Art Journaling – Stamped Smiles

Smash Our Stash-“Learning to Fly” AJ Page

Hello friends! My fellow U.S. friends will be celebrating Memorial weekend which means that the end of the month is here already! Summer is coming very quickly and it seems that time is really flying by!

The end of the month also brings the monthly AJ page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), so please check out her blog for more inspiration too! We’re trying to get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! So here’s my Art Journal inspiration with the “SMASH OUR STASH” May prompt of: “ephemera/chipboard/cut-outs, etc.“:

With the AJ prompt this month of “ephemera” my first thought turned to the the H-U-G-E pile of packages that I have of those Tim Holtz Idea-ology ephemera and paper dolls packs. There are actually SO many different pieces in just one package that I decided to concentrate on just one of those packages from the “Botanical” collection. (I did pull in one more layer from the “Snippets” pack as well.) I actually love the images which pulled me in to purchase them, but there they sit and never get used…so I’m using some today! Yay! That “Botanical” pack is my fave with the birds and butterflies in there!

For my page background: I started with my usual 6″ x 9″ watercolor 140# paper with the pre-cut holes at the top for my book. I glued some of the “Tim Holtz Idea-ology Tissue Wrap” ripped pieces over the blank background first. I then took a baby wipe and several colors of “DecoArt Media Fluid acrylics” and blended them together until I achieved desired look. Trying to get another color over top, I decided to pull out the “Distress Oxide Spray Salvaged Patina” after the paint had dried up. To help spread some of it around, I also sprayed with water too. I was pleased with all of the coloring in the background, but felt it needed a toned down border because of the Vintage looking ephemera, so I blended some “Vintage Photo and Black Soot Oxide Inks” at the edges.

At this point, I started adding images by working on the stamping around the edges with a script text stamp using a hybrid brown ink in random places. I also used the same ink to stamp a couple of the flying birds in the background. This is where I thought it would a good idea to add some splattering with white and brown paint. I finished it with more splatters of some “Liquid Pixie Dust” which gave it some pretty subtle sparkle all over.

So starting at top of my page, I decided to start adding the images to create my scene. I ended up die cutting a branch from some dark brown cardstock and attached it to the edge of the page and then took one of those ephemera birds and popped it with foam tape over the branch. I glued the butterfly above the bird and the “daisy” flowers off to the right were glued down while keeping in mind the placement of the large birds at the bottom.

The sentiment came from one of the stickers from the “Tim Holtz Idea-ology Clippings Sticker Book”. I used a brown Micron pen to sketch around it, but decided it was too light, so I went around it again with a black one too.

For the bottom portion, you can see that I’ve glued down the little tag under the title. (I added a piece of twine around it before I attached it.) I also glued the corner floral spray in the bottom left of the page. I’ve used foam tape to pop up the large birds as well as the butterfly above the floral spray.

The last thing I did was to grab the dark brown “Big Brush Marker” to add some shading around some of the ephemera pieces. I didn’t do anything to the pieces that were popped up with foam tape.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Art Journal inspiration today! Thanks so much for joining me and Carol for our fun collaboration and you can always have fun following along with us every month!

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend and please stop to remember and honor those who’ve sacrificed for us.

I’ll see you again soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Birds
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media #82
Mixed Media Lovers – Anything Mixed Media
Dragonfly Dreams – Butterflies and/or Flowers
The Corrosive – Anything Goes
Arty Divas – Anything Goes

May 28, 2022May 28, 2022

*Vicki*7 Comments

April AJ Page-Does Anybody Know Time It Is?

Hello friends! I feel like I’ve been so busy, but it sure doesn’t seem that way on my blog here! Hopefully, I’ll be able to show more things later…however, I think it’s about time for this month’s Art Journal page…don’t you?!

Today I’m sharing my monthly Art Journal page and collaborating with my blog friend Carol as we both try and get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! So please hop over to her blog to see some more Art Journal inspiration with our “SMASH YOUR STASH” April prompt of: “recycled items/thrifted items to upcycle/pieces of magazine, gift wrap, etc.“! So here’s what I’ve come up with:

I absolutely LOVE The Peanuts Gang characters! I have a desk calendar that I use every year next to my computer and it has the Peanuts Gang on it. I was thinking this would be a perfect way for me to recycle it by fussy cutting out some of the characters on it and incorporating them on my AJ page this month!

So I’ve started out by creating my regular 9″x6″ sized page with thick watercolor paper and pre-cutting the holes at the top for my book. This time I’ve turned it in the landscape direction to work on the design. I took out a musical notes style stencil and added paste for texture to the background, but it turned out to look more like bricks instead..but I let it dry and used it anyway. I decided to pull out my Brushos that just sit on my shelf and never get used. I’m always amazed at the results with them just by sprinkling them and adding water.

I also took some printed vellum and attached ripped pieces over the background with collage medium. This is where I’ve also added a clock image that I cut from a magazine to recycle as well as the background Peanuts Gang characters (Snoopy & Sally). I then stamped a few musical notes and scribble stamps in the background using Archival ink. Lastly, it was also splattered with gold paint and set aside to dry. (Snoopy & Sally were covered for the splattering.)

The next portion was to create the piano going across the bottom for Lucy and Schroder to be on top. I took some black metallic cardstock that has been in my stash for years and free-handed the slope cut. The piano keys were simple with a white cardstock strip that I scored every 1/2″ and then I used a Word Window Punch (Also had for years from Stampin’ Up!) and punched out the black keys to add to the white scored piano keys over top. Attached this strip to the bottom of the page and then used foam tape to attach the black slope over top. At this point I had to punch the holes again at the top of the page for my AJ page book construction. This is where I glued and foam taped Schroder and Lucy over the black section of the piano between Snoopy and Sally.

The wording is something else that goes with the theme of my page. I had actually saw a video on You Tube with the Peanuts Gang singing the song by Chicago “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” and that’s where the musical theme came to my mind when cutting out the characters from my desk calendar. LOL Thought I’d share it if you’re interested in singing too:

For the wording on my AJ page, I just used my label maker and cut out the words to arrange on my page and then outlined each word with a black waterproof marker. I also took the same black metallic cardstock and cut out the letters to emphasize the word “TIME…” and glued it over the textured stencil.

But before I glued the black lettering over the brick texture, I took some metallic brass wax and rubbed over it to bring out the textured areas. I also used it around the edges of the page.

I thought the large black slope of the piano looked a little plain, so I made a flower using a scallop circle punch and cutting each scallop edge with my scissors to make “petals” from a musical sheet paper that I also sponged with black ink and splattered with gold paint. I also took more of the wax around the edges. Punched another circle with gold metallic cardstock for the center and topped the center with a black enamel dot.

I think it’s so fun to be able to incorporate just about anything into your art journaling and I’m glad to be able to pull out some of my neglected stash as well as find something to recycle rather than just throw away. It makes it so fun to be able to incorporate something different to suit your own ideas/thoughts/style too!

I hope you’re also enjoying the AJ pages too! Maybe you’ve been inspired to see something in your everyday life that you can turn into something creative…or maybe you can sing your own tune while you create!🎹

Thanks so much for stopping in today friends! So happy to share with you!

Tomorrow is inspiration from a new challenge for the month to try…see you then!

Challenges for today’s AJ page:

Art Journal Journey – “Play it Again Sam” (based on movie or song)
Try It On Tuesday – “I Can Hear the Music”
River of Creativity – Anything Goes (not cards) optional: Spring
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge – Anything Goes

April 30, 2022April 30, 2022

*Vicki*22 Comments

Sing Spring AJ Page

Hello friends and a happy weekend! I really can’t believe that we’re already on the last Saturday of March right now! This month flew by, but I’m so happy to get even further into the Spring months, how about you? The chirping birds seem more intense as Spring gets into her song!

Today I’m sharing my monthly Art Journal page and collaborating with my blog friend Carol as we both try and get creative with journaling by using up our never-ending stash piles! So please pop on over to her blog to see some more inspiration with our “SMASH YOUR STASH” prompt of: “Die cuts/punched out pieces/tags(unfinished to decorate)“! Let’s get to creating!

Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure do have TONS of those punches that I hardly ever use any more. I also keep piling up tons of die cuts too! So this was my focus on my page today by pulling out lots of those to come up with a Spring theme in mind…

I started out with my usual 6×9 thick watercolor paper with the binder holes at the top. My first thought was to create a blue “watery” background by using my Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors to paint an ombre blue. It was nice to pull these out to play with as I haven’t used them in quite a while. While it was still wet, I covered the panel with some Sea Salt crystals and let it dry. After it dried, I scrapped off the salt. If you’ve never tried it, it makes for a really unique look. I then took a raindrop stencil and went over it with some blue Chroma Glaze. I really like how the glaze makes it look shinny. I mixed some blue and yellow Deco Media Fluid Acrylics to make the green color and sponged it over the bottom to create my grass scene. I also had a tall grass stamp that I stamped over it with green ink. Lastly, I used white paint to splatter over the background.

So this is where I moved onto the rest of my separate pieces to create my scene. I pulled out circle, square, heart, scallop border, birds, leaves, flowers, branch, grass borders, etc and began cutting out all of my pieces! The yellow bird at the top was stamped and then punched out. The birdhouse on the right is all punches and the daisy flowers at the bottom are all punches. The larger birdhouse with the bird and flower vines is a die set by Lawn Fawn, the branch and leaves at the top right is a die set from My Favorite Things and I’ve also used a couple of different grass die cut borders at the bottom from My Favorite Things. This is my very first time using that birdhouse die set and I’ve had those grassy border dies forever but use quite often.

I was also quite happy that I was able to pull out several pieces of scrap papers from my stash to punch and die cut all of them too! That’s a good way to use up more of your stash when you’re using punches and dies!

Trying to zoom in a bit so you can see the background and how it looks with the watercolor salt technique as well as the shine from the raindrops. For the birdhouse posts, those are just strips of woodgrain looking pattern paper that I’ve cut into strips and then ran through an embossing folder. I used a sander to bring out the texture.

I stamped the music notes next to the birds and also stamped the “sing” letters in the center of the birdhouse. I’ve got both of the birds popped up with foam tape. I’ve glued the birdhouse posts to the page, but popped up the large birdhouse with foam tape as well. You can also see where I’ve went all the way around the edges and I sponged brown ink around everything. I also stamped a random image around the edges with brown ink too.

At the bottom of the page, you can see that I’ve taken a brown marker to write “Birds can sing on the darkest of days because they believe in” and then I stamped “SPRING” over a strip of pattern paper and attached at the bottom and used the brown marker to create the dash lines. Also did this on my made up punched birdhouse.

Both the last grassy border and the leaves above on the branch were die cut from green cardstock, but I’ve also used some green mica spray and sprayed over top of them which gives a pretty shimmer to them. Before popping up the yellow bird at the top, he was also sprayed with a yellow mica spray.

To finish it off I’ve added all of the white gel pen details and along the edges of the page. Lastly, I used some yellow Stickles to center each of the daisy flowers as well as the flowers on the birdhouse. I used black Stickles to the bird’s eyeballs.

Really enjoyed putting this one together and playing around with more stash items! Hope that you’ve enjoyed as well and have been inspired in some way! I thank you so much for stopping in! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Spring
River of Creativity – Anything Goes but NO CARDS
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Bright and Cheerful
Everybody Art – Spring

March 26, 2022March 24, 2022

*Vicki*33 Comments

Try It On Tuesday GDT-Say It With Flowers

Hello friends and happy Tuesday! Hope you’re having a great start to your week. Now that Spring has officially began, we can start seeing signs of Spring everywhere and look forward to warmer temperatures here! Yay!

TioT guest designer 2022 I’m excited to share my project for the new challenge over at the “Try It On Tuesday” Challenge Blog as their guest designer this time! An AJ page I entered in a previous challenge earned me a spot as a future guest, so I’m thrilled to be joining with them for a new challenge! Their theme for this challenge is to “Say It With Flowers“, so please be sure to stop in and have a look at the amazing inspiration from the team! Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge:

Since I usually add a sentiment to my makes, I decided to say what I wanted to convey without any words which is how I took the challenge. So my thoughts were about Spring coming out in color with the dull drab of winter in the browns and blacks in the background. The dead is coming alive again in color! That was my thought process anyway. LOL

I love the flowers in the Tim Holtz Mini Bouquet stamp set. I’ve used watercolor paper to stamp them and then used the Distress ink pads smooshed on a mat to watercolor them in including the new Salt Water Taffy color that I’ve been wanting to try out. I used the coordinating dies to cut them with and then also die cut some stems in green and brown cardstock to attach onto the flowers. I rubbed a bit of gold paint with my finger over the edges of them. They were popped up with foam tape over a prepared oval die cut panel stamped with various TH stamps with some gold glitter added around the edges. I die cut an oval ornate piece behind it with some glossy black cardstock.

For the background, I’ve done various things to it including using Distress Oxide sprays for the background, adding some black heat embossed silhouette florals to the bottom as well as modeling paste through a TH floral stencil. To bring out the texture of the stenciled background, I used some more gold paint to rub over it with my finger. I also added some splatter with the gold paint over the entire background along with another splatter layer of white paint.

I distressed the edges and layered it over a piece of black glossy cardstock sized 5″x7″. I found some TH ephemera black and white florals that I cut in half to pop up over the bottom two corners and then used some metal corner pieces for the top. I sprayed a wooden butterfly with black spray stain and some Distress Mica Spray Stain in Crooked Broomstick as this gave it that “black/brown” combo I was going for.

Lastly, I took a piece of tan seam binding and sprayed it with some more Distress sprays, crinkled it up and wrapped some around the front layer and then added a bow over top of the stems of the bouquet. The oval panel was popped up over the center with foam tape.

There is actually lots of dimension on this as you can get a better look of it with a close up here. There are different layers in the flowers as well as all of the layers of panels underneath it. I like how it turned out and had lots of fun playing around and using up some more of my never ending stash too! ( I think I’m becoming a spray-a-holic lately! LOL)

So please be sure to hop on over to the “Try It On Tuesday” Challenge Blog to see the rest of the inspiration for the challenge. I hope you will take the time to join in the challenge with us too! Would love to see what you come up with!

Hope that you’ve enjoyed my make today! Thanks for dropping by and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Mixed Media Lovers – Anything Goes mixed media
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes mixed media
The Funkie Junkie Boutique – “Rather Blustery Day” – Struggle with NOT adding words/sentiments…I ALWAYS want to do that and so it’s a huge challenge NOT to want to add that somewhere! Plus, omitting color in some way.
The Four Seasons – Anything Goes Spring
Shopping Our Stash – Spread Your Wings (Wooden butterfly from stash! Yay!)
Crafty Friends – Flowers
Creative Inspirations – Spring Flowers

March 22, 2022March 18, 2022

*Vicki*37 Comments

February AJ Page-Explore

Hello friends! Hope that you are doing well and staying warm and safe out there. It’s been a few minutes since my last post, but that’s because I’ve been working very hard making wedding invites! They’re coming together and almost done! At some point I will share those, but today I have an AJ page to share with you! It was nice to be able to take a break from creating invites to turning my mind on making a page.

**My crafty friend Carol is joining along with me each month to help inspire us both as well as others and I’m so thrilled to be doing this with her, so please click on her name and check out her page too! We’re coming together as I think we both have an issue with “too much stash”…who doesn’t?!🙄 So I’ve come up with some ‘AJ prompts’ to help us both “Smash Our Stash” to start using it up for our own creative outlets and have some FUN! The month of February gives us the prompt: ribbon/fibers/twine/thread

If you do any Art Journaling, then you know that sometimes when you have something in mind to do, it doesn’t always turn out like you think it will in your head! This is the case with this one! I like how it turned out and really enjoyed the process of it along with feeling good about using up some ribbon and twine overflowing in my stash!

I’m continuing on with making my own AJ book, so I’ve got the holes ready at the top of my 6″ x 9″ 140# watercolor page. I like to use something really thick as I think it helps to hold all of the wet media/paint without it warping too badly.

I’ve started by using a Tonic Studios “Falling Diamonds” stencil with embossing paste towards the bottom and not going all the way up to the top of the page. I then used Salvaged Patina and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Oxide Sprays over top letting colors mix and run. Once dried, I added some sponged white paint over a Tim Holtz stencil. I then took some Ranger Ground Espresso paint and added some paint splatters over it, set aside to dry. Then came my first introduction of the prompt onto my page. I took some left over pieces of lace (in fact this was the last of this piece from my stash…why I kept it? Who knows!!!) and glued it randomly onto the background. Once dried, I added some water-downed Ground Espresso paint over those areas, sprayed with water and let run. I also took the same paint and sponged around the edges to darken them up. After it dried, I took some Art Alchemy “Old Silver” wax and rubbed over the raised areas of the paste and lace with my fingers until it showed up as I wanted it to.

I decided at this point, that I wasn’t going to do what I had planned in my head as I thought the background was going to turn out much lighter and brighter. It turned out more antique/grunge, but I was still happy with it and just changed the plan a bit. I don’t know what these are called, but I named them “Twine Twirls“. I took a double-sided adhesive sheet and covered a piece of cardstock with one side, die cut a couple of different sized circles, took the backing off the other side of the adhesive and used some twine in my stash to continue to swirl around the center of the adhesive circle until reaching the edges. (Do you ever get twine wrapped around one of your craft orders and save it? That’s what all of this twine is from…can you believe I saved them and got plenty more to use?!!) I then took a piece of VERY old ribbon from my stash and attached to the back of each “Twine Twirl”. I laid these over the page where I wanted it and added an adhesive strip at the top of the page right below the holes to secure them as well as glued the back of the circles. You can also see that I’ve attached some bows above 3 of the “Twine Twirls” too. I used some Stickles glitter glue and brushed over top of each “Twine Twirl” and set aside to dry.

I also fussy cut out one of the Tim Holtz paper dolls to glue over one of the “Twine Twirls” and then used some foam tape to pop him up over the page as needed once the glitter had dried.

For the top of the page where I’ve added the “Twine Twirl” ribbons, I took another piece of lace that matched that ribbon and covered it over top of the ends. Since it’s lace, you can see through it, so I layered on another piece of brown taupe ribbon in the center of that. (I’ve used scissors to cut the ends off the page.)

For the lettering, I used some of the items I used for the background page onto a piece of blank cardstock and then cut the letters out using the Taylored Expressions Cap It Off Alpha taking off the frame around the letters. I glued the letters over top of the ribbon and then covered each letter with glossy accents.

The phrases come from a Tim Holtz “Clippings” sticker book and then I took a brown pen to outline around it. I finished the page by adding some of the Tim Holtz stars adornments in random areas.

I really hope you’ve enjoyed our AJ pages today or have been inspired in some way! Be sure to join us next month too! Thank you so much for dropping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – What’s Your Style? (I love using stencils most of the time, but enjoy “exploring” different medias too! Not sure about a specific style…I like them ALL!)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Art Journal
Try It On Tuesday – Add Some Texture
Creative Artiste – #79 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Mixed Media Lovers – #10 Anything Mixed Media
Arty Divas – Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

February 26, 2022February 25, 2022

*Vicki*29 Comments

Facing Fear With Art Journaling

Happy weekend! Hope you’re weekend is going great! I’ve been wanting to start doing some art journaling again because I used to do lots of it years ago on a previous blog I had before this one. The only one I had recently done was in 2020 on THIS POST. For me, creating AJ pages gives the freedom to “explore” different media, use more of my stash or even TRY things that I would never do otherwise. I’m always inspired with other people’s AJ pages, but just need to start doing it again! It’s nothing that I would ever give away, it’s just something for me personally to create. I find it’s a HUGE stress reliever too!

