Here with you

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought I’d create a page with my hubby in mind. We have been married for many years (it will be 32 years this year) so I created a romantic vintage page.

I also used some of my new Wendy Vecchi Make Art Blendable Dye inks from Ranger; they were fun to use and I love the colours and coverage – see what you think.  

I started by adding some ripped book pages to the page using a glue stick and then I stamped an Finnabair and a Woodware Craft stamp to add some script and sheet  music using black Archival Ink. Next I applied some Pébéo white gesso using a brayer and when dry applied some Potting Soil, Acorn and Watering Can Wendy Vecchi Make Art inks which I watered down on an acrylic block before painting them onto the page with a paintbrush. I also applied some more of the Acorn ink through a Moroccan stencil using a blending tool.

The roses are fussy cut from a wallpaper sample and like all the paper elements, I created some shadows around them so they stood out more by applying and smudging some Dark Sepia Faber-Castell marker with my finger before sticking them down using Liquitex matte gel medium. The roses are arranged on the page with some Kaisercraft Stickers; this included some bird and foliage images, some white, green and grey hearts and also some wording which reads “here with you”, “there are so many beautiful reasons to be happy” and “joy is contagious”. To finish, I splattered the page with black and white DecoArt acrylic paint.

There are so many reasons to be happy when I’m with my hubby, we always have fun together and for that I am very thankful (grin!).

Over at Try it on Tuesday we have a Design Team call out, so if you are interested in joining our friendly group and have a current blog, just add DT to your challenge entry to our current or next theme over at Try it on Tuesday. We accept projects using any mediums, materials, style etc. it is your choice what you make, as long as it is based on the challenge theme.

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

Challenges

I’m pleased to join the Something New challenge that I’m hosting over at Art Journal Journey as I used my new Wendy Vecchi Make Art Inks on this page.

As this page was created with my hubby in mind, I’m pleased to join the Love challenge over at Country View Challenges.

With the Moroccan stencil that I added to this page, I’m also happy to join the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and their Use a Stencil challenge too.

I’m also joining the Anything Goes challenge over at Paperbabe Stamps with my vintage page too.

With the worn and weather look that I created on my art journal page, I also wanted to remind you that there is still time to join the We’re all getting older challenge this month over at A Vintage Journey, it would be lovely to see you there!

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

• Old book pages
• Pritt Stick
• Prima Marketing Finnibair Clear Stamp (Old Receipt Item#966980)
• Woodware Craft Collection Clear Magic Singles (Sheet Music JGS111)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Pébéo White Gesso
• Ranger Brayer (Small)
• Ranger Wendy Vecchi Blendable Dye Ink (Potting Soil, Acorn, Watering Can)
• Creative Expressions That Special Touch of Mica Masks (Morrocan)
• Wallpaper sample
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• Kaisercraft Sticker Sheet (Everlasting SS376, High Tea SS336)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Marker (Dark Sepia 175 B)
• DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic (Black, White)

Paris

Today I chose to travel back to Paris whilst Art Journaling for the new challenge that is being hosted by the lovely Alison over at A Vintage Journey which is:

We’re all getting older.

It has nothing to do with your age, it’s all about making things look older; here’s what the challenge is about:

“Time for weathering and distressing, or some ageing and antiquing. Make a project using techniques for making the new look old, whether that’s paper projects, altered art or mixed media. Just remember to ensure that you create in one of our preferred styles of vintage, shabby, mixed media, art journaling, industrial, timeworn or steampunk”.

I created a worn and distressed Art Journal page of Paris making the collaged papers look old.

To start, I ripped pieces of book pages about France which came from an old encyclopaedia and also pieces from a sample of Paris themed wallpaper. Then I collaged them onto the page using matte gel medium.

Once dry, I distressed the collage papers by staining them using Ground Espresso and Brushed Corduroy Distress Inks. I did this by stamping the ink pads onto an acrylic block, spritzing with some water and pressing/dripping the ink onto the page and also by painting diluted ink along the edges of each of the collaged papers. To add to the worn grungy look, I also lightly sprinkled the page with some Dark Brown Brusho powder, spritzed it with water to activate the colour and dried it with my heat gun. Next I added some white gesso using a baby wipe and when dry, I edged the collaged pieces using a Dark Sepia Faber-Castell Big Brush marker smudging the ink with my finger.

