ATCs - Faces

I created these for a Swap on UK Stampers and the theme was faces. The first one is called Tightly sprung and uses Lady  from Octopode. I added cogs, wheels and springs from a bargain book called "Workbench Ephermera". Some of the pages are vellum and let me have layers of detail. I also used a piece of the wood paper as a background. The stamps were coloured with ink and watercolours.

I gessoed the background and added layers of inks. The face is Dylusions Dependable Dotty which was masked before stamping with Paper Artsy ledge stamp. Scrabble letters and title added and watercoloured.

I stamped a flower head from Paper Artsy Hot Picks HOXT02 numerous times on scrap paper. I also stamped it directly onto the inked background. I coloured all the faces using dylusion inks and cut out and added to the effect. I then overstamped using the complete stamp. If you look hard you can make out various faces.

This is a continuation of the idea of faceless numbers. I created a reverse mask and stamped ruler stamp from Paper Artsy into head space. On an acetate I traced the Dylusion head shape and filled it with alcohol inks. I then journalled on the actetate using black and white pens about the power of faces and stuck the acetate to the inky background.

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.

Stampotique Challenge Bookmark SD37

Kate Crane set the challenge here at Stampotique  time to make a bookmark. I stamped Oh Dear on Acetate and then coloured the background with Alcohol Inks. I then cut a long strip of TH resist Kraft paper, folded it in half and inked it with spiced marmalade and Worn lipstick. I cut an window in the resist paper and then mounted the acetate with some lost and found cream paper inside the window.

 On the back I stamped Olivia and then stamped her head onto two die cut flowers from TH die and mounted them onto of each other. Finally I stitched all round the edge with two colours of embroidery thread and made a little tassle.

Stampotique Challenge Red Yellow and Orange and what the dog did next!

When I read the prompt to use Red Yellow and Orange for the Stampotique challenge I just had to give it a go as it tied in with an idea I had for a journalling page about Wildlife for UKS. The prompt was about animals, pets and asked us to use an animal print so a (very impressionist) Tiger print was chosen for various reasons. As I had just finished reading "The Tiger's Wife" I was thinking about Tigers and would recommend it as a great read. You might be wondering about the tape down the side and the bite marks. That was our puppy, Jasper, aged 9 months. I was reading outside and popped in for a cold drink stupidly leaving the book on the table and came out to find it severely damaged.

I initially created layers with water coloured kitchen towels and and glued them to my page but it was too wishy washy so I dived in with liberal applications of dylusions acrylics. The first verse of William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger" was running round my head so I added that. I stamped Stampotique's Oh Dear and Angel Boy onto acetate and then added them. I also added some scrap copper metal that had been through a texture plate and some more paint.

WHAT THE DOG DID NEXT...

It gets worse

Since I photographed this I have added more journalling about what the dog did next (yesterday afternoon). I was dying my hair upstairs and my visiting mother was in the garden with the dog or so I thought. Unbeknown to both of us Jasper had sneaked up onto the work surface and stolen my glasses case with my very expensive varifocal specs - these are a sign of my advancing years. Now they look like this but how he managed to open the case I don't know.

For those that wear glasses you will understand how unusable they are now. It is a visit to the optician's for me tomorrow as with my old specs I have to take them off every time I want to read something and as a teacher that is constantly reading and looking up and reading again it just doesn't work. Not sure what the insurance company will say.

Art Journal School Days

Catching up with art journal challenge week 3. We were challenged to use lined paper, list 10 things about school and have some ink blots. I did not like school much but I still remembered a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly.

DI then watercolour, alcohol ink spots and salt for a weathered feel on the background

Stamped TH Haunted mansion on actetate and coloured with alcohol inks

After the salt

Lists and details

The doodled circles were because I was thinking of the disgusting tapioca

Old bookplate

Tapioca frog spawn and ink splodges

Get Well Card

The finished card reads Get Well Soon... or we'll send the 'bots to fix you!

Detail showing layered acetate elements

A friend of the family's son had a terrible car accident this week and is lucky to be alive so I wanted to send him a card from us all. I used papers, elements and alphas from one of the Owl Tree Studio September Kits called Grungy Bots by Linda Tieu. I created a digital file with all the elements I wanted and printed it once onto acetate and then onto card.

