November AJ Page-Time

Hello friends and happy weekend! Monday will be the first of December already! Wow, time seems to be going so fast especially at the end of year! This is exactly what my page was inspired by in this post!

Last Saturday of November brings us to the monthly “SMASH OUR STASH” Art Journaling. I’ve collaborated with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) to join in. Here’s my AJ page with the NOVEMBER prompt of “TRADITIONS”:

This is a little different type of style, but most of the time I just come up with whatever happens to pop into my head and hopefully with older items I have from my stash!

This may not seem like I’ve used the “traditions” prompt for this month, but if you look at the wording at the bottom of the pocket watch, It says “Sentimental Traditions”. I was thinking of “old timey” type of things and the story about traditions on my page comes from my family going to our favorite place every fall for picking apples and now my children go every year as well, so it’s fun to know they’re still enjoying the same tradition we had with them.

For the background: (size of Mixed Media paper is 5.5″ x 8.5″) I ink blended with brushed corduroy oxide ink and spritzed with water to create the watermarks. I stenciled the dots with fired brick oxide and went around the edges with black soot oxide. I added some background paper to the other side that has the apple tree and then I added the paper doll couple over top and then added the “TIME” lettering that was die cut with black cardstock above them. I also sponged around the edges of the apple tree paper with black soot oxide. I added a gold metallic sticker line in the center between the paper and ink background.

I took a really old Whimsy Stamp stamp set with the pocket watch stamp and stamped it with black ink and then used a pen to write the words: “TIME has a way of showing us what matters.” I then stamped a couple more of the pocket watch image in brushed corduroy oxide and then splattered some gold watercolor over right side of the page.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – A Moment In Time
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards
Creative Artiste – #121 Anything Goes Mixed Media

October AJ Page-Magical Potion

Hello friends and happy weekend! It’s the last Saturday for this month and next week will be November 1st! Can you believe it?! We’re nearing the end of the year, but I’d like to stop and enjoy the wonderful Autumn season right now while it’s here!

Last Saturday of October brings us to the monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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” OCTOBER prompt of “MAGICAL”:

I couldn’t let this month go by without adding in a Halloween themed AJ page! I love making them and getting out lots of dies from several different companies that made this one a fun project to pull together.

Background: I used an 8.5″ x 5.5″ piece of Mixed Media cardstock and blended the background in various colors using a light yellow for the center where the window is open and the cauldron is brewing up something magical!

I then took a cogs and wheel stencil and sponged on some gold ink in various places. I took a cool background stamp from Whimsy Stamps called Vintage Wallpaper and stamped it in random places. I also cut a strip of wood plank background paper from my stash to add at the bottom of the page. I then took my gold ink pad and swiped it around the edges of the page.

Die Cuts: The large spider web cut from holographic paper, the witch, the fire, and cats all came from Whimsy Stamps. The Cauldron and potion bottle came from Taylored Expressions, the window came from Simon Says Stamp and the wood under the cauldron came from Lawn Fawn. For some of the pieces, I ink blended or added a gold highlight to the edges. For the potion bottle, there is a tiny label on it that says “Moon Dust” with a moon on it. (It’s hard to see in the photo.) I added some glitter to the contents. After ink blending the flames, I covered it with a glitter brush pen.

I took a marker to added some shadows under the witch, cat and cauldron. I took some yellow sequins and added it under the potion bottle to make it look like she’s added it to the potion. Lastly, I took a couple of Tim Holtz sentiment clippings to add to the scene.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today! I had fun with it! Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Steampunk/Halloween or both
Creative Artiste – #120 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No Cards
Penny’s – #608 Anything Goes Using Paper
Little Red Wagon – #830 Not a Card

September AJ Page-Quiet Beauty

Hello friends! I do not even know where this month went! Wow! I guess life has a way of keeping us busy and sometimes we just need to make time to take time. I do hope that you’re having a great September month and looking to the Autumn season. It’s my favorite season to be out in…I still need the cooler weather though! I’m hoping for it soon!

Can’t believe it, but it’s time for another monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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 “WOOD”:

Although the temps are still unseasonably warm right now, I’m dreaming of those pretty Autumn colors and cooler temps! I decided to get lots of inks out and make a background for this one to display my leaves across it.

For the background: I started with a kraft piece of cardstock measuring my usual 8.5″x 5.5″ size and then at every 3/4″ I scored a line across the longer side edge. So, using the score marks with the texture line facing up at me, I swiped a few colors of distress inks in Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain, Rusty Hinge and Black Soot. I then took a flat DRY paint brush and brushed down over the ink marks I swiped to brighten the colors. It’s such a simple technique to make a background!

