Impression Obsession – Stamped Smiles

Hello friends! Can you believe we’re already through September?! Today is a scheduled post from me as I’m away in an area with spotty to no connection right now, but wanted to be sure that I had my Art Journal Page posted for this month.

It’s also hard to believe that this is the 9th page done for this year! I’m so glad I’ve done the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” September prompt of “IMPRINT” (using gel plate, print machine, leaves or something to create an impression):

Really had a fun time with this as I hadn’t gotten a chance to play around with my gel plate very much and I received about 15 different prints in one sitting! It started out like I didn’t have a clue, but the more I kept experimenting, the more fun and unique prints came out. Do you have a gel plate and/or do you use it often? (If you’re new to Gel Printing, here’s a link to a You Tube video showing you basics on how to get started – The Basics of Gel Printing)

For my print here, I decided to try something from nature and found a couple of maple leaves in my yard that were laying on the ground starting to turn. I think there are about 3 layers of prints on this one…hard to remember when you just keep going! I cut it out to fit the size of my AJ page.

FOR THE BACKGROUND – I started with my usual 6″ x 9″ Canson 140# cold pressed watercolor paper with pre-punched holes at the top and covered it with DecoArt media fluid acrylic Primary Cyan applied with a baby wipe. Really love the blue background it gave here. Then this is when I applied the gel print piece to my background. I then used some orange, black and white colored acrylic paints to create some splatters over the background and gel print piece.

I die cut some maple looking leaves from the Taylored Expressions Garden Variety-Fall die set and ink blended them. I also splattered some orange paint over them as well. I had some gold glitter sheets that I cut down in a couple of thin strips to add to the top and bottom of my gel print piece. I then attached the die cut maple leaves.

I cut out the word “Thankful” from Impression Obsession three times in Pumpkin cardstock and layered them together for my page. I also grabbed this sentiment from the Tim Holtz small talk stickers and layered it over the same Pumpkin cardstock and attached it next to the “Thankful” word on the page.

I thought about adding something more, but I then thought it would distract from the printing which already has a “busy” look to it and so I called this one done.

I’m very THANKFUL that you’ve taken the time to stop by and your kind support! It’s always more fun to craft with like-minded friends! I’m also THANKFUL to my crafty friend Carol for sharing this monthly AJ fun with me as well! (I will stop by to see your page as soon as I can my friend!)

Have a great day and see you in October! 😊

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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 really 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: