Saturday 1 February 2014

February Calendar Journal Page

Hi Everyone hope you all have been keeping well in this cold weather!  I hope that summer comes soon LOL.
I have my sister visiting me this month for a few days (I was at hers last month) and we did our calendar pages together again - however in my rather cramped corner of a small room rather than her lovely large roomy airy new craft room.  But despite the cosy quarters we still both managed to come up with a great calendar page each.
This is my effort for the month of February. 
Most people think of valentines day when they think of February but to be honest I find it the most dismal month of the year. After all the festivities over Christmas and New Year, then I have my birthday to celebrate the middle of January, then comes February!! So to say I always feel flat this month wouldn't be understating the issue and to top it all usually the weather is miserable and cold!! Ok moan over LOL!
So I think my page this month rather reflects my feelings toward the month. The dark and dreary background is a great backdrop for the hope of the coming spring!!!
Don't get me wrong, I didn't plan it that way, its just the way it turned out!!!


I started this month knowing that I wanted to do some sort of shadow box so that seemed like a good place to start.
I inked a spare piece of paper with Dylusions sprays and did some water splatters on in and dried it off.  I then cut it into 1.5" squares and drew on my inner lines to create the illusion of the inside of a box.  Then I used Black soot distress ink pad and a black pan pastel to darken the intner surfaces!!  I was well pleased with this as a start but was stumped as to what do for the background.  Obviously with my day squares being so bright I wanted a contrast so ended up spraying black and brown Dylusions inks onto my page and sprinkled it with rock salt!!  I love this technique every time I use it!! then as it was drying Ispritzed some perfect pearls mica spray over the top.  I finished drying it with the heat tool and gently brushed off the salt!!


For what was suppose to be a dreary background it ended up looking rather lush!! Isn't it always the way!
So I glued my squares in place and was rather pleased with the effect.  
Then it was a case of finding a focal point and that's where this lovely character from Rick St Dennis digi downloads came in.
I Coloured her (well I think of it as a her!?!?!) with inktense pencils and various other colour pens so that she was bright and cheerful! (A quick layer of glossy accents on the eyes is always a lovely finishing touch!)
Last but not least was the stamps for the month and year and I used the lovely sets from Tim Holtz but didn't want them too in your face so did them in black archival and outlined them lightly in white.
I had thought to put more on - my usual quote and other embellishments but I decided in this case that less was more.  
So come on February - bring it on!!!!
xxxx hugs xxxx


8 comments:

  1. Great techniques Donna! Might try the ink and salt technique myself.

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  2. Very nice, I really like the background. I poped over from Facebook to check out how you did that. I willdefinitely have to give that a try. Hugs Frea

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  3. Great pages....love your background technique.....must give that one a go. xx

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  4. I love that gorgeous pop of colour! Fantastic page Donna!
    Alison x

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  5. So you didn't plan this - it looks fabulous and I agree that dark background is definitely lush! Just love the little character and those gorgeous bright colours! Chris

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  6. WOW!! Totally love the colorful squares.

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  7. I'm right - this is fabulous! So glad I picked it for my Pick of the Week. Love the way the squares of colour pop against the dark page and the little monster is adorable! Great work. Deborah, RSD EDT.

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    1. Thank you for nominating me Deborah!!! I love the way this page turned out!!! I just want more time to play with RSD's fab designs!! xxxx

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