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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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.

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: