Wednesday 19 March 2014

Doodled Hair!

Hi guys I hope you are all enjoying March!
Here is a journal page that I did in 4 parts.  
1) the background was a blended background I made using the spare paint I had on some baby wipes when I was painting another page - I don't like to waste anything.
2) months later I wiped off spare ink from a stencil with a baby wipe onto this page and created this circle of squares.
3) a couple of months ago in journaling class I cut this face out of a magazine and glued it on to the page and using black painted in the hair tendril's and did the doodling with a white signo pen.
4) then lastly - just last week I added more doodling in red and gold and finally did some writing on the page!!


I love making pages like this because they are not planned.  You just mop up, or wipe off into your journal and backgrounds are created without any plan to use them.  Then later they get added to!! this way these journal pages have a journey of there own.  
I love when I get one of these finished.
Have a go, find a part done page and finish it!! Don't worry about planning it just grab what's in front of you on your craft desk and see what wonders you create!!
Hope you all have a happy creative month!
XXX hugz XXX


Tuesday 18 March 2014

Shattered Silhouette

Hi folks, just a quick post today to show you what I did in journaling class last week.
Using Dylusions Couture Collection stencils and the new shattered stencil we created these colourful pages.  We used the shattered stencil to make two backgrounds, this was one of them and I hope to post the second one later on this week.
Have a good week guys and I hope you get a chance to try some new techniques in your creations.
xxx hugs xxx

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Small Journal Page

While at journaling class last month I decided to christen an new journal I had bought.  Its smaller than the ones I usually use as its only A5.  Changing the sizes I find makes me change the way I approach doing a page, sometimes I find it quite scary to do a different size.  Not sure why but that's what happens to me anyway!!
I had started using this book to blot off ink that I had used in my bigger journal, that way when you start a page you are not faced with the scary white blankness!! lol.
So this one was when I had used Dy's new shattered stencil on my main page and rather than blot the ink off with kitchen roll I use this journal instead so I didn't waste any of this lush ink!
I probably would have planned to put much more in the background than this and to build up layers but when I looked at it I decided that it looked good as it was.
So following through with the Dylusion's theme I added the character and the arrow (one of the new released sets.)
Printed and cut out the quote, did some colouring in using Dylusions inks and with small additions of glossy accents for the eyes and liquid pearls for some dots of bling and it was done.
Think I might try and do more in a smaller size for a while and see how I get on.
Happy crafting!!
xxx hugz xxx

Monday 3 March 2014

Torn journal page.

Hi folks I thought I would do a quick post of this torn page I started in Journalling class last month!! 
We were lucky enough to get to play with Dyan's new stamps, stencils and inks that have just been released.
This is what I came up with.
Loving the new spray ink colours!!
Ink and ghost stencilling in the back ground.  One of the new stamps for the tail and for the lettering and arrows at the top.  The rest are other stamps in the Dylusion range with the addition of a Tim Holtz blueprint stamp for the body.
I finished it off with some purple flower/scroll ribbon and some writing round the tail.
Quick but fun!!
Hope you all find time to be creative this week!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Saturday 1 March 2014

March Calendar Journal Page

Hi everyone!! Well its the start of another month and so I have another calendar journal page to share with you.
Yet again I get together with my sister, Juliet, and we did our pages together and we are going to try and see if we can continue it throughout the year.
So here is my March page!

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out especially as there were a few major technical difficulties which had Juliet saying I should just give up, salvage the houses and added them to a new background.
However being a stubborn sort of a person I wasn't willing to give up and I pushed through the problems and made it work!
I made the background by spaying large puddles of  rangers colour wash spray ink and Dylusions ink and letting it drip down the page, helped along with a few sprays of water!  Oh I had applied a thin layer of gesso on the page first using a credit card so that the ink didn't sink into the paper straight away.
I had already bought and downloaded the houses which are digi downloads by Lavinia stamps!!  I was so pleased that she had started to do downloads as I love her stamps!  I had decided I wanted to use them but wasn't sure how.
I randomly placed the houses on, to see if they would work and it looked like a landscape so I decided I would make the journal spaces look like clouds.  It was at that point that everything went pear shaped!! LOL 
I used a template to draw the clouds straight onto the background - it didn't look right after I had done the first few but I had to continue as I was committed by that point.  I hoped that by the time I had them all drawn in that it would look better - well it didn't!!!
So I decided to paint white paint into the day spaces hoping that would improve the look - unfortunately I forgot to take into account that the ink is reactivated when you put another liquid on top of it.  So my clouds were now looking like malformed green sheep!!!  Not really the look I was going for! 
So I tried applying gesso with a sponge to brighten them up!! Nope didnt work. 
Next came the ever faithful multi medium - I thought if I spread that over the day spaces it would seal the underneath layers and allow me to make the spaces white!!!
Im still not sure why that didnt work - because it should have.  It was a golden multi medium so it's good quality but some how the colour kept bleeding through.  By this time my frustration levels were rather high but I would not be beaten.
So over the next hour I painted, gessoed, gel mediumed away like mad, but still couldn't get the clouds white or to make them look like clouds!  By this time the outlines had vanished under the numerous layers of product and ended up looking more like greenish cotton balls.  
So a step to the right was required.  
Abandon the clouds and make tree/cotton plants instead.
So more paint got sponged on, some write all pencil used to lightly outline the shapes and create some sort of a trunk/stem and some additional shading and that was that!!!
We counted up that there is probably 12 layers in that top section and I will be very surprised If I will be able to write on it!!! but at least I made it work without giving up. Never give up never surrender!!! (ok can anyone name that film?)
So to calm myself down I sat and coloured in the houses using inktense pencil!! colouring in for grown ups is very soothing!!
I printed out the quote, added it and doodled round it and then stick the letters on for March and stamped the year.  The final touch was to blend round the edge with a distress ink pad!!!
So the lessons to be learned from this is 'always remember to seal water activated mediums before painting over' and never give up LOL!!
Hope you all have a great month and that the sun shines on us all!!
Hugz xxxx