Believe in the beauty of your dreams

My second page from my weekend get away!  I honestly was at a loss and stared at my blank page for quite some time.  My wonderful GF was making fun of me because I was apparently contorting my face and lips trying to figure out what to do.  I guess I don't hide my thoughts very well.  LOL  I had torn out a bunch of pages from magazines a while back and rummaged thru them to see if some ephemera would inspire me.  YUP!  That worked and I cut out the image of this lady from some window treatment ad. 

So, she is dressed in this beautiful creamy outfit facing away and her hand running thru her long hair.  Seemed dreamy and heavenly.  That was my jump start for this page.  After gesso'ing my page,  I used multi medium matte and sealed down a layer of cheesecloth to give the page some texture and softness.  After that was down and dry I thought to myself... HUH, now what?  How do you stamp and stencil on texture like that?  Dilemma.   OK, well I just won't and built up on layers of lace.  I found some cheap white table runners at the dollar store a while ago and thought they would be an inexpensive way to use elements on a page.  So I bought a couple to cut up and use parts of it.  The lace around the outer edge is from the table runner.  I also found some wide lace at a second hand store that I used along the bottom and some rosettes lace from CTMH. 

Time to color them.  I took the lace from the table runner first and used some distress stains old paper and antique linen and colored them.  Whoa.... way darker than the dreamy heavenly look I was going for.  Ok... I grabbed some Lindy stamp sprays in the lighter silver and shimmery pearlescent to lighten it.  Didn't do much difference.  Sprayed some Dylusion white lightly over top while the other was still wet so it would blend.  Softened it up a bit.  Took forever for the lace to dry!!!  I still found it a bit dark but better.  The photo actually looks darker than what it really is.

While that was drying even after a little help with my craft tool, I started to mist the background with some soft colors and some Lindy sprays for that shimmery effect.  It was so beautiful.   I dried that and then glued down the wide ivory lace from the second hand store that I picked up for 50cents.  :)  Then I sprayed the rosette lace and dried and glued that down at the bottom.  Once the runner lace was dry enough to glue down I did.  It still seemed kind of bland to me.  So I took some soft blue gelato around the edges to soften that green look that the old paper stain gave it.  Nope, still not what I was going for, so I pulled out my water pen and a perfect pearl powder in a soft ivory color and made a shimmery paste with my water pen and added that throughout the lace as well concentrating on the border and the leaf veins and a few random spots on the background lace to lighten it.  Much better. 

I sealed down the image and looked for some paper embellishments I could use and some paper flowers.  Once again, the flowers were mat and I used some distress markers and perfect pearls/water pen to give them some shimmer as well as the leaves.  Glued everything down, added some bling and some bakers twine tied into small bows.

The drying time for this one is what took so long and I went thru a pile of multi medium to seal everything down.  Ouch, but worth it I think.  I think I kind of achieved the look I was going for.  I'm relatively happy with this page.  :) 

Here are the photos.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for taking a look and checking out my pages.  I tried to get a third page done this weekend but... I only got it started before packing up and heading home.  It'll be a work in progress as the days go by.  :)  I'll get it posted as soon as I have it completed.  ;)  Hope to hear from you.  I love to hear your feedback and any ideas you might have.  :)   Cheers! 



CanadianNickel Scrapn

My kind of trouble! :)

Oh my gosh!  Had so much fun this weekend!  I went to a weekend retreat not too far from town, but far enough to feel like I got away from the city, work and daily stresses.  After long deliberation on what to pack because honestly, I feel like packing up my whole room usually, I decided on packing stuff to work on some more art journal/mixed media pages.  Now I have to admit I'm pretty new at this and really slow..... so when I say it took me 7 hrs to do one page, I'm being serious.  LOL  Of course, in between that time was drying time, chatting/visiting with the other ladies time, eating and coffee/wine breaks... well you get the idea!  :) 

My first page all I knew is that I wanted to use my brick wall stencil and some embossing paste.  That was my starting base.  So, from there I decided on what background colors I wanted to use and I used TH distress paints in a variety of different colors, earthy tones.  Sorry, I didn't keep track of exactly what I used.  I blotched them all over the page randomly and then used a baby wipe and blotted the colors around.  Keep in mind that all the pages have to be gesso'd before working on them or you get major bleed thru which happened to one of my previous pages and I had to redo the page on the opposite side.  :(  Once I was happy with the look of the background and dried it, I took a stencil and some Wendy Vecchi archival ink and randomly placed the grid type stencil around the page.  Next, I took my brick wall stencil and Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste and put it where I wanted.  I wanted a tall wall effect.  I had to dry between sections because the page is bigger than the stencil itself.  ;)   I also did the top portion of the left side.  Once, that was dry I used TH distress inks to color my stone wall.  I think I used, wild honey, rusty hinge, pumice stone, frayed burlap, walnut stain and aged mahogany.  I love how it turned out.

