Keep warm, Ms Snowman!

Keep warm! That's what people used to say when I lived in the land of snow. Thankfully, I live in sunny Arizona now so I need not worry about snow. Although, if I want to play in it, it's only a couple of house to get right to it!
Build a Snowman, Journal 52, week 48: I started with a blue and white acrylic background on tagboard. Heavy bodied white acrylic was added through a star stencil and Hero Arts white ink was tapped on with a snow stamp. The snowman was made with circles that I cut with a die cut and then run through an embossing folder. I added Stickles for the eyes, nose and mouth. The arms are toothpicks and the hat was cut from a magazine. I crochet her a scarf to keep her extra warm :) The head is raised with a foam circle. The sentiment is stick on letters in white, and the snow is shredded cotton balls.

Entered:
Altered Eclectics
Artistic Inspirations

Winter sparkles at Christmas

I just posted this fun page over at my Tangle Street Colorway blog since I am on the Design Team for The Outlawz. The group I am part of  has an "anything goes" with a twist. So, tags, art journal pages, boxes, etc. are all welcome. But, since this is an art journal page, I thought I'd post it here too.
I used a blue acrylic background. The snowman is a napkin added with gel medium, the village is a stamp. I embossed snow and snowflakes and pulled out gel pens to brighten Santa and to add Christmas cheer to the village. (Some of you may know that I recently used this napkin for another journal page.)

Entered:
Try it on Tuesday
Artistic Inspirations

Alice in Wonderland Wisdom

Wise words. That's this week's prompt for Journal 52, week 47. Alice in Wonderland has always been a favorite of mine and there is a lot of wisdom to be found. I know that life has a way of knocking us down and the people that win are those who keep moving forward.

I did a background of gesso and inks before changing over to collage. Alice is colored in Spectrum Noir colored pencils. I got a free download today from Altered Upcycling with tons of great Alice pictures to color or cut; perfect timing! I added some Aquarellable Stabilo pencil, white Signo gel pen, and Pitt pens for highlights and shadows.

Journal 52, Week 46 Napkins ***Let It Snow***

Let It Snow. Do you remember snow days! They were the best ever! Remember sitting around the radio waiting to hear your school listed as closed! When it was, there was a huge whoop as we ran to get on all our snow clothes and go, where else, but up to the school yard to meet all our friends for some sledding. Some of us would sled down the big hills right into traffic. Fortunately, drivers expected it and none were ever hurt. (Except if our parents caught us, as this was strictly forbidden!) I, of course, never did this, but my brother did. I never told because he was older and I was always threatened with death! HAHA! Wonderful memories (except for the shoveling part), but I'm glad to live where we don't have any of that white stuff anymore. I am lucky that I can just drive a couple of hours and be right in it and then go back home and leave the shoveling to someone else!

Journal 52 Week 46

Blue acrylic mixed with Mod Podge for background. Molding paste through my new Pointed Star stencil from Jenni Bowling. Napkin below, Gel pens, embossing snow powder on bottom and embossing glitter black with letters. Snowman white is gesso and a few real buttons added for more texture. Finally, a quick spritz with Perfect Pearls.

Napkin Used

How You Loved Your Polka Dots

Journal 52, Week 45, is Thinking of You. I thought about this one way longer than most. I kept thinking about my mom, who passed away about 10 years ago. For some reason, her crazy love of polka dots kept going through my mind. She even wore shoes with polka dots! So, that's what I went with.

I took a piece of heavy dark blue paper and added some circles I had cut from yellow cardstock, painted with Distress Paints, and added circles with acrylics and a stencil. Then I added the smaller yellow circles for the sentiment with some Stickles dots. And, finally, I took a tiny cap and stamped with Hero Arts white ink. Mom would have loved this one!

Week 44 of Jounal 52 - Skyline

Skyline is the prompt for this week's Journal 52. I found myself a bit stressed this week with my presentation for The AZ Art Teachers' Conference (Mindfulness through Zentangle) coming up on Friday, my first post as part of the Design Team over at The Outlawz Twisted Thursday, and an illness in the family, so I really needed to go outside, and breathe!

I finally got a few of the Pan Pastels and was just itching to use them. First I covered my tagboard with some gesso so the pastels would have something to grip on to. I followed with a yellow acrylic but it didn't cover the previous printing on the paper so I went over it again with a darker purple. I tried the pastels, but the paper was too dark so I then sprayed some cream acrylic over that leaving a splotchy background to work on. Then I went in with the pastels using a piece of paper cut in wave shapes to push the pastels off on to the piece. I used green, peach, lavender, and white. I added some Pitt pens for the cactus and words, and just a touch of gel pens for the flowers, and some white gel pen accents.