Loving Life

I always find that I have a huge selection of tissue paper and paper leftover from creating other art journal pages, which I have either coloured or stamped. So in an attempt to tidy up a little (it hasn’t helped much – grin!), I decided to use some of them to create today’s page. I was also inspired by some challenge blogs too and as such, I hope you like the resulting page as much as I do!

I selected a black, white and yellow colour scheme for this page and collaged leftover pieces of white paper and tissue paper that had been stamped, whilst creating other pages, using black Archival Ink. Like all the collaged pieces they are stuck on the page using a glue stick. These stamped images included: grass and fern fronds from a Carabelle Studio stamp set; postage marks and bees from Hampton Art; postage marks from The Works; Vintage Circles from Woodware Craft Collection; blossoms from Stampendous; “kindness” wording from Docrafts; “discover” wording from Royal & Langnickel; script from Kaisercraft; and also a dragonfly from Eco Green Crafts. I arranged them on the page with some paper coloured with Yellow Colourcraft Brusho powders which were remnants of another journal page. Once the collage was complete, I covered the page with a layer of Liquitex Matte Gel Medium which allowed me to outline all the paper pieces using a black Uni Pin marker smudging the ink with my finger.

I added a pretty “yellow wagtail” bird that I fussy cut from my old nature book; he is stood on some torn pieces of black and white washi tape. I then added more pieces of the washi tape to the page background as well.

Next I stuck a yellow skeleton leaf onto the page along with a small glittery yellow flower which I embellished with a black gemstone in the centre. The yellow and white wording is from a Kaisercraft Sticker Sheet and they read “loving life” and “our story starts here”; they are both edged with a black Uni Pin marker and I stamped some small hearts onto them using black Archival Ink. I also stamped the hearts onto two small squares of leftover yellow sticker to make two small heart embellishments for my page. The black and white “love” wording is created using circular button letter stickers and the “love with all your heart” and “and so the adventure begins” wording are from a Tim Holtz Small Talk sticker set; they are all outlined using the black Uni Pin marker. To finish, I splattered the page with black, white and yellow acrylic paint.

My page reminds me to love life and appreciate the simple things like the pretty yellow flowers that we have in our garden at the moment. You may remember that we replanted our flower beds last year and as such we added these miniature daffodils which seem to be a bit early flowering (grin!) – aren’t they adorable!

We were also surprised to see these pretty crocus in our flower bed too, we didn’t even know they there (double grin!)

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 be able to join the lovely Rike from rike’s art and her The Colour Yellow challenge over at Art Journal Journey with the yellow I added.

I’m joining the Love is in the Air challenge over at Moo Mania & More with my Loving Life page.

Over at Country View Challenges their challenge is Black & White Plus One, so I’m happy to join this challenge to with my black, white and yellow page.

As I used black, white and yellow to create this page, I’m also joining Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and their Black, White + One Other Colour challenge.

Over at The Artistic Stamper, their challenge is Heart It!, so I’m pleased to join this challenge with all the stamped elements, love and hearts.

As the lovely Tracey is Guest Designing over at Frilly and Funkie, I’m also happy to be join the Frilly and Funkie Challenge which is Let Me Count The Ways, as I used three stamped Vintage Circles and three colours (black, white and yellow) on my page.

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:

• Leftover tissue paper and papers stamped using various stamp sets and Jet Black Ranger Archival Ink
• Leftover white paper coloured with Yellow Colourcraft Brusho Colour
• Uni Pin Fine Line marker (Black 0.8mm)
• Liquitex Artist Color Acrylic (Cadmium Yellow Medium)
• DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic (White, Black)
• Hallmark Cards Stamp Set  (Unknown – Heart)
• Old book – The Illustrated Book of Nature
• Michael’s (Washi Tape)
• Nature’s Touch of Art (Skeleton Leaves Yellow)
• Poundland (Accessories Pack 60911, Design Gems 175751)
• Kaisercraft Sticker Sheet (Fiesta! SS738)
• Home Bargains (Love Letters 22738)
• Tim Holtz idea-ology Sticker Set (Small Talk #TH93193)
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• Pritt Stick
• Ranger Glossy Accents