Butterflies everywhere

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Busy Busy Busy and before you know it 2 months have gone!

I missed last month's challenge but here's my entry to Scrapbook Boutique's October Challenge. The mood board has so many inspirational pictures.

Butterflies everywhere!

This is a mixed media piece:

• Distress paints - Bundled Sage, Pumice Stone, Tumbled Glass
• Stampin Up inks - Certainly Celery, Sahara Sand, Pool Party
• Versamark Onyx Black ink
• Stampin Up stamp - Watercolor Wings set
• Stampin Up die - Beautiful Butterflies
• Papertrey stamp - butterfly (black)
• Project Life pen

No real plan when I started this piece except a general idea of having lots of butterflies.

I cut cardboard stencils using the SU die. I used the negatives to colour the butterflies in Pumice Stone and Tumbled Glass inks.  I filled in the spaces with Bundled Sage. I then sprayed this liberally with water which really softened the edges of the butterflies.

Once dry - that took quite a while without the use of heat tool - I use the layering stamps from SU with SU inks matching the distress inks. I was quite pleased with how well the inks played together :)

I stamped the black butterfly on several times using the Versamark ink so it comes up really stark. The problem is, I lost some edginess to it...maybe I need one of those clear stamp folder thingy.

Anyway, I thought it looked a bit lost and decided to frame it using free-hand drawing and writing. I wish it was straighter but oh well, it looks hand-made, right? Sometimes I think I rely too much on commercial stamps so it's kinda good to go rogue sometimes. It can only get better.

Thanks - Scrapbook Boutique Challenge Aug 2016

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I love the new Scrapbook Boutique challenge mood board. Here's my take on it, a thank you card...because I needed to make one for one sassy lady!

Lime, Black and White!

This is again a mixed media piece:

• Dylusions paint - Fresh Lime
• Twinkling H2O - Lemongrass...for a touch of glimmer on the eyes and dress!
• Dylusions archival ink - Dirty Martini
• Versamark Onyx Black ink
• Distress Ink - Picket Fence (white)
• Dylusions Paint pens - black. white
• Stampin Up Embossing Powder - black
• Dyan Reavely stamp -Strength (woman)
• Hero Arts stamp - thanks
• Tim Holtz diamon stamp

This is a one-layer card so I used a masking technique to keep the woman in black and white as I painted the background in Fresh Lime. Versamark ink was still a bit wet so you can see a bit of smudging on the edges. I loved this shadow-y effect so much that I added more gray shading later to accentuate it.

To repeat the harlequin diamond on the lady's top, I used a "rolling" stamp technique I learned from one of Dyan Reavely's videos. Instead of mounting the stamp, just kinda roll it on and don't re-ink each time.  I love the random-ness of the effect. I did this using both the Dirty Martini and Picket Fence inks.

Once the background dried, I heat-embossed 'Thanks'. I love the accidental smattering of black dots which add to the over-all grunge look.

For a touch of shimmer, I added on some Twinkling H2Os. It's so hard to photograph but maybe you can make it out a bit in the zoomed in photo below.

To finish off, I outlined and added highlights to the eyes and lips using the paint pens to make them pop even more. AND, I also added some grey watercolour around the lady.

I loved the materials and techniques I used so much, I reckon I'd replicate this in my Art Journal.

Live the Life

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I'm back again to my crafty blog after a few years...w00t! This time, I'm dabbling with art journalling. What a fun way to experiment with various tools and techniques and thinking ink creatively ;)

Here's my most recent one which I'll enter into Scrapbook Boutique's July challenge; in fact, it draws heavily on the mood board particularly with the use of grids, quotes and colours.

My piece is in mixed media:

• watercolour (Kuretake)
• pigment ink - Versafine black...results are always crisp even with fine details
• dye ink - Stampin Up Rose Red, Bermuda Bay, Island Indigo, Not Quite Navy
• Dylusions paint - White Linen
• cour pencils (Derwent Academy)
• white Uniball Signo pen

All stamps are from various Tim Holtz sets except for 'enjoy little things' which is by Kaisercraft.

This was so much fun to create. Here are a couple of closeups: