Birthday Boy

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Let's Art Journal

It’s the first of the month so it’s time for a new challenge at Country View Challenges which is Birthday Card for a Man.

The lovely Corrie is hosting and as it’s her birthday month chose this challenge – Happy Birthday Corrie!

For my card, I covered the background using a Wordies Sentiments Sheet – Birthdays by Creative Expressions, cutting a piece of the sheet to fit the card. Next I embellished the card and also covered any female sentiments with some plaid Christmas Fabric Tape by Tim Holtz. I finished by adding the fun walrus, which was created using an Under The Sea #2 Sizzix Thinlits set and Kraft Cardstock – Classic, both by Tim Holtz.

For more inspiration please see the amazing creations from my fellow Design Team members over at Country View Challenges.

We are looking forward to seeing your makes and you never know, you might even win a £20 voucher for the shop, Country View Crafts! Before you enter your project though, please read the rules!

I love the fun walrus on his card! If you didn’t know, walruses are rare here in the UK, there have been somewhere around 27 sightings in the last 130 years. However we’ve had sightings of walrus on our UK shores in 2021, 2022 and also recently in 2023; a walrus was seen and photographed earlier this week in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland.

Stay safe and well! x

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

Challenges

As well as Country View Challenges, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Challenge #67 – Anything Goes over at Ally’s Angels Challenge Blog with my birthday card.

Thankful Everyday

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Let's Art Journal

It’s time for a new challenge over at Try it on Tuesday, which is Winter Blues.

My page today was created with lots of blue scraps that I had in my craft stash which included recycled papers from greeting cards, recycled envelopes, recycled book pages, leftover stamped tissue paper, old calendar pages, recycled foil from sweets and a photo from an old magazine. I simply collaged everything together using a glue stick and some Liquitex matte gel medium after edging them all with a black Faber-Castell marker. To finish, I added some measuring tape designed washi tape, a blue washi tape flower and the “Thankful everyday” sticker from Kaisercraft.

For more inspiration please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to see the amazing Winter Blues creations from our Guest Designer and my Design Teamies too (grin!). I hope you are inspired to join our challenge; it would be lovely to see you there!

As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing my pretty blue mug of tea with a piece of spiced apple cake made with apples from my garden (smile!) – Happy T Day everyone!

Hope that you’re all staying safe and well!

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

Challenges

As well as Try it on Tuesday, I’m pleased to join the following challenges:

LTSCB #159 Anything Goes over at Love to Scrap Challenge Blog with my paper scraps collage page.

Art Journal Journey which is being hosted by the lovely Mia from https://craftartista.blogspot.com/ this month who has chosen Use a Photo; I used pieces of sky and rocks from a photo in a magazine as part of my collage papers which you can see here:

Be Thankful

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

Today I’m sharing a thankful journal page and wishing all of you that are celebrating this week – a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I started by covering the chipboard page with some scraps of neutral coloured papers; I cut the papers into triangles before collaging them onto the page and then I applied some Pébéo white gesso over the top using my finger. I added the framed wording “when I count my blessings I count you twice” which was a sticker from Kaisercraft and the “Be thankful” wording which was washi tape. Next I added two flowers from a Tim Holtz Ephemera pack and two die cut autumnal leaves that were coloured using Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. To finish, I added two little chipboard owls.

For our wedding anniversary last month, we went to a new local Chinese restaurant called “Blessings House” and had the most amazing time (smile!).

The beautiful picture on the wall is cross stitch and was sewn by one of the restaurant’s family – it was very detailed and must have taken ages to create!

We had the lunch buffet with starters and soup; our choices were Sweetcorn and Crabmeat soup and one of each of the starters which were Curry Samosas, Spring Rolls, Salt and Pepper Chicken, Spare Ribs, Chicken Satay, Prawn Toast and Seaweed.

We shared our mains of Chicken in Satay Sauce, Sweet and Sour Pork and Chicken with Mushrooms – it was all so yummy and very filling!

