area was rubbed off.  Some masking with Distress Ink and a little Brushed Pewter Distress Stain added to the embossed area.

I couldn't even tell you which one was my favourite, I love something about them all!!  I love all the different techniques and how they were layered, and then adding random stamping and rub-ons.

Make & Takes

Hey there!!  Been a while - thought I'd drop in - I was putting these away today and took a couple quick photos of the free make and take cards from Crop & Create last month.  First - a couple quick Christmas cards and a matching envelope.  Did I mention I love Kraft paper??!!

This next card is quite unique, and it was pretty simple too.  You use a full 8 1/2 x 11 paper with some scoring and cutting and voila!!  You have a card that you can add photos to or a gift card or anything you want to slip in.  I have my instruction sheet in there :)