Deck the Halls

Hi friends! How's your weekend going?  It always goes by so quickly right?  That's what I find bittersweet about the weekends.  They're brief, but usually very enjoyable.

I also realized that I don't have a ton of art creations for the Christmas season.  So I'm hoping to change that.  And I'm doing pretty good so far.  In that vein, I have an ATC for Christmas that I gave a sneak peek of a day or two ago.

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I'm also entering my tag into the following challenge:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge

 

I used an Octopode Factory girl in Christmas gear, and grabbed an ATC the play with.  I added a file label, some ribbon and red thread, letter stickers, a button and brad from my stash, along with a little bit of punchinella.  You could say I grabbed a bunch of my stash and round out this ATC.

Something else in the background that I did was an experiment.  I mixed Liquitex Gesso, Liquitex Bright Aqua Green, and Ranger Gel Medium and pushed the mixture through my Dylusions Trees stencil. 

I also added a bright green paper clip as well.

ATCs may be small, but they are mighty!  Please let me know what you think in the comments!

Peek at a WIP

Something I like to is prep a lot of work at one time.  A quick post today to show you a little in progress work.  Hopefully it will help you with whatever art you want to play with.

This is a piece of 12 x 12 patterned paper that I didn't like, so I flipped it and started playing.

I used a lot of different products, and I'll list them as best I can a little later, but I wanted to give you a taste at least.

I used Dylusions Fresh Lime spray ink, as well as a Dina Wakley stamp with a Ranger Embossing Ink Pad and Ranger Clear Embossing Powder.  If you want to get a really thick embossed image, you can use this Ranger Ultra Thick Clear Embossing Powder.  You can also use a tinted embossing ink pad, so you can see the actual stamped image before you cover it with embossing powder.  Mine is tinted blue.  There's also this Ranger Grey Tinted Embossing Ink Pad, which will do the same thing.

I hope you enjoy and I'll share some more later!  Enjoy!

Mini Art Journal Day 17

Hi there my crafty friends!

I'm so glad you're visiting!  I have another page in my mini art journal for the Art Marks Challenge from Rae Missigman and Sandi Keene.

Day 17 - Poise

 

I'm also entering my page into the following challenge:

Creative Fingers Challenge #262

For some Art Marks Challenge history, you can click here.  And Rae's Instagram account here shows what's she's making for each prompt.  For those who haven't seen my previous posts yet, I'm working in a mini art journal I made out of envelopes, but you can use many different things, including scrap or underpaper, so some pages already had stuff on them.  A hole punch and some baker's twine later and a mini art journal for the challenge ready for art!

I've mostly posted individual pages, and I do plan to post them all.  This challenge has been very interesting thus far, because it makes you think.  Not that I mind thinking.  Sometimes a good brain dump on your art journal page is just what you need.  Whether it's actual writing that you incorporate, writing and your art covers it up, or the art itself represents the brain dump.

For this day's prompt, Poise, what defines poise to you?  What gives one poise or how is it expressed?  Being poised could mean to be balanced.  It can also mean holding oneself or an object in a certain manner.  I've heard being poised and being graceful can go hand in hand, which is certainly one way to look at it.  I like that my page shows being balanced between having fire while not sacrificing respect for yourself.

My background is another gelli print, a simpler one.  I was experimenting with sprays, which I really love.  I love the effects you can create with them.  They dry fast, but depending on how you spray, they can stay wet long enough to mix colors.  I also love using the top part for adding drips or tiny drops.  I was using a Dylusions stencil with some Heidi Swapp Color Shine sprays.  They're sparkly, but not overwhelming.  I don't mind some sparkly, but I don't necessarily go fully glitter, sequins, etc.  So these sprays are really nice.  I used Teal with the Dylusions stencil.  The Color Shine sprays came in many colors, like Sweet Mint, Raspberry, and Ocean.

 

I added a border out of gelli printed deli paper that I made using various paint colors, some die-cuts, doodling with my Sharpie pen and my Uni Posca white paint marker.  The butterfly is from a package of corrugated cardboard shapes from my stash, colored with a red paint marker.  I also added stamping with Archival black ink.  The tag is actually an experiment.  I used an acrylic stamp from Badass Art on some scrap and I really liked it, so I cut it into a tag to use later.  Enter later.  My Sharpie outlined the edge, I added a tiny heart from Oddball Art.  I also traced a Dylusions girl mask near the bottom for some added punch.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my art journal page.  Bye for now!

Mini Art Journal Day 16

Hello there my crafty friends!  I'm so glad you could stop by!

I'm sharing another page in my mini art journal for the Art Marks Challenge from Rae Missigman and Sandi Keene.

Day 16 - Notice

 

I'm also entering my page into these challenges:

Creative Inspiration Challenges #6

For some Art Marks Challenge history, you can click here.  And Rae's Instagram account here shows what's she's making for each prompt.  For those who haven't seen my previous posts yet, I'm working in a mini art journal I made out of envelopes, but you can use many different things, including scrap or underpaper, so some pages already had stuff on them.  A hole punch and some baker's twine later and a mini art journal for the challenge ready for art!

I've mostly posted individual pages, and I do plan to post them all.  This challenge has been very interesting thus far, because it makes you think.  Not that I mind thinking.  Sometimes a good brain dump on your art journal page is just what you need.  Whether it's actual writing that you incorporate, writing and your art covers it up, or the art itself represents the brain dump.

What do you notice about the world around you?  What do you notice about your own life?  I've been noticing both aspects of my life that I'm not super happy about as well as other aspects I do like.  Or something I need to alter, but not necessarily get rid of.  Then there are simply aspects that I want to notice, to remember, because I am reminded that moments are fleeting.

My background is another gelli print on deli paper, and I really like the color combination on this one.  It's a little different, not always something that's usually found.

Now normally I'm not a fan of brown.  I much prefer to use colors, though I do find that I am, on occasion, freely using pieces that are brown or gray, such as plain chipboard.  I have also found myself just painting paper just to see what happens.  I will at times just grab my collage papers and cut out different shapes.  That's what I seemed to do in this case.  I used the gelli print for the background, and then cut out the top border from some brown paper that had a bunch of paint randomly strewn on it.  Then I used some black paint through my small sized (6x6) punchinella stencil.  I like adding pops of black or white to my page.  I like how it adds interest and I feel it helps showcase the colors more.  I also used a stamp set that had not been used at all really.  Sometimes you find that happening.  You grab a product because of a sale, or you really like the designer or the stamp design itself, and then it sits.  Gather dust while you use other products.  That's what apparently happened with this one.  And I'm really glad I used it.  It's almost like you need to give yourself permission to us a supply that you've been neglecting for whatever reason.  In this case, it's a Dylusions background stamp, one of four different patterns.

 

I used a stamp I've actually used before from Dina Wakley called Boy Star with a Distress Ink mini pad in Salty Ocean and cut out with my Tonic Studios scissors.  My trusty Sharpie pen got a decent workout on this page, but my Uni Posca white paint marker wanted to play too.  After I added a cut up die-cut and phrase die-cut from my stash, I went to work with my Sharpie pen, adding lots of doodle details.  I do have to be careful, because if anything is still wet or a bit tacky but not quite dry, the pen will pick it up fast.  But on a dry surface, it's wonderful.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my art journal page.  Bye for now!

Mini Art Journal Day 7

Hi there, friends!

I'm working to catch up with posting the pages from my mini art journal for the Art Marks Challenge from Rae Missigman and Sandi Keene.

Day 7 - Create

For some Art Marks Challenge history, you can click here.  And Rae's Instagram account here shows Rae's interpretation of the prompts.  For those joining us, I'm working in a mini art journal I made out of envelopes, a hole punch, and some baker's twine.

I'm going to be posting all my pages.  Some may be in groups, or individual pages, but I will post tham all.  I also took apart my journal to make it easier to photograph, so you may see peeks from other pages.

On to Day 7's prompt, create.  What do you create?  When do you create?  Do you make time to create or do you get involved in all the other day to day things that you let creative time fall by the wayside?  Also, what do you want o create?  As I mentioned in a previous post, that's why I like working small at times.  It's easier to carve out 10-15 minutes of creative time when life gets busy.  And I'm sure we can all relate to that. 

Carving out that little bit of time is also important for other things.  To help me continue my crafting, I have side hustles going.  One is a very simple, no tech skills required, and takes about 10 minutes a day.  It's an e-mail marketing system called Cliqly.  It really is simple, I can do it when I've got the time, and it's got click and referral commissions, so the potential is there to grow.  I wouldn't waste another second if you're interested.  I've also included affiliate links for the products I've used.  I earn a commission for any purchases you make, with no price increase for you.  I truly appreciate the support!

For this page, I made the background with both yellow and orange paint through some stencils.  First I painted it yellow, then used a baby wipe through a Dylusions star stencil to remove the paint in the openings.  

 

Also, in my adventures in arting years ago, I found this large 12x12 stencil that had several designs on it.  Somewhat related, but I really wanted to use the different designs separately.  I had read about cutting up you stencils, but couldn't entirely bring myself to do it.  Then one day I did it, to this one stencil.  And I'm so glad I did!  It actually helps me use the stencil more because I can choose which part I want to use without having to work with a large stencil and parts of the design I may not want on that particular project.  This part is a line of chevrons, and I did the same thing as before but with orange paint.

 

I also used my Sharpie pen to outline some of the chevrons, but I did learn you still have to wait for the paint to dry.  The rest of the layers are a bunch of things.  I stamped the word "create" with my black Archival ink.

 

I used a blue Molotow paint marker for some doodles, added some die-cuts from my stash, and used an older stamp called Boy Star from Dina Wakley with the same black ink as "create."  I adhered the negative of a die-cut butterfly with the other die-cuts, as well as part of a border stamp from Dylusions Bordering on the Edge stamp set.

I'm also entering the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking out my art journal page.  Bye for now!