I stamped a series of Paris related stamps using black Archival ink; the stamps included some little round “T” postage mark stamps from Prima Marketing and also a birdcage, bee, “Paris”, filigree branch and two crowns by Graphic 45 from Hampton Art. I then splattered the whole page with black DecoArt acrylic paint using a paintbrush.

I die cut some flower shapes and a round disc from dark brown and blue patterned papers using some Spellbinders dies and my Big Shot machine. Then I used two rectangular pieces of the same patterned papers which I distressed using scissors, the Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink and the Dark Sepia Big Brush marker. I cut out an oval picture of the Eiffel Tower from the wallpaper sample and backed it with white card. Then I layered them all onto the page using double-sided tape and added some pearl gem stickers along the edge of the patterned paper.

To finish, I added a butterfly sticker from Tim Holtz and some pretty pale blue silk roses which are stuck in place using Glossy Accents.

If you want to join in the fun why not create a weathered, distressed or age effect too and share it with us at A Vintage Journey, it would be lovely to see you there!

For more Inspiration, please pop over to see the amazing creations from my fellow Creative Guides over at A Vintage Journey too.

It seems like many years have passed since we visited Paris, so I guess I must be getting older but hopefully not as worn and distressed as my page (grin!).

This is one of the yummy patisseries that we went to – can you guess which cake I chose from the lovely display here?

My favourite is always the strawberry tarts, they are so delicious and I only had one, I promise … well I only had one everyday for the week we were there (double grin!).

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

Challenges

I’m pleased to join Art Journal Journey where I’m hosting the Something New challenge this month as I took “new” papers and distressed them to make them look old. Also smooshing the Distress Inks directly onto the neutral collaged papers to make them look old was “new” to me and I’m so glad it worked; it was so much fun making them worn and grungy (grin!).

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

• Paris wallpaper sample
• Book pages from old encyclopaedia
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Brushed Corduroy, Ground Espresso)
• Colourcraft Brusho (Dark Brown)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Dark Sepia 175 B)
• Pébéo White Gesso
• Hampton Art 7 Gypsies (Birdsong ICO151)
• Prima Marketing Clear Stamps (Rossi Belle 587499)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Spellbinders Die Cut – Unknown
• The Works Paperstack (Vintage Experience CRO239/TW6)
• X-Press It! double-sided tape
• Tim Holtz idea-ology Salvage Stickers (Crowded Attic #TH92898)
• The Works (Craft Flowers)
• Ranger Glossy Accents
• Poundworld (Pearl Embellishments)

Be the brightest colour

For the next two weeks, our new challenge at Try it on Tuesday is Colours of the Rainbow.

I had fun creating this colourful page as not only did I use a new set of acrylic paints, but the paint colours and stencils that I used were chosen by my hubby. As you can see he likes bold and bright contrasting colours and he chose birds, leaves, mosaic and brickwork stencils.

I started by adding the Cerulean Blue, Yellow Oxide, Primary Red and Light Green acrylic paints, that my hubby had chosen, using a dry brush technique where a clean dry brush is used to spread each of the colours; I did this so that the colours would not blend together as some of the colours chosen are on opposite sides of the colour wheel so if blended together they would produce a brown or grey so I didn’t want them to blend by adding water. Then I applied the same paints again using a sponge through the four stencils that my hubby had chosen: Cerulean Blue through a birds stencil; Yellow Oxide through a mosaic stencil; Primary Red through a brick stencil and finally Light Green through a leaf stencil. Next I stamped some postage marks from Prima Marketing and some numbers from Inkidinkado using black Archival Ink. To add some depth and contrast I applied some white acrylic paint to the page with my finger and when dry, I stamped more of the postage marks and numbers over the top. The flowers are stamped onto a dictionary page using some Hampton Art stamps sets and black Archival Ink, fussy cut and stuck in place using Liquitex matte gel medium. I added the stems to the flowers using a Hampton Art Border stamp set and the black Archival Ink again. The wording is from a Kaisercraft sticker sheet finishes the page and reads “Be the brightest colour in the box”; I thought it linked well to my new set of paints.

