Journal Page SDC85 Whatever Makes You Happy

Kaz created the challenge for this week's Stampotique challenge;"We all have our problems in life, but life is short and we should all find something to put a smile on our faces as often as we can. So whether you choose 'happy' as your theme, your word or you use a technique that makes you smile, show me your little bit of HAPPY!"

I did wonder about this as I am normally pretty happy but the last few months have been tough. Then middle son's motivating phrase "Positive Mental Attitude (PMA)" which is a family joke came to mind and the song lyrics "Be happy, don't worry". Lying in my sick bed I had been rereading some old magazines and in August 2012 Craft Stamper; Jaine Drake had an article about using old pieces of chipboard and texture paste as the base for a journal page. As one of my intentions this year is to use up arty and fabric stashes this seemed like a great way to use some of those early purchases like peel offs...

I found some peel offs, chipboard and letters and added them to a gesso base. I then put texture paste on top of these pieces and more gesso followed by some dylusion inks and distress stain.

At this point I was pleased although those large letters don't really keep their appearance with layers and the peel offs were much better. Then it went wrong...

I had an idea about using glossy accents and embossing powder and I hated it. I grabbed some alcohol thinner and rubbed it off (was not set yet) and gessoed over the offending pieces. I then added stamps from a number of Dylusions' sets that I stamped on dictionary pages and card,  journalling and more doodles. It was still a bit lacking in cohesion so I stamped Claudine Hellmuth dots over the whole page. When I was sticking the stamps on the page I used Golden Soft Gel medium (semi gloss) as it was all I had and noticed it made the colour much brighter and reacted with the distress. In the end I used my finger to add gel medium all over the page. I added journalling on waste sprayed paper and finished my page. It does show that if you make a hideous mistake in a journal you just get the gesso out and keep going until you are happy...

I had taken more photos but the gel medium has a slight sheen and the close up pictures did not really work.

Art Journal - Dangerous Words

These pages are about the words and feelings I have been experiencing in the last few weeks.  Mum is still in hospital with more complications and infections but we did mark her month anniversary by getting her an ipad and that has made her life less boring. My life is one of those groundhog days of get up, work, visit hospital, home late and sleep. I now have a week's holiday for  half term which is good but we had to cancel our original holiday plans due to mum's hospital stay.  I was able to pass our week in holiday cottage onto good friends who are also having a bad time at the minute. I remind myself constantly that many people are much worse off than me and plaster a smile on my face.
These pages have been evolving in my very limited spare time. It began as an experiment with alcohol inks being thrown on the pages as I have had these for ages and very rarely use them. I also put some random letters on the pages using gesso and a stencil.

When I blotted the page I turned the letters into a splodge and the page sat waiting forlornly, for days, for more input. The other evening grabbed some white and black posca pens and began to doodle everywhere. I then found a stamp a little like an art noveau shape and scattered this on the pages. 

As the page was very uneven due to gesso and ink layers it was not a flat surface for stamping. I have a lot of feelings about my current circumstances but did not want to vent too much on the page so resorted to my dictionaries and tore out words and meanings I was feeling and experiencing. I swiped these with distress stains and added these to the pages and outlined and circled the words.

Looking at the words I thought they were quite suggestive and added "Dangerous Words".

In between hospital visits (and the endless telephone conversations that you seem to have afterwards to keep family and friends up to date) I am planning some sewing and journalling and maybe even some more blogging. But don't hold me to that as life recently has had the habit of disrupting any plans I make.

Return to journalling

It's been a while and what can I say? Life just got in the way. The best thing about being a teacher (not always) is the holidays and after 4 weeks at my favourite place in the world - Camusdarach beach - I am refreshed and revived.

I began by swiping a liberal layer of broken china and wild honey distress stains over the pages and blending them where they met. I then used one of my favourite Paper Artsy Stamps to create an image and border around the page. I found a random art deco stamp and using picket fence distress stain stamped it randomly over the blue. I then added some titan buff acrylic paint with my finger and a wipe over the wild honey.

I have also created the background for another page. I swiped barn door  and then picket fence distress stains on a page and then randomly dotted the picket fence around the page. I then chucked faded jeans embossing powder onto the page and shook it off and then embossed what was left.

 I found some butterflies and dragonfly outlines that were the left overs from diecutting for a scrap book page and used these as stencils with dylusions inks - burnt orange and fuschia and  granite spray,  that I had hardly used (most of my other favourite colours have run out and need replacing).

I stamped a Jo Capper Sandon starfish from Craft Stamper randomly over the blue and then more distress stains in pine needles and peeled paint in swirls and then brushed on another layer of broken china. I really like the effects on this page but want to think about what goes next.

It's lovely to be back blogging and I am looking forward to catching up on all the blogs and people I have been neglecting over the last few months. Be warned I have been busy sewing several quilts, and photographing them, and I will post them soon. Can you also tell that I have been experimenting with Pic Monkey?

Art Journal

I created this page at the same time as the tag for the Stampotique challenge as you can see by the similar colours. I began by transferring a photo and had to glue pages as was a bit gunky and then added gesso and china blue distress stains.

More distress stains and splodges and wet wipes

Some doodling and mini butterfly stamped smudged with posca white pens, I stamped a Paper Artsy flower over the thistle image in black felt it was much to harsh and added some titan buff paint and white doodles.

I hid the more personal journalling under the paint layers and then added the title. I stamped Paper Artsy Butterfly and Dragonfly on some paper I had altered with paint.

SDC52: Oodles of Doodles

I created this tag for the Stampotique Challenge here, set by Kaz Boughton that asked for oodles of doodles. I have been experimenting with creating a wood distress finish for another finish and on this tage used layers of distress stains and titan buff acrylic paint for the background. I stamped Smushasha onto the tag and then coloured her with watercolour promarkers. I doodled the title "Sometimes life's a beach" with gel pens and posca white and then doodled the seaweed over the stamped image.

I then added some of my large collection of sea glass and beach finds and some seam binding. To hang the tag I threaded ribbon through a holey shell.

My imac is having memory problems at the moment as I have too much stuff on it and even though Lens Guy set up a hard drive for me I haven't quite got round to moving stuff onto it. There is always something more interesting to do...

Art Journal Page

As I am yet again trying to catch up with prompts on UK Stampers weekly challenge here is week 37 - Laugh (just 38-40) to finish now... To save time I used a mop up page as my background.

 Because I was thinking about Monty Python's parrot sketch which always makes me laugh

I decided to create odd stamped images using images from Dylusions and Tim Holtz.

 I was going to use scrapping alphas but did not have the letters I needed so cut out the waste and then sprayed Dylusion orange ink over before removing the ink. 

I stuck to the organey green colour scheme on the mop up page using the inks and distress stains to colour the images with.

Art Journal Pages

As you can I have used some of my new purchases. The first page was asking whether or not we are spiritual and I am not, I am much more of a free spirit summed up by the quote from Nietzche: One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I swiped on marmalade distress stain and then added Adironack Espresso randomly. I stamped the Dina Wakely Grungy Silhoutte onto the still wet ink so it blended into the page and then scribbled with a sharpie pen. I used my white pen to write the quote and stamped with paint and ink using the free Jo Capper Sandon  stamp from craft stamper.

 I'm not sporty but I do enjoy water sports and used to sail, windsurf and water ski. Now I am content to kayak around beaches watching seals and surfing waves. The second page is a succession of layers or ink, paint, ink and more ink and paint.

 Once I had built up layers and used gesso to make shapes in the pattern I drew round some chipboard starfish and then sprayed through the waste sheet.

I stamped Smushsasha from Stampotique on the page and then on card and coloured her with aqua pro markers, cutting her out was tricky but it allowed me to place her hands round the distressed surfboard and keep some definition. I also stamped circles with the distress stains in peeled paint and broken china.

I used a glue lid to stamp white and black circles of paint and a card to add white paint lines - some of which I smudged. The title was done in aqua promarkers and sprayed with water to make it run. Finally I added the wavy journalling and a few more stamped circles over it.