I have been stamping for years and am excited to share and learn along with you.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

A little journal page catch up

Sorry I didn't have a post last week.  My only excuse is it's summer and I have been outside enjoying the weather before it gets too hot.  The last several years it has been so hot, many 100+ days by now.  So needless to say 80's and even low 90's are worth getting outside for right now.  I have managed to do a little creating, though mostly with already started pages from my massive stash of started but never used stuff.  Not much in the way of technique so I'll just post a few pictures and the stamps used.  Here we go:

The dresses on this were created by hand using a brass stencil, sorry don't know who makes it since it doesn't say on the stencil anywhere.  I then hand embossed the hearts on the one and the lines on the other one.  Hats on a pedestal are Inkadinkado and the rose is from Stampabilities.  The lacy border stamp is from Lost Coast Stampers and was added over a scrap of fabric I had added with watered down white glue.  The purple hat and shoes are from Spellbinders.  The only image possibly still available might be the border stamp.  Sorry the picture isn't any better I have tried SEVERAL times but my camera did not like the combination of glossy cardstock, vellum and the metallic/holographic paper in the one dress.  If I get a better picture I'll include it in a future post.

The wings on this are from Stamp Camp, the "each day..." and border are all one wood stamp by Hero Arts.  I have no idea who made the checkerboard at bottom & eyeball on the right as they were a rak many years ago. The rest of the page I drew/doodled myself along with coming up with all the encouragements myfself.

This one was doing with pencils and some pre-made letters that I got from a book of die cuts forever ago.  The hula girl in the grass skirt is from Stamp Camp and the flowers are from DMD/Creative Inc.  The label was cut using Spellbinders dies and stamped with a Studio G dollar set.

All of the stamps on this one are from Beeswax except: the girl playing the flute which is from Stamp Camp and the clarinet, its' from All Nite Media.  This one has Twinkling H2O's on the girls dress and the columns.  It also has some Washi tape alone the left side and bottom, still not sold on this stuff but occasionally I find a project that it works on.

This last one was inspired by an email from Stampington that talked about using corrugated cardboard to make a journal.   It is a LOT of fun to play with, so many options!  I didn't like the look of a whole book done in it though but a few pages mixed in with other types of cardstock works.  The only thing on this page to give credit for is the tulip image which is an embossing folder from Sizzix that I painted with H2O's.

I hope you are having a great summer.  I'm hoping to get another post done this coming week I have so much more to share; journal pages and cards, !

Thursday, June 5, 2014

A Mermaid's Life

This post includes 2 subjects: creative writing and making your own textural/dimensional paste.  Lets start with textural paste first.  

I checked a library book out recently that talked about making your own paste by combining acrylic medium with a thickener such as sand, clay or talc.  I've had both matte and glossy gel medium for quite a while now and as they are both starting to get rather thick I figured why not give it a try.  So I grabbed my matte medium, re-inkers and some talc powder and started to play around with the idea.  It was easy to do and the results are amazing!   I don't know for sure buying pre-made paste may be cheaper in the long run but it is nice to know that I can make a small batch to use on a project anytime I want.


See the wonderful bubble texture on the left of this first picture, the right side looked like that originally but I couldn't leave things alone.  There was one little spot that didn't look right so I decided I neede to "fix" it and flattened it out instead.  I should have remembered the "Un-Rules" of mixed media that we started over at SCS:  it doesn't have to be perfect.  I've added another rule to the list, leave things alone until they are dry.  At least I was able to do something with the mess I'd created by taking a craft stick to create fish scales, sort of any way.


The texture on the bottom of the page in this next picture shows how I used both the positive and negative of a stencil.  I laid the stencil down on the right corner to apply my paste and then flipped it over onto the left corner to use the paste that was now on the top of the stencil.  The stencil I used by the way was actually a Cuttlebug die cut out of card stock.  Looks a lot like a fishing net to me, what do you think?  I saved the die cut and will use it sometime in the future, which makes that one die cut a 3 for 1, yeah!




I created the mermaid freehand and am pretty proud of the way she came out.  I followed another "unrule", don't be afraid, just do it.  If  I can do it so can you, I challenge you to to jump in and draw or create something without a stamp or stencil, nobody needs to see it if you don't like the way it turns out but at least you tried.  I learned me lesson, after the mermaid was completely dry I painted her with some iridescent green Twinkling H2O's so she would sparkle and shimmer in the light.  It also helped her stand out better on the page since I used the same color of paste as I had used at the top and bottom of the page, if you look close you can see the green.  I  hand drew a mouth and eyes and she was done.  Hint when creating eyes, draw a larger white oval or dot first then put a smaller dot of your chosen color in the center of the white dot.


I loved the way all the textures turned out on this piece but was stumped at this point as to what to do next.  What kind of journaling goes with mermaids anyway?!?!  This is where the let go and just do it mantra came in handy again.  I grabbed a piece of paper and started writing down what I though being a mermaid would be like and within no time at all I has some free verse of sorts that I knew I wanted written on my journal page so I started writing and before I knew it the page was full.  Now I want to be a mermaid because it sounds like a wonderful place to live.


Art journaling really does help you free your creative nature, the more I art journal, the more I'm finding that teenage girl who loved to doodle and write silly stuff again because while making this page I could feel her stirring, trying to wake up again.  I will definitely be exploring my creative side more.  

About that "letting go and just do it" thing isn't so bad either, I kinda liked it.  Give it a try, I'm glad I did.