February Calendar Journal Page - Rainbow days!

HEALTH WARNING YOU MAY NEED SUNGLASSES!!

Hi folks today I was so looking forward to doing a class at Art from the Heart but unfortunately due to the snow it was cancelled so I decided to use the time at home doing some creating and what better than get my February calendar journal page done early!!!!

I decided this year that I would try and push myself out of my comfort zone in my crafts.  I realised that I don't often do dimensional work - even though I love i,t and  I hardly ever do stitching on stuff which again I love to see on other peoples work.  

So going to try and do more of those this year starting with this page!

Ok i sprayed the background with water and dylusions inks (I was hoping to use Dy's new ones on this project but I was also going to be picking them up at class today!!) then I sprayed some water on at an angle and blotted it off and the final touch was some mica spray.

This year I am using a 12 x 12 journal just for my calendar pages, rather than dot them around in all my other journals, and the pages come out so this makes for easier machine stitching.

I couldn't make up my mind what to use, turquoise and white butchers string or the lovely fluffy red wool, so I decided to twist the two together and zigzag over them.  Loved the effect.

Here is a picture of it before all the extra stuff got put on - I nearly left it like this as I really like it!!. REMINDER TO SELF dont fall in love with the background, your going to cover most of it up!! LOL

After that I stuck down the little post it tags which I had bought because I like the colour and then doodled round them to make the days.

The figures are from the  The Octopode Factory and are digital downloads I think they are 'coloured long legged birds' and 'Saint Valentine'.  Love Lilys creations!!

I coloured Saint Valentine using liquid pearls and put the characters in place. 

The sign was printed out onto card and machine stitched to tie it all together.

I may add a few tweaky bits before I start to fill it in - possibly a bit of bling.  But I will wait for a couple of days and re assess then.

Just before I go I wanted to add this last picture - the two mop up pages do making this page - cant wait to see what I end up using them in!

Ok stay safe in the snow!

Hugz xxx

Making Creative Time!

Hi folks sorry I haven't been posting much the last couple of months, some how the time has run away with me and I don't seem to have had time to do much creating.  So with this in mind I decided I had to make the time so I have grabbed about 20 minutes each day for the last 3 days and did some very quick making.  

This is what I came up with!

I created a template by tearing a random strip out of scrap paper and used the middle section to mask the page so that I could spray with Dylusions inks.  

I then sprayed water through a stencil on the background to create a ghosted pattern.  Then stamped with a Tim Holtz crackle stamp and a russet archival stamp to add detail to the colour.  

Then using the 2 edge pieces off the mask I had torn earlier, I covered the colour so that I could stamp the cobwebs in the white section using a Tim Holtz cobweb stamp and again the russet archival ink pad.

Then using back archival I stamped the flowers.  The black looked rather harsh against the background so I decided to see if I could get any colour to show up against it.  

I realised I would need something quite strong to show agains the black so I mixed a few drops of purple reinker (as it is concentrated colour) with a few squirts of purple dylusions, then I thought  it needed a little bit of bling so I added in a few squirts of perfect pearls mist again in purple.

I mixed this concoction together and put it into a water brush and painted over the flowers.  It looks better in reality than it does in the picture.  This lightened up the colour of the flowers which made it work better.

I finished it off with some barbed wire, crow and quotes stamp using the russet archival again.

All in all considering how little time I spent on it I am really pleased with the end results.

Hope you like it and managed to find some time to do some creating of your own.

Have a great week.

Hugz xxxxx

P.S to first calendar page of 2013

Hi in my last post I said I really wasn't pleased with my January calendar page, it was a struggle to do with limited resources and because I was so tired I kept making mistakes.  I was so pleased when I got it finished even if I didn't like it!!

However next morning I realised I had made another mistake which I hadn't noticed! I had spelt 'breathe' with out the 'e'!!!

As one of my friends reminded me in the words of Tim Holtz 'embrace your imperfections'.

Well I tried, I really did, but that missing 'e' continued to bug me.

So finally this morning I did a bit more to the page and added the offending letter.  

I did some doodling and added a bit of stickles at the top of the hearts and some stamping on the background, hoping that these small changes would make me like the page - it didn't!!! Must be the state of my head at the moment - definitely got the after xmas blues!!! LOL.

I realised that I hadn't filled in any of the days, which is a surprise as I did every day last year, but I realised that was my negative thoughts about the page stopping me from doing it. 

 I did briefly consider throwing it away and starting again but when I started doing the altered art and art journaling 2 years ago I promised myself that I would throw nothing away because you can always come back to things late and find a great use for them.

So I am sticking with the page as it is now and I will fill in the missing days tonight.  I'm going to write using white pen so I think that will make a big difference to how the page looks.

In year to come when I look back I will probably find that I like it with hind sight!!!

So here it is January revised!!!

I love the sentiment and I'm going to try and follow it during the year.

WORK GENTLY

BREATHE DEEPLY 

LAUGH FREELY!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

First calendar page of 2013

Happy New Year everyone - hope the year has started out well for you.
Much to my surprise I managed to find a little bit of time in the last couple of days to get some making done, so decided my first priority was getting my January calendar page done.
As I am not at home I don't have access to my normal supplies, so this has had quite an impact on what I have made.
Its very different from anything else I have done and I'm not ever sure I like it, but that just means I will look at it as a work in progress.

Unfortunately this isn't a great photograph so a lot of the details doesn't show up.  I still want to do a few more things to it but that will have to wait until I get home.

When I started I was in a very grungy frame of mind and was thinking of doing a quite dark page but decided that I needed to lighten my mood a bit - so whats better than some colour therapy!!!

It made the background by blending distress ink pad colours with a blending tool.  I didn't like the results as it was very patch so I shook a hand full of water on the page and that cause a lovely splatter pattern and some of the colours to blend as the ink is water based.

I then used a stencil and the black soot distress ink pad to make the hearts.

The quote I saw just recently and I decided that it was a good one to keep in mind for 2013. 

Some doodling was then added but I do think it will need some bling - which it will get later in the month!!

Have a great month!!!  XXX hugs XXX