Art Journal Calendar Class for June

I just finished my Art Journal Calendar Class pages for June 2013 that I'll be teaching at Ink About It on March 9th.  I used Dyan Reaveley spray inks this time and the new Prima Girl stamp that I have.  I believe I need another...... 

I was going for bright and sunny!  It has been such a dreary winter but we can always dream of summer.  I love those new Prima girl stamps, they are really cute.  I put some Goosebumps on the scripted circles to make them pop out a little.  Now I have to go clean up the bathroom.  You can only imagine the blue, yellow and orange spray inks everywhere.  Good thing they just come off with water! 
Please leave a comment if you have time, I love to hear from you.  Have a great day, now go get your spray inks out and spray like you mean it!  :-)  Have fun!!

A Personal Wine Journal

This can be a quick and simple gift for a friend or family member who loves wine and takes pride in keeping track of their likes and dislikes.  I usually pick up books/journals that are on sale at book stores or office supply stores.  This journal is a taupe color and measures 6" by 8 1/2".  I had left over paper from the masterboard that I created for yesterday's project. 

Sticking with my Vineyard Theme I thought I'd make a journal to go with the bottle of wine!  I cut a piece of paper measuring 5 1/4" by 8", used a corner rounder on each corner.  I rubbed some additional ink along the edges,  in this case I used London Fog by Memento. I then poured clear embossing powder on all the edges and heat embossed it with my heat gun.  While the edges were hot, I bent the right upper corner and the lower left corner up using a pencil.

 I adhered this panel to the blank book using a very strong adhesive.  I cut a piece of cork measuring 4 1/2" by 6" and glued this to the embossed panel.  Now I cut a piece of the masterboard that measured 3 7/8" by 5 1/4" and stamped a Wine Cellar stamp made by Stamp Happen, Inc. with London Fog ink by Memento.  I poured clear embossing powder over the image and heat embossed it.  I matted this to a piece of purple cardstock, trimmed it close and glued the panel on to the piece of cork.

This journal came with an elastic band to hold it shut.  I ran white ribbon across the Memento ink pads that coordinate with my Tsukineko Kaleidacolor Vineyard pad.  In this instance I wanted to feature the purples so I used Lavender Lulu and Sweet Plum.  When the ribbons were dry I tied them to the elastic closure.  The closure was wide enough for me to hot glue a paper flower to it, next to the tied ribbons.  I added a wooden flower with some twine and a lovely self adhesive pearl in the center.

I hope this gives you some more ideas as to the benefits of making a Masterboard.  Many people make these and then photocopy the finished "board" to use over and over.  In this instance I made a couple at the same time and just cut them up for different projects.  Either way it saves you time while you make it and when cleaning up after.  Have a wonderful weekend.  Talk to you soon!

Vineyard Themed Bottle Tag and Journal Book

An easy gift to give for almost any occasion is a bottle of wine.  For special occasions as far as I'm concerned nothing beats a really good bottle of Champagne.  There are times when I want the bottle to look like it is invited to the party.  In other words, I get a little bored with wine bags so I thought I would dress up this bottle with a bottle tag.

Masterboards are one of my passions.  I generally make one large masterboard using a watercolor paper canvas and then cut up the paper to make cards and other things that coordinate with one another.  This is how the wine/vineyard themed masterboard was made.

This masterboard begins with a  11" by 15" piece of Strathmore 140 lb cold press watercolor paper.  I use a credit card/hotel key to spread a thin layer of gesso on the paper to give it a little body and some texture, then allow it to dry.  The ink I'm using is Tsukineko Kaleidacolor Vineyard 025 the newest member in the family of five-color ink pads recently released at CHA 2013 in Anaheim, CA.  Delicious colors that remind me of wine:  Lulu Lavender, Sweet Plum, Gray Flannel, Rich Cocoa and Bamboo Leaves.  These are all Memento inks that can be activated with water.