I definitely “shopped my stash” this time and pulled out a VERY old Stampin’ Up! stamp set called “Wonderfall” and the Bigz die to cut them out. Those were the days where we didn’t have a MISTI tool to help us line stamps up! LOL It’s much easier now with the MISTI! So I splattered all of the leaves after the die cutting and stamping with metallic gold watercolor, brown and white Copic Opaque white. I arranged them all over the background and attached them.

Here’s a closer view of the background so you can see how I’ve done it along with the details on the leaves.

For the sentiment, I die cut some letters from gold metallic foil cardstock and attached to background. I used my computer to print out the other words and die cut them out with a banner die and sponged the edges. I used foam tape to pop up the one over the leaf.

Lastly, I used some gold glitter drops to add a bit of sparkle to it.

Thanks so much for dropping in today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today! I hope you’re able to get outside and enjoy your weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Make Your Own Background (wood panel/plank background with inks)

August AJ Page-Good-bye Summer

Hello friends! Here we are at the end of August already! I’ve already been feeling the Autumn vibes, so I thought I’d create with Summer one more time. There is still a few more weeks left of Summer, so let’s enjoy it!

Wanted to share a photo that hubby took a really good close-up shot of a bumble bee enjoying the last bit of summer blooms on one of our flowers in the back yard the other day. He is covered in pollen! I love the bright colors in the flower.

Speaking of bright colors, today starts another monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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” AUGUST prompt of “BRIGHT/HAPPY COLORS”:

Bright and happy colors to me are those sunny yellows, citrus and basically a rainbow of bright colors. I tried to reflect this with my page using mainly blended ink colors, but I also used some watercolor and paint too.

FOR THE BACKGROUND: I used a 5.5″ x 8.5″ piece of Bristol Smooth Watercolor cardstock. I covered the background with a light wash of blue watercolor and let it dry. I took a stencil from My Favorite Things (closed) called “Sun Ray” and went over the background with yellow paint applying with a watered-down sponge. Once that was dry, I splattered the entire background with some metallic gold watercolor. I covered the bottom portion of the page with some wood plank background paper. (I like to make my own book to add my finished pages in.)

The “Summer” lettering was die cut with white cardstock and then ink blended with several different bright colors. I stamped out the lettering above it. Both the stamp and dies came from Lawn Fawn.

Here’s a closer view of the drink glass I created using some die sets from Taylored Expressions called Summertime Sips. There was the glass that I lightly ink blended around the edges and then for the separate die for inside the glass, I ink blended a few different colors for that tropical drink look. There are also ice cube dies that I cut from glitter cardstock to put in there. I cut another glass from vellum and then cut the stem of it so that I could attach it to the front of the glass which is where I added all of the items inside to make it look see-though.

The straw and the umbrella were cut in white and then ink blended and put together for the glass. I also took the TE Fresh Squeezed die set to cut more pieces from white cardstock and then I ink blended some green and orange colors over them to arrange around my cup. The green slice on the top of the cup was cut with scissors so that I could add it to the inside of the glass rim. I covered the inside of these citruses with a glitter brush pen.

Lastly, I took a black detail pen to make lines around the edges of the page and also the stitch marks within the lettering and around the sentiment strip at the bottom. This was printed from computer and ink blended with yellow ink.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my page! Have a wonderful weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Hot Summer (Nights and Days)
Creative Artiste – #118 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – August -No Cards

And speaking of bright and happy, I know a few people have mentioned my new grandson and wondering if I get to see him. My answer to that is every single chance I can get! LOL He’s growing so very fast! He came for a visit for lunch…well grandma fed him his bottle.

I will be getting to see him again VERY soon and I’m so excited! How can you resist that face!?

Thought I’d share a little update to make you smile! 😉

July AJ Page-Always Make Waves

Hello friends! I hope that you’re staying cool and having a great weekend so far! This is another pre-scheduled post from me again as I’m away for now. So glad you’re here!

Today starts another monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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” JULY prompt of “ACROSS THE OCEAN”:

At one point I was going through my extremely large stash of card kits and realized how crazy it was that I had SO many mermaid/under the sea type of card kits/stamps, papers, etc. So I didn’t have any problem finding something from my stash for this prompt!

For the Background: I started with my usual size of 8.5″x5.5″ with Bristol Smooth cardstock this time. I wanted to do some ink blending with a large 6″x9″ layered stencil that I got from Trinity Stamps. I’ve used several different ink colors to create the underwater scene with the stencils. I had lots of fun with it. I then used some of the masks in the set and spritzed some water over it for the bubble effects in the “water”. The “light beams” came with the stencil set and I just used white ink for that layer.