There are some amazing creations from my Design Teamies too, please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to check them out. We would love to see your rainbow colour creations of the next two weeks, it would be lovely to see you there!

Here’s my new paint set, there are 36 colours to use so I’m sure I’ll be using them again soon (grin!).

As T Stands for T Day, I’m sharing these colourful teapots from the Blackbird Café which you may remember from a previous post – Happy T day!

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

Challenges

I’m pleased to join the lovely Chris from pearshapedcrafting and her We’re all/going challenge over at Art Journal Journey as we’re all colourful with my new set of paints.

I’m pleased to be able to join Creative Artiste Challenge Blog for their #51 Anything Mixed Media Goes challenge with all the mixed media I used to create this art journal page.

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

• Liquitex Basics Acrylic Colour (Cerulean Blue, Yellow Oxide, Primary Red, Light Green)
• Craft Sensations (Deco Stencil Set 154892)
• Tim Holtz Collection Stampers Anonymous Layering Stencil (Mosaic #THS084)
• Creative Expressions That Special Touch of Mica Masks (Take a leaf)
• Prima Marketing Clear Stamps (Rossi Belle #587499)
• Inkadinkado Cling Stamps (Typographic 65-32008)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Art Discount Acrylic (White)
• Hampton Art Bella Blvd cling mounted rubber stamps (Sand & Surf ICO226)
• Hampton Art Doodlebug Designs Inc. cling mounted rubber stamps (Thankful ICO162, Borders ICO160)
• Dictionary pages
• Kaisercraft Sticker Set (Fiesta! SS284)
• Uni Pin Fine Line marker (Black 0.8mm)
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium

Man’s World

Time for a new challenge at Try it on Tuesday and for the next two weeks our challenge is It’s a Man’s World. So be masculine, it could be something for Father’s Day or for a male birthday.

As I always find it hard to get started on masculine designs, I ended up getting all my appropriate crafting goodies out for inspiration and once I got started I really enjoyed creating this page; it all came together quickly and I love the grungy vintage look and I hope you do too!

I started by ripping some decoupage paper into large pieces and sticking it to the page using a glue stick. Then I stencilled the metal plate effect using Hickory Smoke Distress Ink and a Dinky Stencil from That’s Crafty! I splattered the page with water to smudge the Hickory Smoke ink using a piece of kitchen towel giving it a grungy look. Next I smooshed and splattered some Rusty Hinge Distress Ink over the page and I edged the pieces of decoupage paper using a Dark Sepia Faber-Castell Big Brush marker. To finish the background, I added three rub-on transfers from Royal & Langnickel which I outlined using a black Uni Pin marker so the edges looked worn and then I splattered the page using black DecoArt acrylic paint. Next I layered all the different paper elements together having edged them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink using a blending tool and also a black Faber-Castell Big Brush marker before I stuck them onto the page. They included: letters creating the “mans world” wording, some numbered tiles and shields which are Crowded Attic Salvage Stickers by Tim Holtz; some pieces of a book page which I distressed with scissors along the edge; a vintage car stamp from Tim Holtz which I stamped onto some American Crafts paper and also some recycled Kraft paper using black Archival Ink and then fussy cut out; a clock which was stamped using a Kaisercraft stamp and black Archival Ink onto the same American Crafts paper then cut out; a clock which I fussy cut from an old magazine; two Victorian style brown tags; two wooden effect tags from Docrafts that read “Brilliant” and “The World’s Greatest”, and I emphasised their design using a black Uni Pin marker; a ruler which I cut into two pieces and finally two round discs, which read “in these moments time stood still” and “A lifetime of memories” all of which are fussy cut from a Kaisercraft paper sheet. To finish, I added some brown metal brads to all of the tags and splattered black DecoArt acrylic paint over everything.

For more inspiration please check out the fabulous creations from my Design Teamies over at Try it on Tuesday.

