Everything you need

HI all.  Today has been an emotional rollercoaster of happy and sad, and this page depicts my emotions today.  Seven months ago I lost my best friend, but he wasn't just a best friend.  We were in a relationship many years ago that took my breathe away.  The relationship didn't last but our friendship bond did and it only grew stronger as the years went by.  Not saying that we didn't have our volatile moments but we always bounced back because deep down that love we had for each other never went away.  When he passed away last year it was like the rug was pulled out from under me.  This weekend is my birthday, and I got the best birthday gift I could ever ask for.  Back in the day when we were together I was into tole painting, so I painted an amazing men's jewellery box for him.  During that time, I went on a road trip with him to California (he was a trucker).  On our drive, I was in the back sleeper while he drove.  It was quite late and during that time I wrote him a letter on his computer and saved it in a file for him to find one day.  Well, today his brother drove to my city to drop off this box that I had painted so many years ago for him, and inside that box was a copy of the letter that I had written him on his computer some 12 yrs ago.  He had saved that letter, and safely tucked it away in that box all these years.  It brought back memories and a wave of emotions, both of sorrow and happiness.  So, todays page says, "Everything you need is already inside" by Bill Bowerman.  I may have lost my best friend seven months ago but all those memories are inside me to cherish for the rest of my days.  Thank you Shane for having given me the inspiration for today's journal page.  You are so dearly missed. 

So to start I prepared my pages with Gesso as I always do.  I just picked up a few of the Prima face stamps and I decided to use one of them.  They don't have specific names on the packages so I'm not sure what to call this one.  So I stamped the image onto my page using Archival ink.  And colored my image with my Aquacolor crayons.  I bought this water color crayons such a long time ago without really knowing what to use them for.  I now have a reason to use them.  :)  Another reason to hoard and not purge because you just never know when you might need something you've had all along! 

 

 

 



 

Next, I took the water colors and started with white around the image like a halo and starting using tones of green to blue outwardly.  

 

 

 

The color darkens as you go further from the image into darker blues on the opposite page.  From there I took a Crafter's Workshop stencil mini wildflowers, Ronda Palazzari designs, and stenciled layers of the flowers and leaves using Wendy Vecchi archival inks in Forget Me Not, Cornflower blue, Leaf Green and Fern Green.  I heat set the inks and then I took some white gesso and a sponge dauber and painted the same images thru the stencil over top of the inks. 

 

 

 

I wanted a few colored splatters so I used my Lyndi Stamp Gang sprays to add some droplet effects around the page.  I used some scrap paper to cover the girl.  The colors I used were Aloha Avacado, Ocean Breeze Blue, and Caribbean Blue.

 

 

 

I wanted to lighten up the area around the girl again to bring out that halo effect more prominently.  I used my gelatos in white, acqua dolce, cotton candy and margarita mix.   Then I took my graphite pencil and shaded around the image to define her.  

 

 

 

 

Next step was to add some flowers to the greenery.   I took one of the small flowers from a Fiskars stamp set that I have had forever and stamped in black archival random little flowers around the layout.  With my Fabre Castell Big Brush Pitt markers I colored in the flowers. 

 

 

 

 

Time to add my words.  I stamped my Unity stamp onto white cardstock and cut it out.  I then used the same Lyndi sprays and colored the words.  I used gel matte medium to glue them down.  Next step once dry was to outline the words with my Uniball gel pen.

 

 

 

 

I added a script to the bottom on my girl image that says love.  I finished around the edges of the page with Gelatos to deepen the border color.  I think I am done.  I'm not really sure if I will do anymore to the page or not.  I might go back in and add a heart somewhere on the page and maybe outline the greenery with my Pitt pens but I'm not sure.  So for now, it is done. 

 

 



 

 

I hope you enjoy my page.  This page speaks to me more than any other page has so far, drawing on personal emotions to do my art journal page today.  Would love to hear from you.  Thanks for stopping in to check out my most recent post.  Have a wonderful day!  xoxo



 



Happy happy happy

I haven't had a whole lot of time this past week to do much so I made sure to dedicate a few minutes each evening to add a little to this page.  I didn't know where to take this page so I just kept doodling on it and each time I added a new doodle it changed how it looked.  I have been looking at it for the past day wondering if I should add anything else to it, but I'm kind of stumped so I think I am done.  I wanted to add some words but I kind of ran out of room.  LOL

First thing I did, as I do with all my pages was to gesso the paper.  The only problem with gesso'ing is that all colors go pastel over it.  I really wanted more red on it but oh well.  It turned out ok and I'm good with it.  After the gesso was dry I took TH distress paints in Spun sugar and Worn lipstick and blobbed it randomly over the page, then misted it with water and used a brush to spread it around.  I did the same thing on the second page and while it was still wet I placed the two pages together and pulled it apart and it created a really need almost crackle looking pattern.  Next, once it was dry, I took a Lyndi stamp gang spray in Rudolph's Red Nose and held the book upright and sprayed a blob at different heights and let the spray drip down to the bottom of the page.  Drips don't normally excite me like it does so many others, but you know what..... kinda was excited about these drips.  LOL 

I kept looking at the pink blobs and drips and had no clue what to do.  The following day with fresh eyes, I decided to take black gesso watered down into an ink and a script paint brush and painted black circles around each blob to mimic a flower.  I rummage thru my stamp stash and found some CTMH stamps in Serendipity and Stitched Together, also some Fiskars Garden Oasis stamps that I bought eons ago in a clearance bin.  I used bits and pieces of the stamps to create flowers and the stamens inside the flowers.  I used some of the stitches to flow down the drips to mimic the stems and added the leaves.  I colored the leaves with TH distress markers in crushed olive and peeled paint.  I inked circle stitches randomly over the page in a white and a red ink from CTMH. 

 

 

The next day, I took my Fabre Castel big brush ink pen in white and colored in each stamen.  I used my white gel pen and started to draw circles around the different blossom petal.  Lastly, I took my same Lyndi spray and dropped some of the spray around the page.  I wanted small drops but it came out really big and was more like big blobs of red.  It dried more red'ish than the first spray and the shimmer really stands out in the drops. 

After looking at it for another day I decided that I needed to paint white around the black circles just for a bit more dimension.  I used white gesso diluted with water to make it more inky but I couldn't even see the white, so I re did the circles with TH white distress paint and my script paint brush.  It turned out very subtle but that was ok. 

 

 

I think it's done!  I'm not really sure but since I don't see anything else I want do I'm going to leave it as is.  :)  Thanks for stopping in and checking out my newest page.  Would love to hear what you think or if I should add anything else to it.  :)  xoxo

Dream

A weekend all to myself.  :)  No obligations to anyone else but me.  I managed to get my grass cut for the first time this season and watered.  Did some running around town and got supplies to fertilize my lawn and stuff for weeds.  Project for tomorrow.... because this evening I spent some quality time in my craft room and worked on another art journal page.  :) 

I gesso'd the page first.  I always gesso my pages because I find product always leaches thru the paper even though it is heavy paper meant for art journaling.  Nothing is more horrifying than when color leaks thru to a page done on the other side.  It's actually crushing when that happens and ruins a piece of work you really like.  This has happened to me already so now,,, gesso everything first!  ;) 

 

I used two shades of green distress paints and blended them with a brush in a vertical sweep up and down the page.  Once dried, I took a blue and white and did random sweeps overtop with a fine mist of water to make the blending easier and more integrated with the greens.  I then went back and did some more green and yellow in some areas and blended them with water too.  It almost had like an aurora borealis look to it.  It was pretty and I almost wanted to just to leave the back ground alone and not do anything more to it.  LOL  Next, I took a prima 12x12 stencil and Dylusion spray and misted thru onto the paper.  To color in the flowers and leaves I used Gelatos and blended them with my finger.  I used three different shades of blue and white for the flowers and three shades of green for the leaves.  I used chocolate for around the edges.  I used a Christy Riopel stencil, DREAM with distress paint and colored in the sentiment, then edged the word with Fabre Castel Big Brush Pitt pens in black and white along with gel markers.  I splattered the page with diluted white gesso and a fan brush and then with diluted black gesso and a fan brush.  I had some cute butterfly dimensional stickers that I wanted to use on the page and stuck them down.  I bought a tub of opaque white flake paste and brushed it into the centers of each of the flowers.  It has a unique texture to it. 

This page was pretty simple compared to the other ones I have done and it was nice to get a page that looks pretty done in a relatively shorter period of time.   :)  I am amazed each time I finish a page and stand back to look at it.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I could do anything like this.  I am having so much fun creating pages and just letting the paints and images happen.  I hope you like.  :) 

Black Widow

Hi.  I love how this page came together.  I had no clue what direction I was going until it happened.  That is always so much fun.   I wish the pictures looked half as good as the page.  The camera phone does not capture the shimmer and depth of color at all.  I used Lyndi Stamp gang sprays on this page. 

Here is my newest art journal page.  :)

I gesso'd my page first so that the colors wouldn't bleed thru and destroy my previous page.  I used Wendy Vecchi embossing paste and some Crafter's Workshop stencils and  created some background  pattern on the paper.  Once dry I started to spray the pages.  I layered the colors several time to get the depth and color patterns.  The shimmer is amazing.  Once I had the colors down I was thinking a mermaid scene first, but then it looked like a satellite image from above and a treasure map came to mind.  I pulled out my Dusty Attic skulls and sprayed them with some Tattered Angels.  I found this iron on patch that I bought years ago and it was perfect.  I punched some hearts and colored them with Distress stains.  I used some stamps that I found at a dollar store years ago that had a skull theme to it.  Thought it might be useful to start using some of the things I had accumulated over the years.  LOL  I used some metal embellishments from Michael's.  The black lace flower on the skull patch has some mesh draping down the face like a veil.  Gives a bit of an ominous feel and that black widow look.  The caption below her reads, "Getting in trouble has never been so much fun."  LOL 

I hope you enjoy this page.  I had fun making it.  :)   Thanks for stopping in. 

Hugs...xoxo

Live, Love, Laugh...

That felt so good being able to get into my craft room again and have some fun!  Feels like forever that I've been able to sit down start a project and finish it.  The weather is rainy and ugly out, my sister in law is sick so we couldn't get together for our course today, so I am taking full advantage of my day.  Laundry on the go, bedding washed, and my art journal page completed.  :)  

So many of my past pages have been layered with so many dimensional pieces that my poor book is bulging already and I just started doing this.  LOL  So, I wanted to do something not so bulky but give the impression of dimension.  ;)  I am loving this page and the vibrant colors.  It is so out of my norm but I am really liking it.  I love the fact that there are no boundaries in art journaling and that I can do whatever my heart desires regardless of what my style has been.  I really want to experiment in different styles and techniques.  This page has so many layers it's crazy.  Mainly because I was never really happy with how it was looking and so I just kept building on it until I was happy with my results.  :) 

Here is my page and then I'll do a quick tutorial of what I used.

Don't you just love the bright colors?  I sure do.

I started by gesso'ing my page.  Next, I found some pages of design paper that I probably will never use for scrapbooking or cards, so I tore up large pieces and used Multi medium matte and glued them down randomly on the pages.  I was hoping that the patterns would shine thru in the end.  Then I had a bunch of dollar store acrylic paints that I thought I would try to use.  They were cheap and by cheap, I mean they not only were inexpensive,but they were CHEAP!  Really poor quality, very watery.  Oh well.  So I painted the page with a bright orange, a yellow, and a green.  It was so transparent looking.  So, I grabbed some of TH distress paints in a green and a red and randomly applied them over the other paints.  That helped.  All the colors mixed really well and gave a really great variation of colors on the page.  But I felt that it was a bit too bright.  I had no clue what I was going to do next but I found the colors a little too vibrant.  So, I pulled out my TH Ideology tissue wrap and tore out a piece large enough to cover the whole layout.  I used my Multi medium again and sealed it down.  It was still really bright so why not used a watered down version of gesso to glaze it and that would tone down the colors.  So, I added a layer of gesso.  When it dried it still seemed really bright, so I did another layer.  Still really bright until I figured out that I had grabbed my clear gesso!!!  DOH  Mission not accomplished.  LOL  So, I grabbed my white gesso and started to apply it.  Apparently, my clear gesso wasn't dry enough when I started the white because the white was rolling off.  Parts were glazed and other areas were looking really nasty.  I grabbed my baby wipes and started to take off what would come off in little balls of paint.  Oh boy.... what a mess... Well, I'm leaving it as is now.  No more gesso'ing or white washing.