I thought since I was using water, that I would watercolor the images from an older mermaid card kit that I had from Brutus Monroe. I die cut those along with the turtle and bubbles. The sentiment came with this set too and I thought it was a wonderful saying, so I white heat embossed it on the page.

I also had an “Under the Sea” die set from My Favorite Things (store closed) that I cut a few pieces from to add to the scene at the bottom. I took a gel pen and markers to add details to some of the ocean floor botanicals/rocks and then a glitter brush pen on the mermaids and glitter glue over the bubbles above the turtle to finish it off.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Art Journal Page today! Thanks so much for dropping by and spending some time with me! I’ll be back later next week to see what you’re all up to! See you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Botanicals (Hope seaweed counts!)

June Art Journal Page-Positive Thoughts and Positive News!

Hello friends and welcome to the weekend! June has seemed to go by so very fast and I don’t know how time seems to keep flying by, but I think keeping busy is the best thing to do to stay in a positive mind set. I also have some positive news at the bottom of this post!

Speaking of positive….it’s our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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” JUNE prompt of “ABSTRACT FIGURE(S) or SHAPE(S)”:

I didn’t really have a plan in place when starting my page. I happened to remember these fun nesting dies that I had which remind me of a body of water/pond, but I thought they would work great for the “ABSTRACT SHAPE” prompt for this month. I started thinking of a rock or cave with these holes or crevasses where a rainbow light is coming through and a girl is in deep positive thought where butterflies are floating above her.

For the background: I started with a 8.5″x5.5″ watercolor cardstock and the oxide inks in Black Soot, Hickory Smoke and Pumice Stone. I rubbed the ink pads onto a glass surface, sprayed with water and “smooshed” the paper multiple times after drying with a heat tool in a process of about three times. I then stamped the “IMAGINE” definition text all over the background and went around the edges with black ink.

Each die cut shape was cut from a rainbow paper pad that I lined around the edges with a black marker. I black heat embossed the heart and the sentiment above the girl. The girl was cut from a magazine and placed on the largest rainbow shape so that her feet were dangling off. The butterflies were cut from a printed file and attached randomly over the page. Lastly, I covered each butterfly and the center of the heart with a glitter brush pen. You may be able to see some of the shimmer in the photo.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today! Thank you so much for checking out what I’m doing over here! I appreciate your kind thoughts! I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – People
Try It On Tuesday – Add Some Text (not one word/greeting)
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge – Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – #116 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards

Positive news! My first grandson was born this week! He’s the most precious thing I’ve ever seen! I didn’t want to leave, so I hope I can come back very soon to see him again!❤️

This is me having a lovely conversation with him. LOL

May Art Journal Page-BEE YOU

Hello friends! Here we are at the end of another month for the year! It seems like we’ve only just barely started the year and now it’s almost at the halfway point? Time seems to fly away! Which reminds me that today is our monthly art journal page!

Yes, it’s our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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” MAY prompt of “WINGS”:

There happens to be wings on many things, but my attention has been focused on bees lately. I have been working on several projects and this was one of the things that I had used on something, so I thought I’d print me out an additional one to use on this month’s page! (This image is a digital file that I printed out and hand cut with scissors.)

For the background: I started with 8.5″x 5.5″Bristol Smooth Watercolor paper that I chomped the corners to get a rounded edge. I used a Dina Wakley Media Stencil along with yellow tones Oxide Distress inks to blend over it. While the stencil was still in place, I used a text stamp to go over it with brown ink. (water proof). Lifted off the stencil and added some more bright yellow ink in various places and then spritzed it with water to blend a bit. Since the text ink was water proof…it didn’t run. I then went around the edges with brown ink and then splattered the entire page with gold watercolor.

I die cut the hexagon and drip corner with gold mirror cardstock and attached to page. I used a black marker to make the “bee lines” and “bee antennas”. I took the fussy cut bee and popped him up with foam tape over the marker lines. I then used some glitter paint to paint over his wings. (I’m glad it shows up nicely in the photo.)

Lastly, I cut out the letters for the sentiment in “BEE”. for the “you”, I white heat embossed a sentiment that originally says “you are” and then die cut it out with a coordinating die. I cut off the “are” portion so that I could use just the “you” to place under my “BEE” lettering.

Thanks so much for checking in today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my page! I will be back next week to share some items that I’ve been working on! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Must Have Wings
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Emboss It (embossed “you”)
Try it On Tuesday – Things with Wings
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – May Anything Goes- no cards
Creative Artiste – #115 Anything Goes Mixed Media

April Art Journal Page-Recycled Spring

Hello friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and have been enjoying the wonderful Spring weather outside! We have all sorts of blooms and buds everywhere which is really exciting to see! I think I need to trim some lilacs from my bush to put in a jar and enjoy the lovely smell from them!

