Birds of a Feather

Lost my art journaling mojo, and haven't posted a page in a long time.  Week #46 is to do a page of a favorite Leonard Cohen song. I loved his music, being a teenager in the 60's. My favorite song is Suzanne, but I did Bird on the Wire (which wound up on a tree). I randomly opened one of my journals to a half completed page and went from there.

The birds were die cut from a set called Birds of a Feather from Designer Craft Dies that I cut from some paper I had created a long time ago. I couldn't even remember how I made it, but felt it was in my stash way too long and should be used. I added some enamel eyes with some white paint dots.  The rest of the page just developed from there.

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Creative Chemistry 103 Day Three - Distress Crayons

Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 103, day three, Distress Crayons. Okay, I have to admit that I jumped ahead of where I was because I just couldn't wait to see what I could do with these crayons! I took a tag and added some texture paste through a wall designed stencil. When dry, I added some gel medium. Then the fun with the crayons began. After smearing around a lot of colors, I did a second paper on white cardstock. I added the crayons directly through a stencil and sprayed with Distress Inks. Then, I die cut out a silhouette from Julie Nutting and edged with Distress Inks. I glued it over the tag, added some MicroGlaze and some string. A short sentiment was added from an Idea-ology Small Talk set.

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Distress Paint Resist Tag

Hopelessly behind on Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 103. This is from day 2, Distress Paint Resist Technique, using Distress Paint, Stain, and Inks. I added some die cuts from a stamp set, Simon Says Nature, that was embossed first on black cardstock. Some Remnant Rubs were added, Washi Tape, and a bit of gold pen.

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Summer of Creative Chemistry Week Six - Cemetery

Online Card Classes, Summer of Creative Chemistry week 6 of class 102 inspired me to make this tag. I used the ombre technique with alcohol inks, but used Silver Mixative for the top, Slate for the middle, and Black for the bottom. Then I stamped, Cemetery from Stampendous, using Archival Ink. I added two strips of double sided tape and stamped "Smile". Both were embossed with Ranger Silver. I added some Black Soot paint to the top of the manilla tag and added some sparkly ribbon. I also added two small silver brads.

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Alcohol Ink Fun with Tim Holtz

When you have three blogs going, sometimes it is difficult to know where to put things. I decided that this one belongs here even though I turned it into a card. This piece was inspired by the Summer of Creative Chemistry with Tim Holtz. This one is for challenge # 7, Alcohol Inks. I dropped inks, mixative, and blender solution on to my craft sheet and swiped some glossy card through. Then I stamped with Archival Ink. I added a brad and some gold string that I knotted in intervals. I put it on to a black card base that I edged in gold to unify the piece.

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Summer of Creative Chemistry Promt #6

Today's tag was made following the Summer of Creative Chemistry 102 revisit from Tim Holtz, an Online Classes offering. I used Distress Paints, picked up from my craft sheet, and applied through stencils. I sprayed with inks. Then I added some Distress Inks. Then some stamping. The edges were gone over with some Black Soot. I added more stamping, some white gel pen, and a few words from the Chit Chat set from Tim Holtz Idea-ology. Photo below shows the colors I used.

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Summer of Creative Chemistry 102 with Distress Paints

Today's tag was made following the Summer of Creative Chemistry 102 revisit from Tim Holtz, an Online Classes offering. I used Distress Paints, picked up from my craft sheet, and kept spraying with water as it was drying. I did some over coloring with Distress Inks. I added some of Tim Holtz' fun stamps. The edges were gone over with some Black Soot. But the best part was making my own colored ribbon. I used seam binding and sprayed with many colors of Distress Stains to make a one of a kind ribbon.

Journal 52, Week 9 - Hate

Journal 52, week 9, prompt "Hate". Hate is a word that I try to avoid using in all seriousness. I will use it for silly things, like "I hate cold days", or "I hate chocolate" (WHat???? No, I don't hate chocolate LOL!). But, I won't use it to hate as in a person. Anyway, I had a pile of stuff, don't you love stuff?, all over my desk and thought, well, use it.
I had a background pre-painted in blues and greens. I added some spackle  that I mixed alcohol ink into for color through some punchinella. A dotted stamp, ephemera, dimensional paint, Dylusions Inks, a slop of white paint and some journaling filled the page.

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Journal 52 - Week 8 - Skulls

Week 8, Journal 52. Prompt "Skull". Don't you just love her little bow? I told the hubby that when I go I want to be buried with a bow in my hair! Black journaling done with paint in fine tipped bottle and white is an acrylic paint pen. Background crafting paints are from Target. They are clearing them out so I purchased a few and I love them. So shimmery!

Thank you for looking!

Crazy Cats

I was watching Carolyn Dube this morning on You Tube and she motivated me to "play"! I just got my Tim Holtz Crazy Cats. I LOVE these cats and stamped out a whole page of them. I also wanted to play with some different techniques using tags. The first tag background was made by sopping up leftover Distress Inks on my craft sheet with a pre-purchased tag. The one on the right was watercolored Distress Inks on Tim Holtz watercolor paper that I white embossed over and cut my own tag with a die cut.
The purple cat was colored with Koi Coloring Brush Pens. The ground shading and the yellow cat were colored with my new Tim Holtz crayons. What fun are they? Fun! I used a Wink of Stella, clear, to blend purple cat and a water brush on the yellow cat. Yellow cat has a punched and double layered butterfly with a few dabs of glitter glue. The sentiment for the overly hydrated kitty comes from Clear Art Stamps set called Greetings from Wonderland.