I forgot to take photos of our drinks at the restaurant, so as T Stands for Tuesday, I’m sharing a couple of pints that we enjoyed at the pub around the corner on our way home (smile!) – Happy T Day everyone!

I hope you’re all staying safe and well! x

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 following challenges:

The lovely Bleubeard & Elizabeth from https://alteredbooklover.blogspot.com/ who is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and her theme is Collage Fodder, Food & Drink or Both so I’m joining her with my collage fodder page.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #181 – Anything Goes challenge with my thankful page.

LTSCB#158 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog with my Be Thankful page; I used lots of scraps to create this one.

November Anything Goes Fall Challenge over at The Four Seasons Challenge with my autumnal thankful page.

Believe in Yourself

Posted on November 4, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

It’s a new month so we are launching our November challenge today over at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog, and as always the theme is Anything Mixed Media Goes.

My mixed media page was inspired by the golden colour of the sunsets that we see this time of year; I hope you like it (smile!).

I started by covering the page with Wild Honey, Fossilized Amber and Vintage Photo Distress Ink by smooshing them onto the page using an acrylic block; I did this by stamping the ink pad onto the acrylic black, spritzing with water and then pressing the block onto the page gradually building up the layers of colour. Next I stamped a Hessian stamp by Kaisercraft over the whole page using a VersaMark Watermark ink pad and covered it with Gold Ranger embossing powder. I cut some lace edged ovals from white cardstock using a Basic Shapes die cut set by Marianne Designs and then I arranged them onto the page with some Weathered Garden Chipboard Die-cuts by Simple Stories, a gold frame, two gold banners and a washi tape flower. To finish, I added some small white acrylic hearts.

For more inspiration please check out the amazing creations from our Guest Designer and my fellow Design Team members over at Creative Artiste too. All you need to do is to use three different mediums on your projects to join our mixed media challenge; I hope you are inspired to join us, it would be lovely to see join you there!

November brings golden sunsets looking over the beach where we live, so I was inspired to use golden autumnal colours on this page.

I hope that you’re all staying safe and well! x

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

Challenges

As well as Creative Artiste , I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

MIUCB #62 – Anything Goes + optional Open Technique over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with the ink and acrylic block technique that I used to create my smooshed background.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #180 – Anything Goes challenge with my sunset coloured page.

Happy Halloween Owl Card

Posted on October 15, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

Over at Sparkles Monthly Challenge, we are launching a new challenge today which is Owls.

I loved creating this fun Halloween owl card (smile!).

The owl was die cut using an Arthur Sizzix Thinlits set by Tim Holtz from coloured papers and cardstock; this included two purples for his face, bib, feet and tail, a pretty patterned paper for his body, some white paper that I covered in blue glitter, as well as blue, yellow, orange, black and white for his facial features. I edged some of the die cut pieces using Black Soot Distress Ink before sticking everything together using Liquitex matte gel medium.

The branch, leaves and ivy were die cut using the same Arthur Thinlits set and also a Garden Greens Sizzix Thinlits set by Tim Holtz from black, orange and brown coloured paper. Some of them were edged using Ground Espresso Distress Ink before sticking them onto a 6×4″ white greetings card using Liquitex matte gel medium. To finish, I added the “Happy Halloween” wording which was a piece of washi tape that I mounted onto some card before sticking it in place.

I hope you’ll join us at Sparkles Monthly Challenge too, for more inspiration please check out the amazing projects from my Sparkles Buddies in the Design Team too; we would love for you to join us so please be sure to check out the rules here.

I love owls and have some cute ones on my autumnal window display; they usually stay on the branches over winter too until spring arrives (smile!).

I hope that you are staying safe and well!

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

Challenges

As well as Sparkles Monthly Challenge , I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

OCTOBER – Anything Halloween challenge over at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge with my Happy Halloween Owl card.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #178 – Anything Goes challenge with my Halloween Owl card.

Challenge #63 – Anything Goes over at Ally’s Angels with my Happy Halloween card.

LTCCB#69 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my card.

Love you to the moon and back

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

Today’s page is in memory of my dad who passed away just before Christmas last year; it would have been his birthday today.

The two cute dogs are from a birthday card that I bought and with his passing never got to give him; I loved the image so I used it to create a page to remember him by and to say “love you to the moon and back”.

I started by stamping the background using a Mini Dots stamp by Kaisercraft and black Archival Ink, then a couple of stamps from a Mister Fox stamp set by Kaisercraft using Peeled Paint and Faded Jeans Distress Archival Ink. Then I added the black and white striped washi tape to the bottom of the page to create the foreground; the washi tape was recycled from the napkin swap package that I received from Bleubeard & Elizabeth – thank you! Next I stuck the two adorable dogs in place, which were fussy cut from the birthday card and to finish, I added the “Love you to the moon and back” wording using letters from a Metallic Stickers Alpha Silver set by Tim Holtz.

Parkin was one of my dad’s favourites and one of his birthday treats (smile!). It’s a type of gingerbread cake that originated in northern England made with oatmeal and black treacle. This particular parkin recipe has been passed down through generations of my dad’s family and I enjoy making it, as well as eating it – it will always remind me of him!

Hoping that you all stay safe and well! x

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

Challenges

I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Neet from Hickydorums is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen Fur and/or Feathers so I’m joining her with the dogs on my page.

LTSCB#157 – Anything Goes over at Love To Scrap Challenge Blog as I created this page using a recycled birthday card and washi tape.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my autumnal page.

Look for the magic

Posted on September 15, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

Over at Sparkles Monthly Challenge, we are launching a new challenge today which is Mushrooms and other Fungi.

I had fun creating this art journal page of mushrooms and autumn leaves which was inspired by a red-capped mushroom that we saw on one of our walks around Lytham Hall.

I started by stencilling Vintage Photo Distress Ink onto the page using a stencil from Creative Expressions. Next I stuck the mushrooms in place which were washi tape stickers and for the foreground, I arranged some leftover papers and autumnal leaves; the leaves were either die cut or stamped and cut out from papers coloured with Brushos or Distress Inks. I used the Vintage Photo Distress Ink to colour the wording, which was a Sentiments sticker by Finnabair. To finish, I had fun highlighting the mushrooms with a white gel pen and then I splattered the page with both white and black DecoArt acrylic paint.

I hope you’ll join us at Sparkles Monthly Challenge too, for more inspiration please check out the amazing Mushrooms and other Fungi designs from my Sparkles Buddies in the Design Team too; we would love for you to join us so please be sure to check out the rules here.

This is the red-capped mushroom that we saw on our walk at Lytham Hall; it seems all we needed to do was “look for the magic” (smile!).

I hope that you are staying safe and well!

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

Challenges

As well as Sparkles Monthly Challenge , I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

Paperbabe Stamps and their #176 – Anything Goes challenge with my autumnal page.

LTCCB#71 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my mushroom page celebrating autumn.

Time stood still

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

Over at Try it on Tuesday our challenge for the next 2 weeks is Keep It Simple.

This challenge was really hard for me as keeping things simple isn’t something I normally achieve (smile!), so to keep it simple, my design centred on a sheet of cardstock from Kaisercraft with some pretty framed flowers.

I started by cutting the Kaisercraft sheet into three pieces and then arranging it onto the page. Before it was stuck in place with a glue stick, I coloured the background pale pink using some watered down Pickled Raspberry Distress Ink. Then I added the pink roses which were washi stickers and to finish, the wording which was a Kaisercraft sticker and reads “In these moments time stood still”.

For more inspiration please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to see the wonderful Keep It Simple creations from our Guest Designer and my Design Teamies too (grin!). I hope you are inspired to join our challenge; it would be lovely to see you there!

