Stampotique Designers Challenge SDC99 Summertime

 The Stampotique Challenge set by Carol was Summer but as I live in Scotland which does not always have bright days I was thinking about the colours of the West Coast of Scotland. Photos are probably the easiest way to show how this came about. The journalling says "As the sun sets the Selkie comes out to lure the unwary to a watery wedding...". Selkies are are a Scottish myth and are sea creatures that are seals in the water and beautiful people on land.  I thought my Stampotique Mermaid added a more sinister twist. I began by creating texture using gesso.

Then using watercolours created the landscape.

I added Titan White and Buff

Stamped texture in the distance using Angel Wings...

Stamped the mermaid, coloured her and placed her on a "rock" cut her out and added her and journalling to the page.

Art Journal circular textures (edit to fix photos)

I feel like I have been going round in ever decreasing circles as we try to work out the future. These pages began with gesso and whilst it was still wet I added some inky circles and then more acrylic white splodged on. I let it dry a while and then added more ink and paint and left it overnight. I stamped dylusion circles as a border and then a mix of Paper Artsy circular flower images.

I used a black Posca pen to journal about how I feel around the images and then doodled more circles using aqua markers.

I had taken and posted the original photos with my phone but the quality was really poor so I took photos again. Detail of textures.

I have been trying out patterns for mum's quilt and I like this idea but want to tweak it. It's from the Elizabeth Hartman Practical Guide to Patchwork.

Messy Textured Journal page

This page is for Lens Guy who puts up with a lot and as I don't do Valentine's this is it and he really is "For Keeps and Forever". It is my entry into the Stampotique Challenge SDC86 Red, Pink and White and the Simon Says Have a Heart Challenge. I am fascinated by creating texture on my art journal pages at the minute so I began with some texture paste through chipboard waste and by splodging a heart shape on the facing page with my finger.

 I then pressed a sheet of corrugated card on top to create ridges (and impatiently waited for it to dry and getting fed up I sprayed some Dylusions inks onto the damp paste). There was also some alphabet stencils under the heart in gesso from a previous use up of waste paint.

As I had been sewing I decided to sew a border onto the page as well. I stuck masking tape down the centre, a tip I picked up from Donna Downey as many of my previous pages have ink incursions from later pages and this helps contain seepage between pages and is hidden once the page is finished.

I then used 3 dylusion heart stamps on the page facing the big heart and as a border round both pages which I highlighted with more watercolour paint in red and pink, ink and white acrylic paint. I then stamped Oh My Deer and Eric (from Stampotique) 3 times onto white tissue paper and glued them onto the page. For two of the images I went in with red and pink watercolours and blended them into the page and the third one I left the stamped images uncoloured and ghost like.

Close up showing stitching, doodles and traces of the alphabet stencil.

Lots of hearts and texture.

Thank you for dropping by.

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 Stampotique Challenge SDC82

Stampotique stamps, paint, layers, tonic border punch and snowflake punch

The first pages using Dylusion and Studio 490 stamps and tonic border  punches and the lyrics from "Brain Damage" by Pink Floyd. 

 I am entering this in the Stampotique Challenge SDC82 which challenged you to use die cuts and punches. I finished the page but found it very hard to photograph, partly because the "page" is a double page layout with another double page inside that double page. I also used lots of mod page to stick all my layers together which gives the page a high shine. I think this page is perhaps too much and is one of those pages when I should have stopped about 4 layers back but I still like all the layers and texture.
These were the pages before I went a little overboard...

I like the snowflakes I added but think I should have left the text and the waste from the punches white.

I suppose that is the fun of journalling you never quite know what will happen. I like the fact that other pages of my journal will have the cut out shape and you can glimpse areas through the punches.

Thank you for stopping by.

Cushions and back to journalling

I made these 3 cushions as part of eldest son's Christmas and did show a picture of them in his flat. I had to take a picture of these on Christmas Eve at night as I did not finish them until them. I used a scrappy log cabin for two and the fabulous retro fabric for the middle one. Of course I forgot to keep a note of the fabrics but I did buy them from Beyond-fabrics.co.uk. One of the text prints has instructions on how to iron which I chose as the back for one of the cushions so he could follow instructions to iron shirts.

I quilted the scrappy logs with diagonal lines

I used a simple envelope back as I've not tried zips yet.

I began journalling again and feel great. I'm not sure if it was having time to myself for the first time in weeks, getting my feelings on paper or just playing but whatever combination of these... it worked. I found myself dancing around the kitchen to the Foo Fighters while cooking and was interrupted by youngest daughter coming into the room looking horrified and asking me to turn the music down. Jumping around to music is fun though. Here's the background before I added anything else. I need to wait for daylight to show you the finished page.

 Lots of texture, paint, ink and layers of pages.

 The photo below shows some christmas ribbon I found and painted and inked and added to the page. Love that texture.

Thanks for coming by.

Stampotique SDC70 Backgrounds Art Journal

I have been doing a little journalling this week and again it is a little "dark" to reflect what is going on in life.
The Stampotique challenge SDC70  was to use a stamp to create the background. I began with some scribbled words, paint and ink. Then I used TH mask and Dylusion inks.

Next I used a clock face stamp and a mask of Olivia to create a sense of chaotic time. When I then stamped Olivia she seemed lost so using acrylic paint and fingers I lightened part of the page. I then masked and sprayed again.

I liked how her face was now ghostly and left that on the original page but stamped and coloured a headless version of her. I then used the tube of paint to create circles in the clocks.

I added some red watercolour spirals and my journaling about Time and my lack of control over it.
The reason for this is my poor mum who has been in hospital for many weeks. This week she developed an infection and had another op to remove the hip replacement. She will be without a hip for 6 weeks and on IV antibiotics before she has her fourth op to replace the hip. Unfortunately she will need to stay in hospital all this time - but at least they have no identified the problem.
I am trying to stay positive but after it could be a lot worse. Thank you for dropping by.

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.

Our dreams are free - so fly one today

In my last post I had explained why I was missing and my lack of time but as I wrote it I began to think I was just making excuses and if I wanted to craft I would have to find a way. I pulled out my journal and found this background I blogged about back in July and decided to see what I could do sitting with family, journal and some pens. I began to doodle around the sprayed images and create shapes and then added the border. At this point I liked the page (did not take photo) and left it there for the evening thinking perhaps I could find ways to be in more than one place at a time.

 I had decided that today after domestic stuff was done I would have some me time and pulled out the page again. I felt it was missing something so added the "Head is a machine" text stamp from my Studio 490 Steampunk set. Then I dug out my old dictionaries and the word conundrum just seemed to fit how I was feeling. Finally I stamped the Queen of Hearts from Octopode on some TH paper and coloured her in. To make her seem part of the page and not the afterthought she was I then doodled the page border onto the cut out stamp.

I feel the pages sum up my feelings at this point in time and I like the colours which are not my usual go to greens and purples. In the spirit of I can do this rather than I don't have time to do this I am off to finish machine stitching the binding on my quilt so I can take the quilt and finish the hand sewing off when I stay at mum's for the next few days. I am not promising I will keep this up but I will try. I have also found a Quilt along, Row along at Bee in the Bonnet and might see if I can keep up with this. I think this is what I need as a beginner quilter, if you are interested you can find the details here.

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/announcing-bee-in-my-bonnet-row-along.html

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?