I’ve decided to play along with a couple of challenges. (shown below post) *One was about “adding a face” to your AJ page and something that I decided to do was to actually trace half of a face over some vellum paper. (I used a micro pen for tracing) I don’t draw anything at all…which is why I love stamps! So I had a go at “facing fear” to start this year with an AJ page!

As you can see, I’m making my own AJ book and there are actually 7 other finished pages underneath this one. These are the pages I had previously done and hadn’t kept up on my book. The size is 6″ x 9″ and I always punch the holes at the top before I get started putting anything on it. (I’ve used heavy weight watercolor paper) I wanted the face tracing to “show through” what was underneath, so I took ripped up strips from left over collage pieces I had previously made, I also added some text print and acrylic paint colors over it. I’ve used DecoArt media fluid acrylics to blend colors and DecoArt media shimmer mister for some splatters. I’ve also taken a stencil with some Taylored Expressions purple glitter Happy Medium gel paste in certain areas. Once I’ve gotten the background build up a bit, I layered over the face tracing. I wasn’t real happy with the crackling of the vellum, but it added some fun texture.

I also took one of those ripped collage pieces and stamped the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt with Archival Black ink and layered next to the vellum face with matte medium. And since I’ve used matte medium to attach all of my elements, I took out my Faber-Castell Pitt big brush markers to add some color to the vellum tracing, around the edges of it and around the edges of the ripped stamped sentiment. I took some foiled cardstock and die cut the “face fear” letters from an Altenew die set I had in my stash. I also added some shading with my markers under the letters too.

In the close-up photo, you can see the bits of sparkle and shimmer on it a bit more!

Some of the words in the quote were doodled around using a micro pen. I had a rub-on clock face in my stash, so I rubbed half of it on one place, moved it and rubbed the other half in another spot so as not to waste it. I thought I needed to add a bit more shimmer, so I took some Art Alchemy Sparks acrylic paint and brushed it on randomly in places. I love the pretty shimmer of this paint! (You can really see it around the edges in the top photo)

Something a bit different from me today, but hope you’ve enjoyed it or been inspired in some way! I’m hoping to try to create a page each month. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great rest of your weekend!

Challenges:

*Art Journal Journey – Let’s Face It!
Country View – A Year to Sparkle & Shine
Mixed Media Lovers – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Try it On Tuesday – Add a Quote

January 29, 2022January 27, 2022

*Vicki*31 Comments

Bright Floral AJ Fun🌸

Hello friends! We’re now on Friday and the last one of the month at that! Summer is now coming at us! I always look forward to being outdoors and spending time in the sun and enjoying the flowers…how about you?

Speaking of flowers, I wanted to share an Art Journal page that I had completed from a class that I took in March. It was really fun as I haven’t done any AJ pages at all since the previous blog platform that I was on! I remember that I had made several of them and was going to put them all together to make my own book. This process really made me remember how much I’ve missed doing it:

Doodling is not something that I’ve ever felt really comfortable with, so when the class offered up a way to trace a basic flower pattern, I did that. However, with all of the “lines” you can see within those flowers and me extending the petals and such, you can see that I really got into the doodling process once I got going that is! LOL!

First, I wanted to make sure that this AJ page had the binder holes punched in them to add to my book, so I did that with a 9″ x 6″ piece of watercolor paper (I cut one of the 9″ x 12″ pieces in half to get two AJ pages) and then I took my Zig Kurtake Tambi watercolor set and a big brush to watercolor over the paper.

This is where I traced the basic flower pattern (from class) over the dried piece. From there, I took some black gesso and painted the background around the flowers. This REALLY made the colors pop! This is where I took my Micron pens and white gel pen to really doodle around the flowers.

I even took a few sentiment stamps from the Impression Obsession Words For Art and stamped on a couple of the petals with Archival Jet Black ink.

I think it’s just one of those things you start doing and then don’t know when to stop the doodling! It was just tons of fun and glad that I was brave enough to try it AND get going on some AJ pages!

I hope you’ve enjoyed it too and I hope to do more! Lots of fun things coming, so I will be seeing you soon my friends!!😉 Thanks for dropping in!

Challenges: