This and that

The photos show the front and back of my current art journal. I set a challenge on UKStampers to take inspiration from a modern (ish) abstract painter and alter something using inspiration from your favourite abstract artists and stamps. I choose Wassily Kandinksy. The front is inspired by a painting called Patch of Puddles. I began by creating shapes with modelling paste, leaving three squares flat for stamping.

I then added dylusion acrylic paints and wiped some off with a baby wipe.

I stamped with three Paper Artsy stamps and sealed with some acrylic gel medium.

The back was inspired by the painting Composition V111.

Once painted I added more paper artsy stamps and then some gel medium

I blotted this with a paper towel to create texture. And now for something different... (well not altered or stamped)

This LO shows our eldest two daughters 20 years ago. It is based on a Sketch given by a group I belong to on UKS called Scrap a Sketch. The embellishments on the bottom of the photo hide distracting elements in the photo.

The journalling tag pulls out and describes the day and some of the Easter traditions we had when the children were much younger.

Synchronicity

I was trying to create a lo for a challenge on UKS using spring colours, ribbons and sewing and food. The photo I had in mind was a halloween one... I created a background stamping the skeleton and crow from TH and decided to stamp the waste in my journal. I sprayed the lo and then the journal page and so on... Although as you can see I did end up with quite different pages. At this point there was some similarity.

But after more ink, paint and stencil layers the journal page became very different.

I wrote my journalling and then wanted a title to sum up how I felt. I used a stencil and modelling paste to create the letters - be warned it is messy and if you are impatient like me you make a mess.

Meanwhile back at the scrapping lo I created coffin style two tone tags for my journalling.

and once the modelling paste was dry on the journal page I coloured the letters with aqua pro markers but left some of the white showing. 

I do like the linkage between the two and the fact that using similar materials and supplies you can create something quite different.

I am not sure if there is such a word as synchronisity (and blogger spell check thinks not correctly because it is synchronicity - doh) but I think this is exactly what happens when two mediums collide and its my blog so I decide to correct the error (thanks to Angelnorth even though blogger does not recognise this either)

Getting my scrap on at the crop

I had a very productive time at the monthly EK Craft and Crop  and completed the pirate and circle lo  and them came home and completed the Beach Babe lo. These are all using photographs that used to be part of photo montages in clip frames. This was before I had ever heard of scrapping. The frames eventually fell apart and I had a pile of very random photos - none of which have dates or places on them and I have been racking my brain to remember exact details about them.
The Beach Babe lo used the UKS February Simple Recipe of citrus orange, fuschia pink, turquoise and red with mists and buttons. I misted a TH Resist page with orange/pink dylusions and then used blue/green on white to make the central panel. I punched flowers from the waste and added bling to their centres. The ribbon, flowers and button continue the colour theme.

The second page was made up of the blue/green card stock and then a page from my stash that was just too bright to use all together so I cut it up and used Heather's circle dies.

 The last page was for the weekly challenge and had to include red and black, stamping (Dylusions fab skull) and movement courtesy of a movable journalling tab. I borrowed the bunting punch and in a charity sale to raise money for Help the Heroes bought the scrabble tiles.

At the crop the lovely Heather made me think about journalling on los as she pointed out that in 100 years time (or less) people could look at the photos and have no idea about who, what, why, place etc so I am going to try and remember to include journalling on all my los in the future.

A scrapbook page

This page was inspired by the Simple Recipe Prompt on UKScrappers that suggested using pink, brown and grey. Not a colour scheme I would normally use but as it was to use up scraps and I am determined to scrap more this year I gave it a go. I began with the hot pink cardstock background and a grey strip down the side from a TH paper pack. I found the chocolate birds on scrap paper (don't know who made it) and also cut some birds out of that for the birds at the top.

I had covered the birds at the top in glossy accents but didn't like it so swiped with white paint. The flowers were old flowers that I had no idea what to do with and I used some brown ribbon and lace to make the other flower. The journalling describes our middle daughter at a younger age when she was either very good or...

For my birthday my lovely children bought me some metal, metal tools and tape to feed my latest obsession with metal and it came with some mini stamps too...

A Productive Crop - Scrapping, journalling and laughing

I was at the monthly EK Craft and Crop yesterday and had a wonderful time, I even managed to create 2 and a half scrapbook LOs and a journal page and managed to gossip (I mean exchange fun information) with some lovely ladies. The hardest thing was not eating any biscuits or cakes as I am trying to avoid putting on any weight with my latest attempt at giving up smoking...19 days and counting.
I had taken last year's art journal and my newest one as Suzy is interested in trying out art journalling. It turns out a whole lot of people are interested in this. As I inked and splodged all over my layouts there were various comments about the mess I got into to, created and how it was not for them. Over on UK Stampers we have been discussing how there are no rules in journalling and if you want to be messy you are, if you want to be neat and graphic (see the fabulous graphic pages by Ephemera) you can be. The subject of what you journal is also fascinating and again we agreed you either do or don't. This is a bit of a ramble here but I am going somewhere with this. My biggest problem with scrapping has always been there seems to be rules and I always felt I was getting it wrong somehow. Yesterday I had this moment of insight (or madness) and agreed with Suzy that we don't need rules and why should it always have a title or journalling? I then happily created 2 and half pages that are heavily influenced by my art journalling adventures. I also bought some beautiful seam binding from Angela of Angel Crafts who brings her shop to the crop and some prima resist canvas (and nothing else if you are reading this Lens Guy...)
A little about the LOs. The first one shows our middle daughter aged about 8 (we never dated our old photos...) and my dad. I cut out out the blue cardstock using a borrowed stencil and then added some TH Kraft resist in the middle which I swiped with dylusion ink using a baby wipe. The title was also swiped with ink and the letters were a Prima Lush set.