I rummaged thru a pile of papers and found the birds and the flowers in one of TH's newest paper packets.  I cut out the images and used multi medium matte to seal them down.  I also cut some grass blades with a fiskars punch and made a variety of different depths for the grassed area using plain green paper and some patterned paper.  I fixed them to the book in my layers.  Once that was dry I used some different color gelato's and blended them around and overtop of the grass for some dimension.  I had a left over TH die cut fern leaf that was sprayed with Lindy stamp gang sprays and the colors were perfect so I grabbed that out of my left over stash and glued that down as well.   While looking thru my left overs I came across the honeycomb and little center cut outs that I had used on a project before and had pieces left over.  So I placed them where I wanted them and then adhered them down.   Next I took some clear rock candy stickles for the roses and smudged that on for a soft glittery appearance.  While that was drying I looked for some bees.  I found a stamp in CTMH that had these cute bees, so I stamped them, colored them with distress markers and cut them out.  I decided that before I glued them down I needed to add some visual dimension to the honeycomb and so I used a fine point ink pen and a white gel pen and drew lines around to create a 3D effect. Glue down the bees.  I had a neat bushy kind of looking punch and used that to create the bushes along the bottom as well and sealed them down. 

Lastly I wanted a bit more depth to the outside part of the pages and so I used my black gelato and smeared it around the edges and blend it around with my finger.  I used lettering stamps and sentiments to do my title.  And I still felt like it needed some more dimension so I found some butterfly pop up stickers and little coordinating flowers and stuck them down. 

Yup I think I like it!  I'm happy!  Here are some photo's I took. 

 

 

I hope you enjoy looking at all the fun stuff on this page as much as I had fun making it!  Cheers!!!  Would love to get your feedback on my pages.  :) 


Thanks again Nicole for the cute little note paper below!  Love it! 
CanadianNickel Scrapn

Thank you!!!

I love my little post it note that Nicole over at CanadianNickel Scrapn made for me!   Nicole you are such a sweet person!  Thank you for thinking of me and making me this.  :) 



CanadianNickel Scrapn

12 Tags of 2014 March

I have about as much energy today as a sloth curled up in a tree, but I did manage to get in my craft room and get Tim Holtz's March tag done before the month was up.  :)   I didn't have the full size stamp set he used but I did have the smaller Nature stamp set and used them instead.  I do love this set.  I  also love the smudge technique he uses.  I fell in love with that technique thru his Creative Chemistry classes.  I've used it several times thru other tags I've made.  Lovely soft imagery. 

Here are my versions:

 

 

Had fun making these.  I have to go get me some more of those arrows!  Love them!  :) 

Have a great day!!!  Cheers!!!

A life without Dreams

I've been checking out You tube video's by some pretty darn amazing women!  One of my favorite artists is France Papillon.  I love her style and design!  I also love how she uses so many different textures and mediums to create variation.  And I LOVE how clean she works.  I find it really difficult watching videos where stuff is cluttered all over the work space.  France is just amazing!!!  On all levels.  I watched one of her video's 'Let go' and the black background is what inspired me for this page.  I also found some ephemera in a magazine of a girl in a deep red flowing dress and that was the inspirational focal of this page.  I was kind of going for a mid summer nights dream theme.  I used Wendy Vecchi's silver embossing paste for a background shimmer before using Dylusion black spray.  The harlequin pattern was done with Viva Gold platinum paste.  I used a ton of Tim Holtz die cuts for this page and colored them with a number of different sprays from my stash, and some different distress inks, as well as archival inks,  the window was done with Wendy Vecchi black embossing paste and Vintage aged gold embossing powder.  I used alcohol inks and glossy paper for the Fleur de lie.  I also used charcoal pencil for some smudging.  The flowers were from TH poinsettia's and also Prima flowers and leaves.  The sentiment is a Dylusion's stamp set. 

This page was the first one I've done were I had an idea in my head and it came together pretty closely to how I imagined it.  I love it.  It's very dreamy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks again for checking me out!  :) 

Live Love Laugh

I am so in love with this art journal page.  This is one of my favorite sayings.  And when Christy Riopel was down doing her classes she brought down some of her stencils, and of course when I saw this one I had to have it!  I wanted to use my Liquitex glass bead molding paste which I've had for quite some time and have been a bit intimidated to try it.  Well, get over it and use it was my self talk today.  I tried to find the best lighting I could for the pictures but honestly, they just don't do this page justice.  It is so stunning in real that the pictures seem disappointing but you'll get the jest of it. 

 

This is way too much fun... bye bye tags and hello art journaling.  At least for awhile... mind you I need to get TH March tag done yet!  One of these evenings after work I'll try to find some time to get that done and downloaded. 

Thanks for checking me out.  Hope you are enjoying my pages.  Till next time!  :) 

Love letter

Hi ladies!  I finally have a day to get back into my room.  My hubby is gone and on his way back to work, his suitcase and piles of clothes are off the floor and out of the way, and the room is all mine again!!! Whoohoo...  I was so thrilled to be in Christy Riopel's art journaling class last weekend that I was itching to get back into that book and do some more.  OMG... the fun of just putting stuff on a page and watching it come to life.  But my first task, was to continue working on one of the class pages of the painted face.  I wasn't feeling it completely.  Every time I looked at it, it just seemed well....all I saw was mistakes.  So, my perfectionist me had to get back in there to do some fixin. (Shrug) 

So, here is the before and my after of that page. 

 

 

 

 

And now that I look at it again, I see something else I need to address... oh boy.  But I found some ephemera in a magazine that I used, some heart die cuts sprays with Lindy sprays, my TH jumbo tattered flower also sprays with Lindy sprays, and a Unity stamp.

So, I was absolutely itching to do another page!  And as I was starting on it I was getting nervous and my heart was racing and I kept thinking... that's not really what I imagined it to be, so I kept adding more color, inks, stamps, stencils, markers, oh boy what I mess I was making.... how the heck is this going to turn out!?  Then all of a sudden, it started coming together.  I added my focal point and accessories around it like lace, prima flowers, feathers, gems, a distressed note with a saying on it... I LOVE it!  I love texture, and I have a hard time editing myself and knowing when to stop.  I like to add stuff and keep adding stuff and then if I'm not sure I add more stuff... LOL  I can't help myself!  I'm addicted to stuff!  :/  Help...  

 

I hope you like my page!  I'm thrilled with it!  My first inspired page with no direction or teacher giving me step by step instructions.  Yehhh... I did it! 

Thanks for stopping in.  Let me know what you think!  I'd love the feedback.  I think I'm going to try starting on another one.  ;)  Art just brings a smile to my face. 

New love...art journaling!

This past weekend our local scrapbook store brought in an amazing instructor who offered a number of great unique classes and I was so excited to partake in the art journaling class.  The instructor was Christy Riopel, and her work is amazing.  She is such a talented instructor with a load of patience.  And I can tell you... I was thankful for the patience!  LOL  So thank you Christy for bringing me a new outlet to play with.  :)

Our first page was a simple page using sprays and stamps, just to get over the fear of working on our first page in our books.   This was my first page... sorry for the shadows, my lighting sucks in my room.

 

 

Our second page became a bit more involved using distress paints, ephemera, hand drawing, charcoal smudging, tissue tape, gelato's (in LOVE with these!!!) and stamping. This was my second page, and I think my fave out of the 3 we did.  :) 

 

And finally, the hardest thing I have done in a long time, and also the most intimidating!  I'm not 100% sold on this page and I think I am going to go back to it and play on it a bit more.  It's that perfectionism coming out and I see mistakes on it that I need to correct and play with to get it to a point that I will be happy with it.  :)  BUT for a first attempt, I'm pretty impressed that it turned out as good as it did.  I'm scared to post this one, but I'm going to conquer my fear and just put it out there.  Eeks... Please be nice to me!  LOL 

 

 

Would love to hear your feedback.  This is such a new form of art for me, but it was so much fun.  Can't wait to dive in and do one on my own!  :)  Thanks Christy Riopel for coming down to teach these classes.  I had a blast and will continue to have fun with my art journaling.  :)