Cut It Out!

I took a stab at GPP Street Team's Crusade No. 18, entitled, "Cut It Out" (create your own stamp or stencil). I wanted to get started on my stamps without having to stop at the store. One thing that I have a lot of is fun foam sheets, so I used some to cut my own original foam stamps. Here are a few of the foam stamps I made, a flower and two leaves. They are on another layer of foam, for backing. I made some other stamps,but I can't show them off, since I haven't had a chance to play with them yet! ;)

Although I mainly made the foam stamps to use with acrylic paints, I wondered how they would work with dye ink stamp on gesso. Here I have a gessoed page in my journal, with little bits of text added to it. Because of the smooth gesso, it was like doing potato prints! Also, the foam soaked up a lot of ink, so I could stamp forever without reinking!

If you are reading this you're probably interested in arts/crafts. If so, I'd like you to consider participating in a craft poll here. You don't need to register, the poll is free, and added your opinions/comments is optional. Your participation may help to revitalize the craft industry! Thanks for listening! :)

Obsessed With Pink

Crusade No. 12 for the GPP Street Team is called "Crush On You". The challenge is to tell about one or more things that you have a crush on, are obsessed or infatuated with (in a good way, of course)!

One of my current obsessions is the color pink. Although I do have a few pink clothing items (my favorites being pink pajamas and slippers), I love pink in my art and small items around me. Here's some evidence: The luggage tag is canvas, colored with pink fabric marker and stenciled with black fabric marker. The handbag was woven with flat ribbon-style yarns. (For a recent pink-influenced art journal page, see this post.) I've used pink-printed business cards and brochures , I even have a pink/black carry-on bag. (No, I don't have pink luggage yet - my red luggage is getting worn, so I can buy pink the next time!)

Quick Journal Page

Another post today? Yes! I quickly made this art journal page for Kira's Sunday Journal Challenge. It didn't print quite like I wanted. I was going to print in black and white, but I don't have much colored ink left, so it came out black/white/pink. As pink is a favorite of mine (note this blog as one example), I decided to go with it! It's called "The Princess of Pink", and all the Princess' parts are cut from Kira's challenge images. The two corner designs were challenge images, as well. The background is one of my pre-painted acrylic ones, ready for my every whim. Thanks for the images and inspiration, Kira! ;)

Painted Pages Revisited

After receiving a comment on my recent post about painting journal page backgrounds (Thanks, Jeanne!), I thought I'd show some more pictures of painted pages. The post and comment can be read here.

The magenta/blue background shown here was painted by dabbing a generous amount of acrylic paint on the background first, then scraping it across with a credit card. The yellow orange background was painted by dabbing some of the paint on and scraping, then adding more paint and repeating. The page shown on the earlier post was when I running out of paints from the little pots, so I had to keep dabbing the paint on the page, scraping it, then more dabbing and scraping, trying to fill the page while using up the little bits of paint. In other words, there are lots of different ways to do this simple background technique. Every background page will look unique. This means that if you find a look that you really like and want to repeat it, you might want to write down how you did it!

Messy, But Fun!

Yesterday I painted a bunch of background pages in my art journal. The page here is the last one, when I was trying to use up the colors from a little set of paint pots!

Here is a non-tutorial for how I paint my art journal backgrounds: 1) Cover work surface and place scrap paper under page to be painted (I'm very messy!); 2) Dab or squirt acrylic paints on the page (do this randomly or in a pattern); 3) Scrape paint across page with old credit card or gift card (you can also use a chunk of heavy cardboard); 4) Rub excess paint off card onto scrap paper or another surface to be painted; 5) Repeat scraping, if necessary. TIPs: If there was enough paint to cover the whole page, more paint can be added and scraped at any time. You can also dab a little paint, scrape it, dab a little more, etc., untill you get the look you want. I tend to use lots of paint, so my work area gets super-messy, LOL!

While I was being creatively messy, I thought I'd also paint some cardstock pieces with the excess paint from the background pages. I'm going to use the painted cardstock pieces for inchies. I also alcohol-inked some cardstock for future inchie projects, and laminated some tissue to an altered book. I like to do a load of messy steps all at once!

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".

Missing My Art Journal

I've got to start posting earlier in the day....last night, when I was going to post, there were thunderstorms, and I couldn't do it! (Didn't want to get "zapped" or "fried"!)

Today I visited Kira's blog, and also looked at the journal pages on "Journal Junk" at Flickr. This places reminded me that I haven't done any pages in my art journal in a L-O-N-G time! I haven't had an art journal for very long, and I typically don't do much writing in it, mostly art, because it's relaxing and makes me feel good! As you can see, there are two more greeting cards pictured above, one of the reasons I haven't done any journal pages lately, LOL! In fact, I've made so many cards lately, I wasn't sure if I had psoted these two before, ha! (Well, you're probably so sick of see cards that they all look the same to you, anyway, LOL!)

Seven Things That ROCK!

Sneaky Lia of "Art Junk Girl" fame tagged everyone reading her blog to list seven things that ROCK, so here's my list:

1) Arts/Crafts - Just love 'em, I could spend all day and night working on all sorts of projects! Art really adds a lot to my life!

2) Lia's Artjunk Blog - Of course, Lia knew I would have her blog on the list, it was and still is my top favorite artsy blog of all time! If you haven't checked it out yet, you don't know what you're missing!

3) Old papers, books and magazines - My favorite stuff to use on my projects! Plus, hunting for those things is so much fun - I never know what "treasures" I'm going to find next!

4) New York Cheesecake Frozen Custard - I love cheesecake, so naturally my favorite flavor of frozen custard at Good Times is New York Cheesecake! That is, it's my favorite flavor so far - I haven't tried all the flavors yet!

5) Caran D'Ache Neocolor II Watercolor Crayons - I bought a 15-color set (actually, a 14-color set - one was missing) from a yard sale, and I think they are great! I think I'd better start saving up for the big set (84 colors)!

6) Summer - The warmth, the sun, the longer daylight, hopefully some extra time to do some fun, relaxing things - like art, maybe!

7) Art/Craft Blogs, Swap & Discussion Groups - So much fun chatting and swapping with like-minded creative individuals - it's great to get to know more and more of you nice, sharing, friendly people!

Okay, there's my list! You read this, I'd sure be interested to see what's on your list! (Am I nosey, or what?)

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.)