Do take a look at all the play over at Carolyn's A Colorful Journey.

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Beneath My Feet for Journal 52 - Week 6

Journal 52, Week 6, has the prompt of "Beneath Your Feet" or an alternate of "Above Your Head".  Well, a lot of things go over my head these days, so I chose beneath my feet.

The background, covered recipe book pages with gesso, was colored with Pan Pastels. The shells were printed from Morgue files which are free images. I had these feet as a stencil, can you believe, and used acrylic paint pounced with a sea sponge (appropriate, don' you think?). I added some stamping with the tiny dots, shadows with a Pitt pen, white acrylic pen for the waves, and printed out my thoughts about beneath my feet.

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Journal 52, Week 5, Monochromatic

Journal 52, Week 5, prompt is Monochromatic or Psychedelic. I was in a monochromatic mood and was thinking of coffee. So, browns it was. I also was thinking that I have so many die cuts and stamps that I should try to incorporate them into my journal page.

I used a light brown acrylic and added molding paste with a darker brown through a Dylusions stencil. The cups are Tim Holtz and I used brown cardstock and corrugated paper. I added the beans and sentiment from a Fiscars set. I had to go over the sentiment since I used a Signo pen and it smeared :(   Pitt pens were used for the edges and shading.

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Journal 52 Week 4 - A Full Moon over a Moon Garden

The prompt this week for Journal 52 is Full Moon, or Lunacy. I like the darkness of an Edgar Allen Poe poem combined with the beauty of a moon garden (flowers that bloom in the night).

Acrylic ink base, texture paste with white gesso over, white pencil, pastels, and white ink pens. Blending done with a baby wipe.

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Journal 52 Week 3 David Bowie's Major Tom

Week three for Journal 52 was: “Favorite David Bowie song/lyric.” The only song that really spoke to me by David was Major Tom. It certainly does take a lot of courage to go through the door when you do not know what is waiting for you on the other side. I'm glad that I have opened many doors in my life. No regrets that way.

Gesso over recipe pages, Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers and Broken China. Door from Morguefile and colored with Copics. Stamps in black ink, sentiment printed and edged with Vintage Photo Distress Inks. Molding paste through stencil, star stamp embossed with white.

I purchased an old recipe cookbook awhile back intending to make a journal out of it. I thought it would be good for my Journal 52. I still need to finish the inner cover.

Cover

I like that I can take the pages out to work on them, and I like the smaller size pages (5 1/2 X 9"). I also like that I can write the important information on the back of each page. 

Open

Inside

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Journal 52 Say YES or NO

Journal 52, week 2, prompt: What are you saying YES to in 2016, or NO.
I am saying yes to saying no. Humm, let's explain. I have always felt it necessary to say yes to anything that was asked of me. After all, I was a wife, mom, friend, employee. Everyone expected me to say yes. Now, I am finally old enough to know that it is okay to say NO. If I don't wanna do it, I don't have to! Period!! What a relief it is. If my doctor says, "Will you stop drinking coffee?" I can say NO, instead of saying yes and then feeling like an awful person if I had a sip of coffee. (Just an example: I can have all the coffee I want.) When my hubby asks if I would like chili for dinner, I can say NO. If I sign up for an online commitment of some kind, if asked, by myself, are you enjoying yourself?, do you want to keep doing this?, I can say NO!, and not feel guilty. That's the problem with yes. Often you just can't do everything for everyone. Just say NO!

The background is Gelatos. I added some joint compound that I pressed some stamps into and sprayed with Dylusion Inks. The letters are die cut and sprayed with Dylusion Inks. The woman is from Ghoulish Girls Paper Doll set from Dover that was colored with Polychromos colored pencils. A honeycomb stamp in white, a white paint pen, Stabillo pencil and a bit of Washi Tape and that's it. Should I add more? Yes. Will I? NO!!!

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Use What You Have

This is the first week of Journal 52.  The first prompt is for the "word of the year". I really had to think about this one. I'm not one for resolutions, I'm not unhappy, I don't think I need to change anything about myself or my relations. Suddenly though I had this thought. Maybe it's time to USE the things that I have instead of acquiring more and more. The point hit home when I got a surprise package from my niece. She sent me a small box with some wooden stamps and punches that she no longer uses. I was thrilled until I tried to squeeze them into my craft room. That's when I realized that "I have a problem."

I'm sure many of you gave all you had to your family. You worked hard to make sure they had everything that they needed and much that they didn't need. You sacrificed, no, it wasn't a sacrifice because it was of love and you never felt anything by the joy at seeing them happy. But, now, suddenly, some of us are finding ourselves in a position where it is our turn. Now, we can think of our own needs and wishes. I have become the kid in the candy store. I mean, really, how many different types of glue does one really need? Each book I read, each video I watched, made me feel that if I had this paper or that tool, I certainly would be able to do the quality of work I was watching or reading about. Now, many different glues, colored pencil types, stamps, paints, brushes, dies, cutting machines, papers, etc., etc., etc., cram every nook and table top in the room. I can barely breathe! So, now is the time to USE. Use the things I have and stop buying more and more stuff. Anybody with me?

I used some of the new stamps I got from my niece on top of  gesso and acrylic paint covered recipe book pages. I added some masking tape and used the punched our stencil letters that have been sitting in my stash for years. I played with different kinds of pens in the hearts and used leftover gears that had been sitting on my desk for weeks. A little dribbled black paint and white embellishments remind me to USE the things I have.

I love reading comments, so if you have a lot of things you should start to use, let me know. I'm interested to hear your stories!