February Calendar Journal Page

Hi everyone - sorry for the delay in doing the blog for this month calendar journal page but life seems to be speeding along and there never seems to be enough time for everything!

I did get this months page done but as always it was late but only 5 days lol!! 

OK here's what I did.

I gessoed a page and let it dry the I dripped some Dylusions ink, and some Opalite pigment ink onto the surface and spread it around with a scrapper.  I then sprayed a bit more on and splattered and dripped, sprayed some more and splattered and... well you get the idea!!

I left the centre pale and just let the shimmer of the Opalite ink show!!

Then I did a little bit of ghosting through a Dylusions stencil and splatter it with water to lift off some of the ink.

Next I stamped the day squares round the edge and dried them with the heat tool because the gesso delays the time it takes for the ink to dry.  Next I put a green line of liquid pearls paint round each square to give it some dimension.

At that point I went to bed as it was late and I had absolutely now idea as to what I was going to do next!! 

I was running out of time to get the page done but I really couldn't decide what to do in the centre.  I came back to it several times during the next day but no inspiration struck!!!  Don't you just hate that!!

Late on in the afternoon I saw a picture a friend of mine had drawn of a face and I realised it had been awhile since I had done one and I could fit one in lovely to that space.  So I dug out my favourite Inktense pencils and Neocolour 2 waxed pastels and got started planning on colouring it in with the pencils and putting highlights on with the pastels.  Well as always with me it didn't quite work out that way!

Having pencilled in the basic outline I realised that the background colour made rather a nice face colour so I thought I wouldn't bother colouring that bit in.  So I started drawing in the hair with the pencils which are water soluble and when I wet them to pull the colour out I remembered that the Dylusions ink I had used is reactive to water and it was moving along with the pencil and created a rather nice effect.  So out came the waterbrushes which I have filled with some of the Dylusions inks and I started to paint with them instead.  It worked lovely.  Much quicker than it would have been with the pencils!! Quick is good when you dont have much time!!

So with the addition of some gesso to whiten the eyes and some of the pencils to add details and highlights she started to appear!!! 

I realised that there was something wrong with the proportion of the face but I couldn't figure out what it was.  So a quick trip to the bathroom to have a look at the page in the mirror and it clearly showed that one of her cheeks was way bigger than the other and at a very strange angle.

So back to the waterbrushes and the addition of some more hair on that side and problem solved.  She is still not in proportion but she looks better and as I'm not aiming for perfect (just as well because I could be waiting for a very long time if I was) I decided that I was happy with her.

Then It was just a case of the finishing touches.  I used some Tim Holtz stamps to add FEB and 2015 which I stamped in an archival ink in a matching tone to the background and I stamped lines of numbers all over the background.  Last touch was using a blending tool to add some Distress ink round the edge of the page!!!

Job done!!

Have any of you managed to find time to do the Calendar Journal challenge?  Its a great way to make you find time for yourself each month and to get creating!!

Bye for now!!

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January Calendar Page 2015

Hi Folk, I hope you have all had a good start to the year!!!
I did get my January calendar journal page done on time and its nearly filled in now but ooops.... sorry!!! its taken me this long to actually get round to doing the blog for it!!
OK, some time in the middle of last year I gesso'ed this page but very roughly and left ripples in the texture. It was then used as a blot off sheet for several of my other pages so unfortunately I can't actually tell you any more details about the main background - It just sort of developed itself!!!
I loved the way the random blotting off had created different textures to add to the gesso texture so I didn't do much more to it apart from splatting some red mica ink and dripping some silver mica ink down the page.

I drew the grid for the day squares using a silver Sharpe pen and then a turquoise pen to create a bit of the shadow.  I then stamped round the edge with one of my favourite background stamps and its the crackled glass by Tim Holtz.

The toadstools are from a decoupage sheet by 'the house of Zandra' - they do now have these houses in stamp form if you are interested.

I used some foliage which I die cut a long time ago and added that for a bit more detail round the house.

I used sticky letters for the month and year but also used the Sharpe silver pen to draw it larger at the top.  I then outlined all of the elements in black pen.

The finally touch as always the saying - typed on a piece of page and distressed with distress ink and glued in place. 

I hope to be a bit more on the ball with my posts next month!!

Hope you have all got started with your own calendar pages!!

Please find time to be creative!!!

xxxxx hugs xxxxx

A year of calendar pages 2014

Hi folks I hope you have all had a great Christmas.  Like last year I decided to do a quick recap of the12 months Calendar Journal pages I have done this year, as this is the 3rd year I have managed to keep doing it. As always its a bit surprising when you look back and see what you have created.

I Hope you have enjoyed seeing my efforts and that you have a go yourselves in 2015 if you haven't already started.

I am so glad I have this picture of July because when I did august I made rather a mess on July so its always good to take pictures of your work before you move on!!

 

If you would like to join in the Calendar journal challenge you can find details on Kate Cranes blog here and you can see the facebook group here.

I hope 2015 is a wonderful, creative Happy Year for you all!!!

December Calendar Journal Page

Hi everyone, as you can see I'm very late this month, sorry about that!  I nearly gave up and decided I didn't have time to do it but it seemed such a shame to stop at 1 month short of 3 years doing this project!!!!

So here it is the last one of the year and the my 3 years are complete!!

I bought several plastic fine liner detail bottles a few months ago and I have been using one of them with Golden's black paint to write and add detail to projects but I have been wanting to try them with other thing.  So I filled one of them with masking fluid and used it to draw the words and the grid!  I really liked the way it pooled in places - because the liquid is a little too runny to use in these bottle.

I left that to dry over night.  You don't have to leave it that long but I went off and did other things.

When I came back to it I sprayed it with 3 different colours of Dylusions ink sprays and a little bit of water.  I let it soak in a bit then blotted the rest off.

Next I added some sprays and splatters of perfect pearl mist to give it a bit of razzmatazz!

Then I stamped in each of the squares using aqua archival ink and a snow flake stamp - I didn't use a block with it as I only wanted random parts of the snowflake to print.

Then came the fun bit!! rubbing and pulling of the resist!! its like picking dry glue off your hands - I love it!!! Oh am I the only one who likes doing that??? ...... no I didn't think so LOL!

Next I sprinkled a little bit of Brusho powder over the corners and sprayed that with some water to make it wick out, then dried it with a heat gun.

I stamped and painted the little stampotique figure (I used H2O's to paint with) and cut it out.

Lastly I did a little back ground stamping with a couple of different tree branch stamps and with some words.  I stamped along the top with an icicle stamp and added the old fashioned street lamp.  A touch of H2O paint in the lamps to make them look as though they are lit and the addition of a bit of white for snow and it was almost done.

I didn't think I could do a Christmas calendar page with out adding just a little bit more bling lol!!!

So the old Stickles came out to add some dots to the tree branches as the top and some highlights on the letters and numbers!!!

Finally it was all done!!!

I hope all of your Christmas preparations are going well and that you are not too stressed by all the hustle and bustle.  

I hope you have time for a little Christmas creativity!!!

Have an Awesome month!

XXX HUGS XXX

Be aware of happy accidents!

Hi everyone just another quick post re happy accidents.  While at one of Dina Wakleys workshops we were making quick backgrounds which we were going to draw faces on later.  This was on of mine.  It is done in an old accounts journal which has beautiful paper.  I put a thin layer of gesso on the page first then using my hands a rubber on some of Dina's heavy body paint in purple and green. Then using one of Dina's bird stencils I rubbed a bit of the paint off through the stencil. I then dribbled on Dylusions inks in purple and white and made them run.  I also splattered on some purple.  I set it aside to dry and use later for the faces.

When I went back to it I really like  the result and even though I returned to use it several times couldn't convince myself to draw any faces on as I felt like it was a finished piece in its one right.

So finally I accepted that I wouldn't use it for its intended purpose and added a bit of journaling in white paint using a fine line applicator across the paint and called it done!!

So try to always be aware - just because you start doing something for a particular purpose, if it decides some where along the ling that it wants to become something else, go with it, you will be surprised with some of the beautiful results you will get!!

Have fun! 

x

Dina Wakleys Animals Work shop March 2014

Hi folks!
As I said in my previous post I also did a workshop with Dina, back in March on adding animals into my work and here are some of the results of my day.

We got to play with some of the stencils which she had just released and had a great time creating backgrounds.  This one I liked so much that I just left it as it was.  I will probably put a quote on it at some stage in the future and some doodling but I think that will be all.

Great page using her stencils and bird stamps.

We then went on to learn how to incorporate a magazine image into a journal page!

Last thing before we finished we created this lovely collage bird.  I need to put a quote on and some doodling but  I think he is loads of fun!!!

I enjoyed all of the techniques from this day and when I got home I created this page using a found image of the leopard.

Keep creating folks!

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November Calendar Journal Page

Hi again folks - I told you that you might be inundated with posts LOL!!!

I actually got this months done on time.

I decided to combine a few things that I have learnt recently.  So I used a layered journal type layout which was inspired by my workshops with Finnabair but added a picture which I drew on one of Kate Cranes Journal workshops!!!  I think it all came together quite well.

First of all I chose 2 sheets of 12 x 12 from my paper stash, 1 to be cut up to make 3cm day squares and kept the other for the background (I distressed round the edge of this sheet with a distressing tool and tore it in some places).  The main paper that I use for my calendar pages is a little bigger than 12 x 12 so I put some distress ink round the edge of the backing page and glues the patterned paper on top.

I  decided to use the whimsical face I did in Kate's class and layer it up with some co-ordinating torn paper, book pages, cut and embossed leaves, tags and some brown string.  This became the feature piece of the page.

I then found a large tag and added the Month and the year and stapled that in place over some torn strips of paper.

Having attached all of these in place I added the cobweb stamping and splattered with some gold mica spray and white Dylusions.

I like the autumnal feel of the page even though it feels way too hot to be autumn at the moment!! long may it continue!!

Enjoy the lovely weather guys!!

Take care xxxx