The first thing I do with the pad is click it together.  Kaleidacolor ink pads have an innovative sliding palette that slides the various colors together when you want to use it and then slides them apart when not in use.  This keeps the colors from bleeding together.  I run a brayer across the ink pad and then run it across my prepared paper.

At this point you can control the amount of color you want on the project.  I like a muted palette so I'm just going to apply the ink one time.  Now you get to bring out the spray bottle filled with water and have some fun.  Spritz the entire surface lightly with water, lift the paper and allow the inks to move around the paper and blend together.

You can allow this to air dry or if you are impatient like me you can dry it with a heat gun.  This surface can now become your masterboard.  You can apply some acrylic paint lines, circles, or use stencils.  You can stamp with permanent inks like StazOn.  Anything goes.  You can't fake layers so just have a good time layering all kinds of things and colors onto this masterboard.  Words, phrases, crowns, wings, all your favorite stamps get to come to the party.  The Memento Dew Drop ink pads are great to use in this instance since they match all the colors in the Vineyard Kaleidacolor inkpad.  When I finished my inky party I cut a strip off the masterboard measuring 3 1/2" by 9".  I punched a 2" circle at the top that will fit over the bottle of wine like a necklace.  I measured down  2 3/4" and folded the paper.  Then I inked the edges with more of the Memento Sweet Plum ink.  I wanted a darker ink on top of that so I used StazOn Royal Purple ink just applying it in the direct to paper method. 

I used another portion of the masterboard to cut a 2 1/2" by 4 1/2"panel and stamped "Happy Anniversary" on it with Memento Gray Flannel ink, heat embossed it with clear powder and adhered with pop dots. You can make it as simple or fancy as you like.  I ran the white satin ribbons across the surface of the ink pads to make them match the tag and just allowed them to dry.  A paper flower pulled from my stash and voila!  A bottle tag in no time at all.

  Here is a list of the materials and tools that I used for the project.

Materials

11" by 15" watercolor paper

gesso

Tsukineko "Vineyard 025" Kaleidacolor ink pad

Memento inks:  Lulu Lavender, Sweet Plum, Rich Cocoa, Gray Flannel, Bamboo Leaves

StazOn Royal Purple ink

Stamps: Dina Wakley, Invoke Arts, Inkadinkado

satin ribbon

paper flower

clear embossing powder

A bottle of wine

Tools

Old credit card/hotel key

paper cutter

brayer

spray bottle filled with water

pop dot adhesive

stencil

heat gun

I actually had enough paper left to make a cover for a journal.  Here is the book that I made to go along with the bottle of wine.  I'll share the tutorial for this tomorrow so tune in if you are interested.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.  Please leave me a comment if you have time, I love to read what you think about my projects.  Have a great day!

Another Card with Kaleidacolor Vineyard ink pad

I'm still using up that Vineyard brayered paper.  Here is another card creation.

Use every little scrap!  Just keep layering stamps, flowers, ribbon, etc. on top of the brayered paper.  The phrase is stamped with StazOn Royal Purple ink.

Hope you're having a great day.  Thanks for stopping by, talk to you soon!

Art Journal Page Creative Process

Several people have asked what my creative process is when I'm coming up with ideas for projects.  I guess in my case it depends on what the project is for and if I have restrictions as to the products that can be used.  Usually when I  am designing a Calendar Art Journal page for a class it takes me several days to come up with something I really like.  My process starts out on a post card size (4" by 6") piece of watercolor paper coated lightly with gesso.  When that is dry I start playing until I come up with a page that works for me.  Right now I'm working on my June Calendar two page spread that eventually I will do in the Dyan Reaveley journal for the store, Ink About It, and later teach to a group of very talented ladies.  By the time I'm done I have executed it three times.  Once in my "junk" journal, once in my real journal and once in the store's journal.  Whew! 

Here is the first post card design I came up with using StazOn inks and my new Stampotique girl stamp.  I'm trying to get a feel for the colors and images I want to use.

A second design soon followed.

I liked the background on this second one so much I did the first two page "sample" in a journal.

