Adventure

 

As part of my crafty challenge for 2014 is to instigate and try all the new techniques I have accumulated over the last twelve months from magazines into my projects and art journal pages in the forthcoming year.

 

 

To kick start this year with a bang, this technique comes from the February issue of Craft Stamper magazine and incorporated the Masking Fluid and Watercolour wash technique.

 

The main technique can be seen on the central floral image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tea Bag Paper Technique (from Art Journalling Magazine) Part 1

This was a technique that I sourced from the current Art Journalling magazing, it is truly awesome and upscales a normal every day piece of rubbish into a wonderful piece of vintage paper for card making, art journalling or mixed media.

 

To make the final piece of paper you will require around 20 used tea bags pressed flat after used and dried, this can be sped up slightly if you place them on top of a warm radiator.

 

Once you have the dried tea bags open one end and remove the dried tea leaves.

 Then cut open the two side seams and open to create a rectangle removing any lingering tea.

 

Place the first tea bag on to a non stick craft sheet (although the article did also suggest that wax paper would have the same effect as the craft sheet), overlap the second tea bag with the first and put a layer of soft gel medium over the top continue with the remaining 8 tea bags making the piece of paper the size you want.

 

 

Once you have done that repeat the step with a second layer of ten opened tea bags and allow to dry on the craft sheet.

Once the paper is dried (overnight is ideal) you can ease one corner of the paper away from the craft sheet and gentley remove it ready for use.

Any dried gel medium is easy to remove from the mat so dont worry if you have patches on your craft sheet.

You are now ready to use your finished paper which will look similar to this:

I was very impressed with this technique, admittedly it would take quite a few tea bags to make a larger piece of paper but this made about one side of a small dylusions journal.

I will post shortly the page I have made using this textural paper.

I hope you liked the technique.

Secret Garden

I have had a love of Graphic 45 paper collections for some time but was concerned that I could not create anything that would give them justice and beauty.

This year I have grasped a challenge to start to use these and other papers I have purchased and as part of my small Dylusions Journal have begun to do a technique inspired through Art Journalling Magazing of a gluebook, although I do not use it soley for this purpose this is my first page using the secret garden paper pack which were built upon and distressed using portfolio crayons.

It is my first endevour and my paper skills are a little rusty but for a first attempt I was happy with the result.

I hope you enjoy this page.

The only place from which to begin

So as often happens to us throughout life we can feel somewhat delicate, retrospective and wishing that life had taken us down a somewhat happier path than we believe to be on at this time.

My dream has always been to travel however, life took me down the home owner route and now financially it is not always possible to travel as extensively as maybe I could off in my younger years.

I love this journal page in my small Dylusions Journal depicting the air hostess many of you will recognise from Tim Holtz kraft resist papers.

I colourised this using a colour I rarely draw on Seedless Preserves and one of my favourites Salty Ocean.  Then I wanted to try my new pearlescent inks which I had in a purple shade to create some drippage.

I also wanted to create a neutral background in titan buff acrylic paint and the Seedless Preserves distress ink to sit my handmade tag pocket.  The tag was colour tinted and stamped and then I wrote my journalling on it.

I hope you like this page, it is quite plain and simple but there is something about that simplicity which I like and I have gained this by expanding my colour range I use and introducing new techniques and products.

Play

So like many aspiring crafters and mixed media devotees, I often draw inspiration from some amazing artists on Youtube for inspiration. 

Leslie Crawford originally introduced me to a love of art journalling, but I am continually blown away by the quirky stylings of Dyan Reavley and so this page was spawned from two things.

1. Using Black Gesso as a background

2. Dyan Reaveley's video on the web showing how she does a coloured background containing zentangle type doodles and then masking it off and covering with the aforementioned Gesso.

As you can see from the photo the video inspired a page which reminds me not only to be adventurous in trying new techniques but also that new techniques can develop an amazing layout for your journal.

Playing with this technique also drew me to use my metallic sennelier oil pastels which were ideal against the dark black background and a handmade journal tag.

I hope you like this page in my small Dylusions Journal.

Lady in Red

 

This is a wooden block I created for my colleague at work (dimensions 15cmx10cm) which I purchased at Stamp Addicts. 

 

This block was primed with gesso and then a layer of burnt umber applied to the wood as a base layer.

 

I then proceeded to apply the Tim Holtz paper with US Street Names on it to the block after distressing the edges with a distress tool and applied some red acrylic paint to the edges and to accent some of the paper.

 

I then adhered the 50's women to the block using the gesso paper transfer technique and gently rubbed off the reverse side of the paper to reveal the image.

 

Finally to complete this item I distressed areas of the image to tie her in to the background using faber castell pitt pens.

 

 

Little birdhouse in my soul

 

 

Well 2014 is upon us and I am endevouring to keep more on top of my blog posts this year.

 

Above is a picture of a wooden block I created towards the end of last year with Lesley Crawford using a wooden block (15cmx10cm).

 

I first primed the wood with gesso and then decorated the base layer using a pale blue acrylic paint and honeycomb, stars and punchenella stencils with white, teal and cerise acrylic paint, rubber stamped some text in black archival and blue archival arrows.  Remembering to do the sides and the reverse of the block.

 

 

This was then overlayed with the image of the birdhouses and birds taken from a napkin and the areas required cut out of the napkin and additional layers of tissue removed.  I then used Mod Podge in the areas I wanted to stick the napkin and then applied a further layer over the top to assist in getting rid of any air bubbles and to seal it to the block.