Earth’s Music

Today I was inspired by nature and my lovely friend Alison from Craftytrog’s Arty Adventures who is undertaking a challenge to create 5 minute journal pages – thank you!

I wanted to use some leftover papers and paints in my craft area so with the drying time of paints and glues and my finishing touches, I cannot claim this is a 5 minute page – my time actually ran out after the stencilling (grin!).  I had so much fun though and it is one of the simplest and quickest pages I have created which makes me happy – see what you think!

For the background I added some leftover book papers that were on my craft desk, it’s from some old books and some of it was die cut from a previous project. I used a UHU Stic to stick it onto the page and then I stamped some clocks from Kaisercraft using black Archival Ink. Next I used Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Red Liquitex acrylic paints and also white and black DecoArt arcylic paints to colour the background; some of which were already in my paint palette. I mixed the paints to create a pale yellow and also an orange colour and applied them to the page using a baby wipe concentrating the yellow near the centre of the page and the orange around the edges. I used up any leftover paint by applying it through a trellis stencil by Creative Expressions with a sponge and then. I die cut some flowers from sheet music using Sizzix Wildflower Thinlets by Tim Holtz and my Big Shot Machine. When the paint was dry I stamped a crackle stamp by BoBunny around the edges of the page using black Archival Ink. I stuck the sheet music flowers in place using Liquitex matte gel medium and once the gel medium was dry, I outlined them with a black Uni Pin marker.  To finish, I added a quote by George Santayana using Letter Labels by Tim Holtz which I thought matched the sheet music flower beautifully, it reads “The earth has music for those who listen”.

I love nature and when I die cut some of the Thinlet wildflowers for this page they reminded me of some of the flowers in my new garden border. This included the Achillea and Rudbeckia …

… and also the poppies; we have quite a few this year and the seed flower heads provide some lovely structure to the border too.

Challenges

I’m glad I found out about Challenge Blogs as I enjoy taking part, they provide me with inspiration for my pages and are a wonderful way to meet like-minded arty people. So here are the challenges I’m joining today:

I’m pleased to join the lovely Bleubeard & Elizabeth at Altered Book Lover, who is hosting the Count your blessings challenge over at Art Journal Journey as nature makes me happy and when I look at my garden I feel blessed.

As I enjoyed using the stamps as part of my design, I’m joining the Anything Goes Challenge over at The Artistic Stamper with my art journal page.

I’m joining the Wild Thing challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge with the wildflowers dies that I added to my art journal page.

Over at Moo Mania and More the theme is Sheet Music so I’m pleased to join their challenge too.

I’m also joining in the fun over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and their Make your own Background challenge with the layered book pages, stamping, paint and stencilling that I used to create my background for this art journal page.

I’m also pleased to join the July Link Party #41 over at Cropstop Blog with my art journal page as I included some products from companies that they carry in their store.

Over at Try it on Tuesday the theme is Use Book Paper and there is a few days left to join in the fun, I hope to see you there!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Liquitex Artist Color Acrylic (Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red)
• DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic (White, Black)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Uni Pin Fine Line Marker (Black 0.2mm)
• Kaisercraft Clear Stamp (Provincial CS243)
• Creative Expressions Mini Stencils (Ornate Trellis CEMSTRELLIS)
• BoBunny Stamp (Rough it up 12105155)
• Sizzix Thinlets by Tim Holtz Alterations (Wildflowers 66190)
• Book papers – leftovers
• Bosworth Violin Studies – Sheet Music
• Tim Holtz Idea-ology (Label Letters #TH93072)
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• UHU Stic