The sentiment using a flower brad inked black to act as a cog

I started by printing these elements from the kit

I then used sticky pads and coloured them to stop them being too obvious to layer up the acetate and cut out acetate cogs and stuck them to the card using flower brads I had inked black to make them look like cogs. I think it will appeal to his sense of humour.

Playing with paint, paper and junque journals - work in progress

Sea Fever

Junque/Inspiration Journal page

After I finished the digi layout yesterday morning I was going to do another as at present I am feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of photos I have. Then I remembered that I do this for fun and if I think it becomes a chore it ceases to be fun. I looked up and saw my abandoned junque journal and decided to do a page. So painted on several layers of acrylic paint and then I doodled with the pva and added beads taken from a broken bracelet. It reminded me of the sea and the poem "Sea Fever" by John Masefield so I added a few lines from that and a title torn from an old dictionary. I misted it with glimmer mists. At this point when the paint was wet it looked wonderful but lost some of the vibrancy when dry but I still kind of like it.

Experimental background paper using junque techniques

Background two - but now heading towards my sunflower moments

Inspired by this I created two 12x12 background papers using the white card that comes inside pva sleeves. I used the same techniques - painting with acrylics and then doodling pva lines on, misting with glimmer mists and lifting up to see the colour run. Watch this space for the layouts I make from these. Finally I decided to try painting on acrylic sheets and looking out my window I saw the sunflowers so painted one free hand. I really like it but not sure what to do with it. I think I might make a collage picture as a present or maybe I'll just tape it to my window.

Against my window

Overlays

Here is the poem. It is special to me as it reminds me of my dad who was always happiest when sailing around the West Coast of Scotland.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield

Loving that transparency vibe

The transparency prompt from Shimelle has been fun. I have created a wholly digital page which I printed onto acetate and then a page using acetate print outs. The elements for my seeds page all came from free downloads from Shabby Princess Happy Go Lucky and other sets. I set the background paper to almost transparent to get that faint washed out look - although why I am creating a digital transparent page in an acrylic album I am not sure. I think this page may end up being printed again and being used in my garden journal. I then printed another page of digital elements and used them on the next page.
The lo was dictated by the page again but I am loving this page. The class has inspired the layered flowers and I found scrap vellum (almost transparent) and used this as a mount which then improved the look of the page on the other side. The blue flower is three layered transparencies and the snowflake flowers are made of snowflakes and purple flowers layered up. I think page below is improved by vellum and transparencies on other side.

The small blue flower was made using a circle torn into a spiral and reglued into a flower. The album is getting thick now. 

Inspiring LOs - from butterflies to cats to dragonflies.

I owe the inspiration for this page to DaphneW and  Anesha This page appears quite simple but took lots of work. I started with a DCWV paper from the all about girls range. The centre of this was lined like a notebook but I didn't want that so I cut out the centre and then tore and inked the edges. I wanted a particular soft turquoise for the background and didn't have anything suitable so I found plain cream card stock and applied layers of cobalt blue watercolour washes. I will photograph this is the daylight and these details will be more obvious. The photo is mounted on turquoise card stock and then another DCWV paper with lots of writing on it (which does not show here). I added a row of butterflies on acetate at the bottom and printed out various other butterfly images onto acetate. The butterfly at bottom is made from three pieces of sea glass found on our favourite beach stuck to a piece of capiz from an old light. Buttons make up the dragonflies body whilst the wings are made from acetates I cut out and coloured with pro markers. This is my new favourite LO. The journalling explains the link between the photo, title and bugs.

Storage, organisation and pages three and four

I was taking pics today to show how I like colour and arranging things. The printer's drawer I made into a holder for my jewellery is a classic example. I love it and it helps me to find things quickly.



I need to focus on me a bit which is why I created the I am an inveterate hoarder page in the book. As one of the pics was of pieces of shell capiz cut off a light that was too long I thought I should include them. The acetate overlay uses a paper from Shabby Princess Sweet Serenity and the I am is from the same range. Not sure where I found the butterfly but will try and find source.
The next page shows "Lens Guy". The pictures were taken on different days but they give you an idea of what he does. Youngest daughter and I have spent many chilly, and not so chilly days sitting around waiting while he does his job. I had to find something to fill in my time... (Backing paper DCWV All About Girls, mounts coredinations and a scrap piece of Skate Shoppe. Tag from a shirt)