This was layered onto a gutted piece of Kraft card. I stamped compass, binoculars and text from a Royal Langnickel set, added distress inks and then journalled. I used two beautiful colours of seam binding to provide a frame and a piece of the canvas resist.

The next layout shows our youngest daughter aged 3 or 4 following my brother-in-laws pet sheep back up to their house. I used a lost and found page and spritzed it with dylusions and distress inks. 

A piece of 7 Gypsies card as a photo mount and then used seam binding to create a flower and ribbon strips. I also added a lovely piece of lace. The title was Tiny Alphas from Prima.

Finally and sorry it's such a long post... the journal page began with Claudine Hellmuth foam dot stamps and then I added Studio 490 Steampunk stamps and Lady Audrey from Octopode. There was a lot of ink and acrylic paint here too. The journalling sprung from the conversations we were having yesterday about how art journalling is scary and messy.

 The little feet shape marks beside the boot were from a decorative easter chicken Betty was making tags with but she took the feet off and Anne suggested I should use it so I stamped them on.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I always appreciate the comments people leave, although Blogger is back to being a little huffy at the moment.

AWOL but here's a rare scrapping layout

I have been AWOL as the inspectors are coming to school and under pressure at work to have everything  perfect and could you just write up that and this and... Just finished a 70 hour week this week - not something I want to do again. As our leader said when trying to inspire us..."They'll find what they find." Very profound and this was followed by, "It will be over by Christmas!" Stopping at that point would have been fine but our leader then asked the history teacher if that was the correct phrase for the WW1. With a passion rarely heard the reply was, "And they were wrong and it was followed by 4 years of attrition, destruction and the troops were decimated." To be quite honest I would rather they just turned up without notice as my teaching would be the same, my classroom would just be a little messy and my filing a little behind.
Anyway back to scrapping. I took last Saturday off and spent the day with the fab crew at EK Craft and Crop - lots of chat, laughter and some creating. I even managed some Christmas cards too.

 I borrowed the TH Tattered Floral die at the crop to make the layered flowers, chipboard butterflies   from Tando were inked and the floral paper had been in my stash forever and just had been to be torn to make it less pretty. I also used an acetate overlay I have had for years. The photo is of our middle daughter the weekend our youngest daughter was born. Their aunt had spent hours entertaining the four of them with face painting etc so they did not feel jealous of their little sister - but that has never been a problem. Middle daughter loves bugs, birds and the outside so the butterflies and robin seemed appropriate. The flowers and everything else have liberal applications of ink and doodles.

The journalling is on a tag tucked into the semi circle. I can see that art journalling does influence my scrapping layouts as I had no fear doodling a border around the photo and the letters and a few more flowers. The metal butterfly used to be on one of the girls shoes and I rescued it when the shoes were being thrown out.

Scrapping and cropping

I went cropping this Saturday (joining the cult as youngest refers to it) and had a great day full of chat, cake and a little scrapping. Unusually for me I was quite productive and managed to complete 2 double los for the Paris album and a single LO. This is the single page lo. I have a little tweaking and finishing touches to do to the double los over the next few days. I used a piece of Ranger Manila card and then stamped using bubble wrap and distress inks to create a background. I then added more distress inks. The pictures show one of the Paris Metro entrances and I decided that the bubble wrap background and elements should reflect this. The journalling is all about how well and frequently the Metro runs and the fact that my son would get very impatient if we had to wait more than 5 minutes.

He has always been in constant motion since he was a baby. To highlight the journalling I used 5 different embroidery threads to sew lines under the text. The text was written in black and then overwritten in white - something I do a lot of in my art journals. The doodled round the photos and added a selection of brads and eyelets. I used Rangers metal foil for the title which I drew freehand and cut out after rubbing a tiny bit of alcohol ink into.

UKScrappers Challenge - Who Me? Spoilt

The challenge was to use the word "Who" in the title, use red and or earth tones and scrap about something new. My experiments with my birthday stash seemed ideal. The background was an old piece of paper I had had for ages, the journalling block was from 7 Gypsies, I painted and then embossed old chipboard letters and Jill Bean Soup Corrugated letters, photos mounted on coredinations card. Image of boy angel with wings from Stampotique stamped and coloured with pro markers and then I added firebrick red distress ink.

House Sketch Challenge for UKScrappers - back to paper

Jasper No - before all journalling revealed

Now you can see all the journalling

I have been loving the art journalling and I think it has given me my scrapping mojo back. With all the big projects last year I did for birthdays, christmas etc I think I had come to find the scrapping a chore rather than the pleasure it was. So here it is a chaotic page about Jasper. It does look like it has had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at it but that's okay I kind of like it. The challenge meant you had to follow the sketch and use 50% journalling - eek not my favourite thing on LOs. I solved it by creating a tag holder that holds five numbered tags and then folds out with more journalling ( I tag stapled to top of layout) and I used some of the journalling tickets I received from secret santa.

The explanation of No inside the fold down tag holder 

6 tags with his story on it

The tag holder pocket thingy

Cluttered with details and journalling

I printed out b/w mini photos and stuck to a ribbon to create an extra embellishment, DI on the tickets and more journalling underneath

Cut heart bubble out of paper added comment, chipboard arrow covered in paper

I outlined the American Thicker letters with a pink pen and swiped pen around page and bw photos

Supplies: Blue Card stock, Distress Ink added
Pink Cardstock
American Crafts double sided backyard for polka/brown paper
American thickers umbrella letters
Ribbons from stash
Journalling tickets altered with distress inks
Assorted pens
Staples