As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing our pie and a pint that we enjoyed whilst sitting in the sunshine at a local pub. We only had one day of sunshine last week and I’m now wishing for more with all the grey cloudy and rainy days we have had of late, although I’m sure the flowers in my garden are grateful (grin!). If you are wondering, our pie is meat and potato which is much loved in the North of England, you probably won’t find this pie in the South of England. It’s served hot and goes very nicely with a pint of beer too – cheers and Happy T day!

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

Challenges

I’m pleased to join the lovely Halle of Halle’s Hobbies  and her Words to live by challenge over at Art Journal Journey.

I’m joining Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and their Masculine challenge with my Man’s World page.

I’m pleased join in the fun over at Creative Artiste and their June #50 – Anything Mixed Media Goes challenge with my mixed media art journal page (which included decoupage paper, ink, markers, stickers, etc).

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

• Trimcraft Santora London (Decoupage Papers SBDEC043)
• That’s Crafty! Dinky Stencil (Metal Grid Background – TC041)
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Hickory Smoke, Rusty Hinge, Vintage Photo)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Dark Sepia 175 B, Black 199)
• Royal & Langnickel Rub-on Create-A-Collage (Men’s Accessories #ROY-853)
• Uni Pin Fine Line marker (Black 0.2mm)
• DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic (Black)
• Tim Holtz idea-ology Salvage Stickers (Crowded Attic #TH92898)
• Book page
• Tim Holtz {Components} Collection Stamper Anonymous (COM013 CAR)
• American Crafts Papers (DIY Store 366665)
• Recycled Kraft Notepaper
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Kaisercraft Clear Stamps (Vintage- Believe CS832)
• Old Magazine
• The Works (Victorian Style Embellishments)
• Docrafts A5 Die-Cut Toppers & Sentiments (Mr. Smith’s Workshop PMA157261)
• Kaisercraft Glossy Paper Story Book Collection (Trinkets PS445)
• Craft Sensations (Brads CRO550/A)
• Pritt Stick

And they Flew!

I wanted my finished page to link to this month’s maps theme over at Art Journal Journey so I decided to have fun and get my inspiration as I went along. I wanted to start off with some circles, so used maps and lovely turquoise paper which I think go nicely together.

I used various lids and tapes as templates to cut out the circles. When I laid them onto the page I loved the vibrancy of colours, and so created a complimentary green background using a blend of acrylic paints. I applied the paint with a baby wipe, which is a new technique for me, and one that I will be using again, as it was very easy to do and I love the results! I stamped a hessian (burlap) texture and some script over the page using Kaisercraft stamps and Memento inks, then I used a homemade stamp to add a mesh pattern effect with Archival ink. I enjoyed adding the black and white splatters with acrylic paint to finish the background.

I fixed the circles to the page using a glue stick and gel matte medium, and doodled on and around them to add some detail. I then added some lines adapted from a poem by Christopher Logue and finished the page with a wooden dove. I think it turned out wonderful!

I heard Mary Portas recite this poem recently and it really resonated with me, I just fell in love with it. Sometimes we all need to take a leap of faith in our lives and not be afraid to go after our dreams, and then you get to know what it feels like to fly! I hope you enjoy the poem as much as I do.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

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

• Liquitex Artist Colour Acrylic (Christmas Green, Swedish Blue, Ivory Black)
• Colvin & Co. acrylic paint (White Titanium)
• Memento Dye Inks (Rich Cocoa, Pistachio, London Fog, Bahama Blue)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Faber- Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Black 199)
• Uni Pin Fine Line marker (Black 0.1mm & 0.5mm)
• Uniball Signo gel pen (White)
• Kaisercraft clear stamps (Script CS752 and Texture-Hessian CS153)
• Dovecraft upper and lower case Alphabet stamp set (WDN Alpha Stamp DCVW0030)
• Homemade wooden block stamp with Plasterboard/Drywall Tape
• The Works (Wooden Doves)
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• The Range glue stick
• Ranger Glossy Accents
• Dorling Kindersley Illustrated Family Encyclopaedia