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

A year of calendar journal pages

Well folks as always my good intentions of doing a few more post this month went out the window.  Unfortunately my year hasn't ended on a good note, so to remind myself of some of the better times I thought I would recap my journal pages for the year.

In January I booked myself onto Kate Cranes calendar journal workshop at Art From The Heart, I was not really sure what we would be doing but wanting to have some fun!
I never imagined that it would lead to me doing a monthly page and managing to fill in every single day!

So here they are
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This has been a wonderful challenge to take part in and I really appreciate all the time Kate Crane puts in to keeping the challenge going!

If you would like to join in the challege you can find details on Kates blog here or you can join through the facebook group Art journaling Calendar page 2013.

I'm looking forward to continuing it in 2013 but as always I am running late as Tomorrow is the 1st of January and I haven't got the page done.  Hopefully I will get it started tomorrow.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy Creative 2013.

Huge end of year hugs xxxxx

December Calendar Journal Page

Hi folks hope your all doing well and getting geared up for the festive season!!! 

Apologies for the lack of posts last month, things got a little frantic around here!! I did actually do quite a bit of creating, but most of it never got finished before I started something else, so hopefully when I get the time I will get them finished off and then you will be inundated with posts!! LOL.

Ok Decembers Calendar page - later than ever - didn't manage to get it finished in time to fill it in last night so will have to catch up tonight.  Its not the best one I have done and I feel its unfinished but whenever I go to do something to it, it doesn't feel right.  So I have decided for now its 'finished' but I will probably add things to it as I fill in the month.  

Its quite simple compared to some I have done recently.  Background done with Dylusions ink sprays and the garland and trees were made with the Dylusions pine stamp of 'Christmas accessories'.  The baubles were from a card making pack I had (don't know who made them unfortunately) which I scanned into the computer and printed on to card.  Then cut out.

With the addition of some stickles for some bling on the garland and trees and to create some icicles along the top edge.  'Simples!!!!

Hope you all have a great December!

xxx hugs xxx

A Short post

Just want to quickly put this little atc card which I made onto my blog.  Hope you like it!!!

I did the background using dylusions inks and used stampotique stamps for the figure, the garland and the saying.  Coloured the figure in with the same inks and put some paint dabber paint onto the metal crown and rubbed a little of the paint off to leave some of the metal showing.  I think he looks a little like me at the moment!! LOL xxx

November Calendar Page

Ok its that time again folks - where I panic to try and get the new months calendar page done in time to fill it in on the first day!!  As always I'm running close to the wire but I did manage to get it finished late last night when I couldnt sleep!! At least something productive came out of the time!! LOL

As i'm sure you are use to hearing from me by now - it didn't turn out how I expected - In fact it nearly got binned on several occasions. 

Background done with Dylusions ink sprays with the addition of white dabber paint for the figure on the right.  I used the ink to colour some paper and then used Tim Holtz tattered leaves die to cut out the shapes for the days.  I added some leaf stamping over the top and some cobwebs.  

I die cut, embossed and coloured the 3 main leaves with inks and used the blending tool with some distress ink pads to add some extra colour.

Printed off the quote and used the distress ink pads to colour them in autumn shades.

Used a Dylusions stamp for the edging and cobweb and bird stamps for some additional detail.

For the final element - the faint white snow flurries (as we had our first snow here last week) I used some white golden paint in a mini mister, thinned a little with some water and added some silver perfect pearls.  After a good mixing this gives a lovely shimmering effect and gave me my hint of snow!!!  Doesn't show well in the picture.

Hope you like it - I will be putting it on Kate Cranes blog as I have been following along with her challenge and she is the lovely lady who started me off on this fab calendar journey and on Simon says stamp blog for their weekly challenge - just add pearls!!  Hope you check out both blogs as they have some wonderful creations for you to see.

Have a good and hopefully snow free November!!

xxx Hugz xxx