I tried the little Stampotique girl but she just didn't seem to fit it so I was looking around for something else to go on the page.  Then I remembered.....guess who just got some of Dina Wakley's new silhouettes made by TCW?  The stencil is called "Mini Casey and Penelope", it is so 60's.  So I thought I'd give them a whirl.
I actually made two other calendar pages that I'll share with you another time.  They have a very vintage 1920's feel to them.  The background that I finally chose will be changed and tweaked until the days of the week and the month fit into the whole thing.  The banners are made out of gesso scraped through an old stencil.  The circles are made with a stencil from Dyan Reaveley.

What is your creative process?  Have you ever tried to put it into words?  I'd love to hear what it is, leave a comment if you have time.  Thanks for stopping by, it has been snowing here again for hours.  Brrrrrrr!
Talk to you soon!

Another "brayered" project

While you have your brayers out you might as well make multiple projects.  I make such a mess when I'm trying new things out or preparing projects for classes......it is easier to clean up just one time.  So when I was playing with my Tsukineko Kaleidacolor Vineyard pad I made about six projects.  I'm on a postcard making kick right now so I've cut a lot of 6" by 4" pieces of watercolor paper and coated them with gesso.  If I make them up in advance and they're dry, I can just grab one out of the pile whenever the spirit moves me.  Using the same technique with the brayer, the Kaleidacolor 5-color pad and some water it starts out looking like this:

After I finish stamping it, stenciling and decorating the post card it looks like this:

The funky flowers are scrap pieces of paper that I rubbed the matching Memento ink pads on so I had some concentrated color and then I just did a doodled flower on each piece with a white pen.  The leaves were made from the same technique using Memento Bamboo Leaves ink which also matches the pad and then punched out.  The stamp is by Stampotique and stamped with Royal Purple StazOn ink on a separate piece of paper, trimmed out and glued onto the postcard.

I'll share some additional projects with you using the same ink pad and techniques over the next couple of days.  I would encourage you to try the postcards, especially if you want to do art journaling but feel a little intimidated by it.  It is easier for some to start on a small blank canvas than to jump into a big book project.  The postcards can be used as is or actually glued onto cards or other projects.

I'd like to thank you all for stopping by today, I appreciate your visits and your comments.  To all of my new followers I would like to say welcome!  Have a great weekend, it is stunning here today.  A little snow left on the ground and lots of sunshine.  :-)

Moustache Wall Hanging

I love the current crafting trend with all the moustaches, don't you?  They make me smile every time I see them.  I had some bits and pieces of things left over from other projects so I thought I'd combine them to make a cute wall hanging.

It starts out with my Mona Lisa stamp by Stampers Anonymous that I have had forever.  I stamped Mona on a piece of white scrap paper using StazOn Royal Purple ink, dipped her in embossing powder and melted the powder with my heat gun.

I applied some Tsukineko Kaleidacolor "Vineyard 025" ink on a brayer and rolled it across a scrap piece of watercolor paper.  I sprayed a little water on it to activate the inks and blended them together.  I dried the paper with my heat gun and then started stamping on it to prepare a background. 

The background includes some script stamping using the StazOn Royal Purple ink and a couple of smears of Golden brand Interference Gold.  I cut a piece of the watercolor paper that measured 6" by 5" for this project. You can use the Memento inks that match the Vineyard Kaleidacolor pad for the layers of stamping in the background.  I used Lulu Lavender, Sweet Plum, Gray Flannel, Rich Cocoa, and Bamboo Leaves inks.   I stamped a Dina Wakley heart on a separate piece of scrap paper using StazOn Royal Purple ink, trimmed it out and then glued it to the lower right corner with Matte Medium .    I trimmed out Mona and glued her to the upper left corner with some Matte Medium.

