Cut It Out Again!

I believe I promised some more foam stamps for the GPP Street Team crusade, so here they are. I tried them out last night. These are what Michelle Ward calls "go-with" stamps - I made the dress top, dress bottom, and wing foam stamps to go with each other. The dress stamps are mounted on another layer of foam, but the wing is loose, so I can use either side, for right and left wings. On the journal page, I glued a head and drew a hairdo, hands and feet.

And I found out how to dry foam stamps quickly after washing them off: I put my cleaned stamps down and forgot where they were until I felt an unexplained wetness! I sat on my foam stamps and they dried - but my pants were wet!

P.S. - If you haven't taken this craft poll yet, go here and check it out, no registration required!

New Journal Page

I usually don't put my journal pages on my blog. There's nothing wrong with that, put I always put my journal pages on Flickr, so I don't want to have the same pictures posted everywhere.

Anyway, this is the first journal page I've done for a long time, so I thought I'd post it here, like a special occasion! The background was already painted with acrylics (I painted a bunch of backgrounds at the same time). I've been wanting to use this background, and I thought it looked sort of summery. It reminds me of lime- and banana-flavored popsicles!

I added some words around the picture; in case you can read them, here's what they say, starting on the top and going clockwise: "breeze softens velvety grasses", "luxurious green", "evening's face aglow", "luscious range of color greatness".

Great Art Journal Links

Journal page with wrapping paper flowers and punched cardstock flowers over acrylic background. It was fun to keep going and totally fill up the page!

My favorite art journal link is Aisling's Artists Journals. This site has everything you want to know about journals - basics, ideas and tips on creating and keeping your own artist journal.

Another good one is Illuminations -this site has good ideas for using illustrations and pictures to help our journaling and to gain insights into ourselves.

Here, Teesha Moore has tons of her journal pages to look at, plus you can click the link to an article about her journaling techniques and products used. I could look for hours and hours at all her pages!

Enjoy!

Doodling

Here are some "test doodles" I did in my art journal. First, both sides of a page were lightly gessoed. The doodles are done with Glaze pens - they dry shiny and slightly raised, almost like embossing. Then I scribbled over the doodles with watercolor crayons, washed over the crayons with water on a flat brush, let dry. (My journal pages are thin, so they warped when water was added, but they mostly smoothed out.)

Yard Sale Finds

Hello - Went to some yard sales today, but not too many, because it was getting hot out there! I got a few things, what I call "good junk": four pieces of sheet music that you see in the photo, plus two Christmas issue magazines from 1974. Since these items are not in perfect condition, I will use them to cut up for collages, cards, inchies, etc.

Here's my journal page from the other day - you know, the one that didn't look like it was finished (at least to me)! Using an idea from Nancy B.'s tutorial on her blog, I used everyday items (a pencil eraser, a paper clip end, and a sm. crochet flower) to "stamp" an acrylic background design around the girl. Is it finshed now? I don't know, I'm going to think on it - meanwhile, drop me a note if you think I should add something!

Paper, Paper & More Paper

Hello,

We all know about the fabulous papers available to use today - collage and scrapbook papers, many types of specialty art papers, and lots more. The ones I seem to forget about are the papers not always associated with art.

Tissue papers, both solid and printed, add depth and texture to a project. How about pieces of magazine pages, wrapping paper or greeting cards? Grocery bags, envelopes and shipping tags are other possibilities. Remember to look through your mail for more ideas: all sorts of junk mail, plus postage stamps and postcards might be there.

Papers don't need to be fancy; bits of ordinary lined paper, ledger paper or self-stick notes might be just the thing for your project. Maybe pattern tissue, an old label or a ticket stub would be "just the ticket"! Paper is all around us, we just need to look at it with new eyes!

I put the collage at right together last night. Over an acrylic background, the clip art girl has an outfit cut from magazine/catalog pages. I got inspired to cut shapes using magazine pages from Teesha Moore's journaling ideas on her website. (This collage needs something, I don't believe she's finished yet!) Take care!

Love those adhesives!

Hi there!

Today I wanted to mention a bit about adhesives and glues - it's a hot topic,, because everybody's got 'em, everybody needs 'em for something! My favorite adhesive products are from Beacon Adhesives - they make Zip Dry Paper Glue, Kid's Choice Glue, 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue, among many others.

Zip Dry is a quick-drying, non-wrinkling adhesive on most types of paper, but it's also great for gluing small charms, buttons, etc. on paper projects. Living in a dry area, I find that glue sticks do not work well for me, especially in the long-term. Since I do a lot of paper projects, I use other adhesives as well, such as double-sided adhesive sheets, but the Zip Dry really is a great multi-purpose paper glue! I'm always interested to know what kind of adhesives people use, and why, so if you have favorites, drop me a line!

(P.S. - The photo is of an art journal page I finished last night - no words at all on this one! I pre-painted some journal pages with acrylic a while back, then when I thought this background sort olooked like flowers, I drew in petals w/ a marker, then added the details w/ Glaze pens.)