Blues, Breathe, and Treat

This post is for Scrapbook Boutique's September 2017 challenge with the following mood board:

I'm quite pleased with my take on it. This art journal double-spread has lots of blues and a cat even.

I can't quite get it to lie flat unfortunately so the photo's a bit askew.

Stamps: Tim Holtz Crazy Cats and Dogs, Dylusions alphabet stamps

Inks: TH Distress Oxides - Cracked pistachio, Broken china, Salty ocean, 

TH Distress ink: Old linen, Worn lipstick,

Memento black

Paints: TH Distress stain - Picket fence, Dylusions Vibrant turquoise, 

Dylusions paint pens - black, white

This journal page already had the Vibrant turquoise circles to begin - one of those pages that Dyan Reavely suggests one has for cleaning off ink foams.

I added concentric circles from the middle starting with the lightest Cracked pistachio, then Broken china and finally Salty ocean. I just love how the colours blended and oxidised after spraying liberally with water....and the original turquoise circles remained intact.

The background seemed too busy for the cat and dog so I decided to create lighter circles using Picket fence distress stain. I think it really helped put the spotlight on the animals.

I stamped all the images and key words and then just hand-wrote the rest using the paint pen. I coloured in the animals, adding more white to the eyes. I also outlined all stamped images including the words using the paint pen.

So much inky fun.

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A friend just got engaged!

Best news this week is a friend of mine just got engaged. Great excuse to make a card, for sure, even if there's a thousand other things I should be doing. It had to be simple and Scrapbook Boutique's August challenge provided just the right inspiration. Yellow and gray! These aren't usually my colours of choice so it was a challenge for me. I'm pretty happy with this simple card.

Most products except the DSP are from Stampin Up

Stamps: Love You Lots, Sunshine Sayings

Ink: Daffodil Delight, Smokey Slate, Black (Memento)

No special techniques here; simply stamp and colour in. I used the aqua painter to help dilute and blend. And glitter...except it didn't really show up on the photo. Oh well.

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: