Journal Pages

I spoilt myself this week by treating myself to some of the beautiful felt, charms and twine at the ribbon girl, bought Kate Crane's DVD which I have really enjoyed and somehow bought a set of cosmic shimmer chalk mists (I honestly don't remember pressing buy on that one). I rationalised the expense as a treat to myself for not smoking for three weeks. These two pages are influenced by the Kate Crane DVD and my desire to play with the chalk mists. They have a beautiful finish but try as I might the photo does not do them justice. I could ask Lens Guy to explain how to do it but then I might have to confess to the purchases...

I used an alphabet stencil and pink and orange glimmer mists to build up this background.

Yellow and blue and lots of drippage

I used stamps from Dylusions Ruby Rainbow and Love Stuck Lucy which I stamped, cut out and painted with glimmer mists. I then tried to create shadows around the image to "ground" it but as I didn't have charcoal I used pro markers with mixed results. 

The things that made me smile this week included :my new purchases, winning stamps on Shady Tree Studio's blog hop, Lens Guy's face as I dragged him round the garden centre, catching up with old friends and last night deciding to experiment with my daughter's bright green nail varnish before I went out to a party and then discovering we had no nail varnish remover in the house...

The other page was all about Truth and for some reason I liked the combination of Tim Holtz skeleton with a dylusion hat.

In case any of you were worried that my craft space was too messy it is quickly reverting to normal

My next purchase is going to be a moleskin journal so I can journal properly. My UKS journal is a journal but as it is not yet bound I feel it is kind of cheating.

Art Journal Television

My blog and crafting have been neglected over the last few weeks due to a combination of holiday, work and lots of sun in Scotland. We were away over Easter weekend and had no internet connection... since then it has been sunny in Scotland (quite rare to get a prolonged sunny spell) and I have been working hard painting fence panels, building rockeries and developing the now not so muddy slope (more on that later this week). I was also a little behind with my journal so had a happy afternoon catching up and playing. This prompt  was on the theme of television.
The sky control is in the photo as it has revolutionized the way we watch and interact with our box in the corner of the room. Series links, fast forward and other features make us in control of what we watch and as result I watch less television but more of what I like.

We were asked to use tv listings as a background so I had to print one as did not have a newspaper as I tend to get most of my news through digital media. I used cardboard waste from embellishments to spray dylusions inks in a frame and then I used a plastic card to spread white dylusions paint through the squares. I was thinking about TV being a box and making us square eyed.

I then used the mini diamond stamp from Tim Holtz to create a border and the letters TV and the mini bird clouds to create distortion on some of the televisions.

Finally I added my journalling about the best ever TV series being the Wire, how I stopped watching soaps to get more me time, watching the daleks in black and white and the fact that Lens Guy and I didn't own a TV the first two years we were together.

Art Journal Music using homemade stencils and stamps, Just for Fun

First hi to my latest followers - I am still amazed that anyone drops by to see what I do and I appreciate all the comments and opportunities to see what everyone else is doing. This is also for the Just for fun challenge which asks you to use circles. If you click on the logo at the side you can pop over and see some great work.
This page taxed me as I do not have any musical stamps but after downloading a sheet of vintage music from graphics fairy I began to get going. The page was already showing bits of paints from other pages that had splodged onto it and when I think of music I think of the originial vinyl even though I love my iphone and digital music so that made me think of circles.  My first stencil appeared which was moved around and liberally sprayed with luscious dylusions inks.

Once I had sprayed to my heart's content I printed out some large musical notes and used them as stencils and as stamps. The stamping was a bit haphazard as I did it with paint but I like the effect.

You can see both a stencilled and stamp painted example here.

Finally I added my journalling about Music. 

I love music of all sorts and have quite eclectic tastes ranging from grungy metal to pop to divas to jazz and blues so a Top Five was almost impossible. However my final top five are all significant and remind me of certain times in my life (but that it is too personal to share...) Final choices: Nevermind by Nirvana, The Bends by Radiohead,  Boy with the Arab Strap by Belle and Sebastian, U2 by October and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.  First single ever bought was Terry Jacks Seasons in the Sun and I cringe as I write this as I still know all the words...