This is why art journaling is so interesting.  Even when you mess up, you just find a way to continue and see what comes of it.  :)  Next, I grabbed some sprays.  I used 3 Lyndi's stamp gang Flat Fabio's in Magical Mai Tai, Aloha Avocado, Pink Ladies Pink and a Dylusions spray in Lemon zest.  I sprayed the page with these colors and let them mingle together and dry.  Still really bright but I'm learning to love it. 

Time to grab my 12x12 Zenspirations stencil by Crafters Workshop Live Love Laugh and I placed it down on the left and used my Faber Castell Big Brush India ink marker in Black and colored in the stencil.  Some of the edges were a bit rough so I went back and traced around the edges to make them smoother.  Once dry, I took my Big Brush ink in White and outlined around the letters for a dimensional look.  I grabbed my Uniball white gel pen and drew stitch lines on the Live Love Laugh for a little more visual interest. 

 

 

I pulled out my Stampendous Jumbo Hydrangea stamp set and stamped with Archival ink a couple of the flower clusters, several of the single flowers and several of the leaves.   The images were colored with Gelatos.  I love my Gelatos.  Where were these babies all my life!!!  For the leaves I used margarita, lime and green tea.  I blended the colors with my water marker.  The flowers were done with aqua dulce, cotton candy and raspberry, also blended with a water marker.  I fussy cut out the images and sealed them down using my Multi medium again.  I took my india ink black pen and outlined the edges and smudged with my fingers before the color set to create shading and make the image pop.

I found in my stash of left over goodies a chipboard key from Dusty Attic that was embossed with Vintage gold embossing powder.  I glued it down.  I was looking at my page and it felt like there was still a bit of empty space that didn't feel right.  So I grabbed my Hero Arts brush strokes stamps and pulled out the heart and stamped the images with TH distress white paint randomly on the pages.  Next I filled in the hearts with TH picked raspberry paint. 

Yup, loving this page now.  It has so many dimensions and layers and stuff.  It's just a yummy page.  I had no plan in mind, just started and let it go where it wanted to go.  There is no room for disappointment when you don't have a preconceived idea of what you want.  :)  I hope you like this page as much as I do.  Please leave a comment and tell me what you think. 

Live with promise, Love with passion and Laugh with pleasure.  xoxo

These shoes were made for walking!!!

Oh my gosh, if feels like forever since I have done anything to post.  This next journal page has been in the works for weeks.  Darn full time work is cutting into my crafting time.  LOL  My inspiration came from a magazine picture of a cute floral pair of sneakers, and with spring in the air and I used to love walking and enjoying the fresh air and scenery, all that is what this page together.  I like it.

I found the tree in a magazine too and cut it out along with the shoes.  I started the page by painting the background sky with TH distress paints and a baby wipe to get the soft cloud effect in the sky, the base background for the walkway and the green for the grass. 

The cobblestone pathway took the longest. Overtop of the base color I painted a chalkboard paint.  I used TH newest dies and cut multitudes of them and pieced them together to form the cobblestone.  I then took a few of the centers, inked them for a mottled look and glued them randomly onto the pathway.  In the remainder of the black chalkboard spots I used Fabre-Castell Big Brush India ink and some gelatos to get that worn walkway look. 

The eye is a TH stamp and the rays are his stencil with an archival ink. 

I found some flowers in one of TH paper packs and I cut them out to adhere down along the walkway. For dimension I used some paper flowers and layered them with brads and glued them down.  I glued some Prima flowers and leaves to the tree for added dimension as well. 

The butterflies were Kaiser Crafts, I think, they were transparency butterflies.  Glued them down.  The rhinestone ribbon along the bottom was from Michael's. 

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my newest page.  I hope it doesn't take me this long to get my next one done.  LOL  However, that being said the next two weeks are super busy between work, my online e-course I am taking and the JDRF Telus walk for Type 1 diabetes.  Both my parents are deceased because of diabetes so this walk is very important to me. 

Have a wonderful day/evening!  Hope to hear from you, so please leave me a note so I know who stopped by.  Hugs.  xoxo  Diane



CanadianNickel Scrapn

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