As T Stands for Tuesday, here’s my friend’s cappuccino for you coffee lovers and our pots of tea; I fell in love with the beautiful teacup and saucer with the elegant gold accents and pretty pink roses – Happy T Day everyone!

Hope that you’re all staying safe and well!

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

Challenges

As well as Try it on Tuesday, I’m pleased to join the following challenges:

The lovely Chris from Pearshapedcrafting is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen When We Were Young so I’m joining her with the words that I included on my page which are very poignant for me as we have been sorting through boxes with my mum, the contents of which hold strong memories of my childhood and as such it seems ‘time stands still’ and everything around you seems to stop for a while as you remember (smile!).

Paperbabe Stamps and their #174 – Anything Goes challenge with my clean and simple page.

Lazy Days of Summer

Posted on August 9, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

It’s time for a new challenge at Try it on Tuesday which for the next two weeks is Summer Blooms.

My page was inspired by some beautiful Provence Stamperia papers that were full of summer blooms.

Having chosen one of the 8×8″ pages from the Provence paper pad, I wanted to extend the background across my page so I painted the page with washes of Violet, Ultramarine and Sap Green Kuretake watercolour paints. Then I stamped the page using a couple of Kaisercraft stamps and some Distress Archival Inks; this included a Script stamp using Seedless Grape ink and a flower stamp from a Magnolia Grove stamp set using Seedless Grape and Peeled Paint inks. I used a Paperbabe Stamps stencil to create the vertical stripes on the page using a baby wipe to remove the watercolour paints.

Next I stuck the 8×8″ page in place and edged it using some striped washi tape. “The Lazy Days of Summer” wording was cut from a 12×12″ paper sheet by Graphic 45 and to finish, I added the butterflies and watering can Die-Cuts which were also from Stamperia.

For more inspiration please pop over to Try it on Tuesday to see the wonderful creations from our Guest Designer and my Design Teamies too (grin!). I hope you are inspired to join our challenge; it would be lovely to see you there!

Lavender in the garden always reminds me of summer and the butterflies seem to love it too; these are Painted Lady butterflies.

This one’s a female Common Blue butterfly.

As T Stands for Tuesday and summer is here, we’ve been enjoying these chilled fruity drinks – Happy T Day!

Hope that you’re all staying safe and well!

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

Challenges

As well as Try it on Tuesday, I’m pleased to be joining the following challenges:

The lovely Chris from Pearshapedcrafting is hosting over at Art Journal Journey this month and has chosen When We Were Young so I’m joining her with my page as when I was young I experienced lazy days of summer during summer holidays.

Paperbabe Stamps and their #173 – Anything Goes challenge with my summery page.

LTCCB#156 – Anything Goes over at Love To Craft Challenge Blog with my summer blooms art journal page.

MIUCB#60 – Anything Goes + optional Clean & Simple over at Mix It Up Challenge Blog with the techniques I used to re-create and extend the background on my page.

You are my happy

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Let's Art Journal

It’s a new month so we are launching our July challenge today over at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog which is Anything Mixed Media Goes.

My mixed media page was inspired by some pretty mosaic paper that my sister kindly gifted me; it reminded me of summer holidays in Greece (smile!).

I covered the whole page with a piece of mosaic paper using a glue stick and then I applied some Pébéo white gesso over the top and left it to dry. Next I added some Snow Cone Faber-Castell gelato using a wet finger to smudge the colour over the gesso and paper to give it a washed out look. Then I used a Mosaic Stencil by Tim Holtz to apply some Ranger Crackle Paste to the page using a palette knife. When dry I added the blue flowers which were washi tape stickers, some shiny green gel dome stickers, the “You are my happy” sticker from Kaisercraft and the little white butterflies which were die cut and embellished with some green striped washi tape down the centre.

This journal page made me think of our holidays to Skiathos, which is one of the Greek islands. This was the view of the town as we approached it by water taxi which picked us up at our hotel.