Live, Laugh and Love art journal page

I thought I would try working on loose pages for my art journal and then I can bind them all together with o-wires to make them into a journal. I'm kind of liking this method - it lets me create some fun drips by holding the pages every which way. It also keeps other pages clean and free of inky messes that you either just have to embrace and love anyways, or gesso over them to start with a fresh page. In my last post I talked about how I'm so inspired recently by online classes and this page uses techniques I've learned in Nathalie Kalbach's class Über media - gesso.

Handcarved stamps

I've been finding myself so inspired recently by online classes. They feed my desire to keep learning new things and I always like that challenge ;-) I really like classes that include videos - it's almost like being there and you get to see exactly how a teacher does something and can pause and rewind - a little difficult to do in real life! I've taken a class from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer called Stamp Carving 101. As someone who loves rubber stamps, I thought it would be fun to learn that skill and it really is! Very relaxing to slowly carve out your desired image. I created a little bound book with bristol paper just to try out my stamps. These are some of the simple ones to learn carving skills like this simple outlined heart.

Here are a couple flower stamps:

...and a frame stamp will always come in handy:

This last one is a damask that will be a great large background stamp:


I'll share more handcarved stamps soon!

Trishia's Love Me Two Challenge

My friend Trishia of French Kissed Postcards, in addition to her month of free daily digital downloads, is having a contest where you make something using any of the 13 images from her collection that seem underloved and underappreciated - she has them all available over the past week on her blog. All the details of her Love Me Two challenge are on her blog, but basically you make 2 pieces, mail them to her by March 13th, and you could win a cool prize of a set of original vintage postcards! I made these two postcard sized collages using the little boy in a yellow shirt holding an empty jar. I combined it with other French Kissed Postcards from my collection - script backgrounds and a butterfly along with computer generated and white pen written text.

More Rogue Flowers

I wanted to see what else I could do with the flower stamp from Just Sayin' from Rogue Redhead Designs and stamped it onto various vintage book pages and cut them out. I layered a smaller, slightly crumpled one with a larger one and left other small ones plain. I also cut out the individual petals of a couple flowers, used bundled sage Distress Stain on them and voila - leaves!
I adhered them to a 7Gypsies book cover with a stamped background panel in the center. The background panel collage is made up of the flourish from Relish Reading and words and quotes from Floriculture all on paper rubbed with distress ink and flicked with water.

Here's a closer view of the flowers - both basic and dimensional. Be sure to check out the current Rebel Challenge on the RRD blog post HERE where the theme is stamped backgrounds. The challenge runs until March 4th - why not join in?

GC#139 Random Redhead Challenge

This week at Gingersnap Creations it's the Random Redhead Challenge where the theme is to use a faux technique. I played with something I hadn't tried before - faux stained glass using Sakura glaze and souffle pens on acetate. After stamping onto the acetate with StazOn, I colored the opposite side with the pens. I liked the combination because the souffle pens were opaque when dry while the glaze pens were more transparent. The flowers from Just Sayin' from Rogue Redhead Designs were perfect because of their outline - just like the solder on a stained glass piece. The acetate was sandwiched between two pieces of kraft cardstock with a window diecut to create my card. The sentiment, also stamped onto the acetate using StazOn is from RRD's Floriculture set.

Here's a picture of the card opened allowing the light from my window to show the stained glass effect better.

What's your favorite faux technique? Link your project to the GC blog post HERE by March 18th; you might be the winner of a $15 gift certificate to the Rogue Redhead Designs store!

Roses for Valentine's Day

I made this 8x8 canvas being inspired by February's My Mojo Monthly on Sarah's blog where the theme is "heartstrings". What better time of year to make a shabby-chic heart project than for Valentine's Day? I had so much fun just playing with my mixed media canvas and while it started out very monochromatic and blah at first (wish I had a before picture so you would believe me), getting into a shabby-chic frame of mind changed the whole thing. I started with kraft colored 7Gypsies tissue paper on my canvas and then made a bunch of rolled roses from torn muslin strips in various sizes and placed them in a rough heart shape. Once I started to work the background with a layer of watered down gesso and then Portfolio oil pastels in brown and red violet it immediately had the worn and well-loved look I was after. I decided to sketch in a heart shape to act as a shadow to my rose heart with a china marker and more oil pastels and then finally came across the perfect found text in a book. A little rose tea Glimmer Mist on the roses and some glass beads and it's complete.

Here's the close-up - I love how rubbing oil pastels accentuates the canvas texture - especially when using white.


I really do love this piece :-) because after all, isn't a well worn love the best? Happy Valentine's Day!

RRD journal page

I made these flowers while playing around with the flower stamp from Just Sayin' from Rogue Redhead Designs. They are simply crayon shavings melted between two pieces of glassine (waxed paper would work too).

Place shavings from several colors of crayons onto the glassine.

Place the second sheet of glassine on top and iron with a just warm iron to melt the crayons.

Allow to cool and the wax keeps the two sheets stuck together. Stamp the flower stamp using StazOn.

And just cut them out and voilà! Cute little embellishments to use!

I adhered them to this page in my art journal that has a base of torn textured papers and added a short poem by Edna St.Vincent Millay.

Another Glimmer Misted bag

I recently showed you a Glimmer Misted tote bag and here's another with the variation being that I masked off a rectangle in the center and only misted that. If you look closely at the bottom of the rectangle, there's a line of a subtle harlequin pattern where I painted through a Crafter's Workshop stencil with ivory paint before spraying for a resist effect. I misted lace strips to coordinate, did my lettering with India ink and a dip pen, and paint stamped my favorite Stamper Anonymous flourish.

Altered box

I'm sharing a wooden box I've altered with a favorite French Kissed Postcards image and text background and French stamps from Stampington. I played around with some rolled paper flowers using a My Favorite Things die to cut them and Glimmer Mists and Glam to color them.

The whole box was sprayed with Glimmer Mist and I stamped a swirl (Tattered Angels) and heat embossed it with white EP as well as stamping directly onto the box side with a text stamp (Hero Arts). Here's a better side view:

The bottom border is die cut grungeboard also sprayed with Glimmer Mist and accented with Glam to add further dimensional embellishments. Colors used: Mist - puerto rico, burnt red, wild currant, pomegranate, vintage pink, rose tea, meadow green Glam - copper kettle, tide pool.

If you like vintage images as you know I do :-) be sure to check out the French Kissed blog. My friend Trishia always has a free weekly download of a scan of one of her vintage postcards, but for the month of February she plans to offer a daily free postcard scan! If you like what you find, also check out her online shop where you can find many other vintage postcard scans for purchase. I highly recommend her images - some of the best quality images I've had the pleasure to work with.

GC#137 - Chestnut Theme Challenge

Guess what - it's another art journal page for this week! All the past days pages were a lead up to this one which is also my piece for this week's challenge at Gingersnap Creations. The theme is "words of wisdom" and I found this wonderful quote by Oscar Wilde that really meant a lot to me with respect to my art journals - and in life in general. As much as I'm inspired by other artists, I can't be Catherine, Julie, or Dina, I need to just be me :-) This journal page uses favorite techniques - my walnut ink background watercolor sheet complete with splatters, stamped tissue paper sprayed with Glimmer Mists (burnt red, sunflower, puerto rico) and stamping - with both ink and paint. I used stamps from Rogue Redhead Designs - the text stamp from Relish Reading ( a true favorite!) and several of the graphic ones from the new set Just Sayin'. I used die cut letters from a My Favorite Things die and stamped the other letters with a typewriter set from Stampington. A little bit of doodling with black and white pens, and there you have it - a "me" page!

Share your words to the wise with us on the Gingersnap Creations blog post HERE - we'd love to see how quotes inspire you. The challenge will be open until March 4th and one randomly drawn challenge participant will win a $15 voucher to Rogue Redhead Designs.