Then using Faber Castell black gelatos I outlined the heart and blended it with my finger.  I used a star stencil to apply gesso to the surface of the panel to give it more texture.  Now for the fun part!  I found these adorable tiny moustaches made by Soft Spoken and put a few on the piece.  In my stash there was a leftover piece of cork that I cut to 5" by 1 1/2" and distressed the edges with StazOn Royal Purple ink.  Then I applied some Faber Castell purple metallic gelatos on top of that with my fingers.  I punched holes on either side of cork and ran a piece of neutral colored ribbon through the holes and knotted both sides.  For the base of the project I used a scrap piece of black card stock that measured 5" by 8".  The bottom of the black card stock was punched with Martha Stewart's scalloped edge punch.  I glued the cork piece to the top of the black card stock panel and the watercolor panel beneath that.  Since Mona lives in Paris I thought it deserved a mention with my Stamp Camp "Paris" stamp.  I used the StazOn Royal Purple ink for that.  I applied a few black and white lines of acrylic paint to the panel with an old credit card for the finishing touches.

Materials

Tsukineko Kaleidacolor "Vineyard " five-color ink pad

StazOn Royal Purple ink pad

Memento inks:  Gray Flannel, LuluLavender, Sweet Plum, Rich Cocoa, Bamboo Leaves

Faber Castell Gelatos in black and purple metallic

Clear Embossing Powder

White and black acrylic paint

Golden brand Interference Gold

Watercolor paper

Black & White card stock

Cork

Ribbon

Gesso

One package of Soft Spoken Moustaches

Adhesive

Matte Medium

Tools

Old Credit Card or hotel room key

Stamps by Dina Wakley, Stampers Anonymous, Stampington Script and Stamp Camp

Star Stencil

Hole Punch

Xacto knife

Martha Stewart Scalloped edge punch

Heat gun

I want to thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.  If you have a few extra minutes to leave a comment I would love to hear from you.  See you next time, have a great day!

Marie Antoinette Theme

I belong to an on-line swap group that currently has a swap going on with a Marie Antoinette theme.  I've always loved all things "M.A." since...forever.  I'm sure if I had been a French peasant during that time period I would feel completely different about her but we all have a tendency to remember lovely historical figures differently than the reality of the time.

I started this card with this group of products:

My fabulous friend, John Peterson, at Imagine Crafts sent me a box full of products to play with last week and I couldn't wait to start playing.  The Tsukineko inks that I used were all VersaColor products.  The colors I received were 506 Rainforst, 311 Antique and the metallics, can't live without those, are 305 Luster.  I also used my Faber Castell Gelatos in blue, green, black & white along with the only PanPastels I own at this time, Phthalo Green, Yellow Ochre, and Permanent Red.  All of these products can be activated with a little water which really gives them a double use.  The Marie digital image can be found at DeviantScrap.com.

I started by applying the inks on a piece of 4" by 6" gesso coated watercolor paper and spritzed them with water and let them blend, drying them with a heat gun when I got to the point that I liked what I saw.  Then I added extra color to the panel using the gelatos and the PanPastels.  I trimmed Marie out and glued her to the panel with Matte Medium.  A few drops of Bisque colored Liquid Pearls and Voila! a card featuring our girl!

I created a different project that is very similar for the swap, I'll share that with you at a later date.  Hope you are having a beautiful day filled with sunshine!  Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog.  If you have time, please leave a comment, I love to hear what you think.  Tomorrow I will be posting my second "Artists in Residence" project for Imagine Crafts, it is my project of choice.  They provided the product and we were invited to do whatever type of project we wanted.  Please stop by if you're curious.  Talk to you soon! 

More Crayon Art

It is still so cold here!  Today we had a little more snow and some ice/rain.  Brrrrr.  It is a good day to stay inside and play with crayons again.  This time I "steampunked" it a tad.  I used a black canvas that measures 6" by 6" by 3/4" and some free clip art from an artist named "Zorana".  I used the bird's body from her site and the head is one of Dyan Reaveley's stamps.  You might want to check out her site called "Zoranaland" to see her beautiful work.  My lady bird has an eyeglass and some very red lips.  The entire project is covered with glossy matte medium to seal it at the end.

As the message says, let's all just enjoy the journey!  I hope you'll give the crayon art a try, there are several tutorials on YouTube that make it so simple.  I would recommend that you use a heat gun rather than the blow dryers that several have demonstrated.  I'll also remind you that it is an adult project, kids should only participate if you are close by.

Thanks for stopping by!  If you have time to leave a comment I'd love to read it.  Take care and stay warm!!  Talk to you soon.

The Blizzard of '13 has passed!

Wow!  What a storm.  We woke up to about 2 feet of snow this morning.  It started snowing yesterday at 10am and just now stopped.  A little over 24 hours of snow, we don't see that very often.  Thank goodness.  The dad across the street has already built an igloo for his kids, a kid's dream come true.  Here are a few pics of what it looks like here right now.

Imaginary North Pole.

 The table out on the deck looks like a giant white cake!

This is my beautiful garden.  Just a different type of beauty.

Time to bring out the heavy equipment and clear the driveway.  Definitely not a time to shovel snow!

Then the doorbell rang and look who was here!

We were blessed not to lose power this time.  My heart goes out to the hundreds of thousands here in New England that not only lost power but actually had to evacuate due to high tides.  Hopefully life will get back to normal soon.

On a lighter note I thought you might like to see a different side of the "Tomato Vine" colors.  If you use the Kaleidacolor ink pad you get a look that is more like the colors of a tomato, whereas if you use the colors that make up the pad separately you can get a completely different look.  I used a Brushstix tool to pick up the color and transfer it to the image.  Any little spots that weren't exactly what I wanted were enhanced with the matching Memento Markers.  I used the pads and the pens to distress the edges also.  Here is a quick card that shows you what I mean.

Here is a list of the products I used for this card.

Products

Inks:  Memento Morocco, Rich Cocoa, Peanut Brittle, Bamboo Leaves, Love Letter

Black StazOn ink

Memento Markers:  Bamboo Leaves, Dandelion yellow

Tsukineko Essential Glue Pad

Gold Glitter

Clear embossing powder

Fude Ball pen, black

Pop dots
Glossy card stock

Tools

Honeycomb stencil by The Crafters Workshop

Stamps by Stampotique, Zettiology, Rubber Stampede

ImagineCrafts Brushstix

Heat gun

I hope you'll try some of these inks, the colors are so intense, I love them.  Have a great day, I'm sure it'll be wonderful here, the sun is coming out.  We have a beautiful winter wonderland outside.  Take care, thanks for taking the time to stop by.  If you have time please leave a comment, I love to hear what you think!  Talk to you soon.

Blizzard Day::Great for Crafting

Snow days are perfect for crafting as long as you have power!  So far, so good.  It started snowing here around 10am this morning  and so far we have about an inch and a half of accumulation.    I'll take pics tomorrow when my husband starts clearing the driveway.

I'm working on some projects for new classes that I will be teaching this Spring at Ink About It, my LSS in Westford, MA.  I thought a little crayon art would be fun.  I actually spotted this trend on Pinterest a couple of months ago and tried it.   Wow!!  So much fun.  It looks like it is for kids but not really, it requires close adult supervision.  There is always a chance of younger kids getting burned.  First the hot glue is, well, HOT.  Then the melted crayons are also very hot.  If you get too close to the crayons with your heat gun or hold your heat gun on one spot for too long the paper wrappings could catch fire.  (I bet you're wondering how I know that. :-))  But besides all the precautionary comments, the project turns out so stinkin' cute!

This is made using a Rick St. Dennis digital image called "Euro Clowns".  The  images are colored in with Copic markers.

This stamp is by Zettiology.  I colored her in with Copic markers.

Today I will be revamping these projects with stamped images that have a circus theme.  They should be really cute!

 What do you do when you're snowed in?  I would love to hear what you do during times like this.  I'm just praying we don't lose power.  Then we start camping out, literally, we bring all the camping equipment up from the basement, build a big fire (in the fireplace) and hunker down.  Yes, it is really attractive, not to mention romantic.....not.

Thanks so much for stopping by to visit.  Keep warm and dry!  Be safe and I'll talk to you soon.

Art Journal Pages with Dylusions

Hello everyone....no snow as yet but tomorrow sounds like it is going to be a stay at home kind of day.  I've been playing around with the new Dylusions spray inks that I was able to get my hands on, Cherry Pie and After Midnight.  The colors are very dramatic and fantastic on the gessoed journal pages.

The silhouette is just one cut out of a magazine surrounded with black Gelato by Faber Castell.  The words are K and Co.Wild Saffron Adhesive Chipboard.

The sentiment is random.  I don't know where it came from other than the Web so it is just anonymous.

A few stamps using StazOn black ink and some tangling with a Fude Ball pen.  Ever have a day like that?  "One day she awoke to discover that she had become the wrong person".  If you do, just change it and become the Right Person.  Easier said than done. 

Thanks for stopping by, leave a comment if you have time!  I always love to hear your thoughts.

Butterfly note card

Hello again, it is a CHILLY 26 degrees here today and I'm really dreaming about summer!  The seed catalogs have started to arrive and my garden plans have begun.  Can't wait.

Here is one last card that I made using the postcard technique shown earlier this week.

 On this particular card after I used a brayer to apply the Tsukineko Kaleidacolor ink in the "Tomato Vine" colors and sprayed it with water, I dried the paper with a heat gun.

  Then I put some water on my fingers and flicked it on to the watercolor paper panel.  The longer you allow the water to sit the more ink will be removed.  I allowed it to sit for about 30 seconds, applied some heat from my gun and then blotted it with a paper towel.  When this was completely dry, I stamped it with a phrase stamp by Rubber Stampede and Impression Obsessions Gardening Tools stamp.  StazOn Black ink is my favorite permanent ink.  After this was completely dry I glued the card to a black piece of card stock and then adhered the entire panel to a blank white card.  I tied an orange and white piece of bakers twine on to the cards crease.  The final touch was Tsukineko Goosebumps applied just to the butterfly for a little extra texture.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Please leave a comment if you have time, I love hearing what you think.  Have a great day and stay warm!

Just Be You

Here is another card made from the Kaleidacolor "Tomato Vine" stamp pad from Tsukineko.  I actually made four cards while I was making my "mess".  This is card number 3 in the set.

For this card I did the same technique using a brayer to lay down the ink on a gesso covered piece of watercolor paper.

For the white flowers I just laid a stencil down on the dry watercolor paper and applied a thin layer of gesso across the surface.  After I carefully lifted off the stencil I made sure to wash it off immediately.  Allow the gesso to dry thoroughly, using the heat gun to hurry the process along.  This gives the card a lacy effect.

I adhered the now dry panel to a piece of orange card stock.  I found this really cool ribbon the other day that has a strip of adhesive across the back of it so it makes it easy to apply across the surface of the paper.  After I adhered the ribbon I matted the panel to some brown card stock and then to a blank white card that measures 5" by 7".  I cut the leaves from a Sizzix die called Lilac Sculpture # 38-1119.  I placed the leaves on the left side of the card and then glued a large orange paper flower in the center of the leaves.  I used some Tsukineko Goosebumps to make it look like drops of water on the flower petals and the leaves.  The phrase is by Inkadinkado.  I stamped it on a piece of white scrap paper using StazOn Black ink and edged it with Morocco ink.  I stapled 3 tiny staples on it and then adhered it to the watercolor panel using a strong adhesive.

I have one more card in this set of "gardening" cards that I will share with you tomorrow.  Just remember when you start this project that more is better.  While you have everything out try to do several cards at one time.  This would make a lovely gift as a set of cards for a friend who loves gardening!

If you have time please leave a comment, I love hearing from you!  Thanks for stopping by, I'll talk to you soon.  Take care.