Today is our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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” April prompt of “RECYCLE/UPCYCLE”:

Flowers are everywhere, so I thought I’d place them all over my page today too!

For my “recycled” elements, I have used a floral napkin in the background which gives it some wonderful texture and I’ve also painted some white paint over it for a “wash” so that it wasn’t so bright and vibrant and too busy for the background. I splattered some black and gold watercolor over it as well.

I found a darling image with these gorgeous Spring birds perched on the fence, cut it out and popped it up at the bottom with foam tape.

I thought that a strip of gold cardstock (left over from a project) would make a nice bright accent to go with my gold embossed “HELLO SPRING” sentiment and gold splatter.

I’ve also “recycled” an old part of an ATC project and half of a doily to add on the side with the sentiment and I’ve tied some old twine around that ATC panel.

Lastly, I’ve added some flowers and a butterfly from my old collection of ephemera pieces left over from years ago!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and it gives you all the feels of Spring in the air! I had fun putting this one together! Thanks so much for dropping in!

(Feeling a little bit under the weather this week and I’ll catch up as I can! Thanks for understanding!)

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Spring Birds
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – April No Cards
Creative Artiste – #114 Mixed Media projects
Neglected Stuff – April (doily, Tim Holtz ephemera)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Blooming Blooms

March AJ Page-Favorites

Hello friends! Here we are again at the end of another month! Although I’ve been really busy this past week, I think I’m ready for March to be over with! Mainly because of this crazy weather and another because I’ve been busy doing things other than crafting! LOL (Must be time for that organizing…er as I like to say “agonizing”!)

I’m sure you might’ve guessed that one of my favorite things to do is obvious on this page! (This craft room actually looks a bit more organized than mine is currently!) I did have so much fun with this one! I’ve used SO many of my favorite things on here: old stamps, mixed company favorite stamps, foiling, heat embossing, coloring (Copics and watercolor), ink blending, die cutting, fussy cutting, using old paper stash, mix of papers, favorite colors, the subject of stamping, my favorite room, wearing sweats, crafting while sun going down, etc, etc, etc. Honestly, this was easy, but it could be because I enjoyed putting it together.

For the background: I used a standard white cardstock base measuring 5.5″x8.5″ and then took some very old Stampin’ Up! paper (Porcelain Prints) to cover the entire size so that I could get the look of wallpaper. I then used some textured woodgrain cardstock from my stash for the floor, the window and the shelves. (The shelves were popped up with a foam strip) I die cut a scallop border in white for the trim above the floor and also die cut a frame for the wall hanging. The sentiment for the wall hanging was gold heat embossed and placed behind the frame. (I sponged some white clouds in there too.) The border at the top was printed off my computer and I used another scallop border die to cut it out. I sponged some brown ink around the edges of the page and added all of the elements.

The stamper girl image was from an old company called “Hambo Stamps” (went out of business several years ago), but I think it’s so cute and funny! This is where the gold embossed sentiment came from as well. Had fun coloring her up with my watercolor pens.

For the window, I used the Taylored Expressions Foil It-Dreamscapes along with the coordinating stencils that I received from Virtual Stamp Joy earlier this month. (I will share my projects in another post later on.) I also used the TE Arch Windowpanes die set to cut out a frame in the woodgrain cardstock over one of the ink blended panels.

And lastly, the little crafty items on the shelves and floor came from the Lawn Fawn Just Add Glitter stamps & dies. I stamped and colored those up with Copics to place on the shelves. I also thought it would be fun to add some glitter spilling from the gold glitter bottle and dumping onto the floor…always a fun thing to happen in the craft room while you ignore it because you’re so intently working on something!

All this page did for me was to remind me that I really need to do more organizing! I hope you’ve enjoyed my page today and take a hop on over to see Carol’s inspiration too! Thanks so much for stopping in today!

(P.S. I’m currently away and it will be a few days before I can reciprocate your comments, but I truly appreciate your kind words of support.)

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Home Sweet Home
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – March (no cards)

Art Journal Inspiration-Soul Singing

Hello friends! I’m back today with one last inspiration for Art Journal Journey to remind you that there are still a few days left to enter your art journal project for this month! So please be sure to hop on over to the Art Journal Journey Challenge Blog to see the details about how to enter. I have really enjoyed all of the inspiration from the gallery! So fun to see what everyone comes up with using my “MUSIC” theme this month! I thank everyone for having me along as a host and sharing your kindness in welcoming me back this year.

I went with some animals this time:

I’m pretty sure that there has to be some sort of music going on at farm too, right?! LOL I found these cute “singing” critters online and thought that a farm scene would be a perfect platform stage for them! This is also the first time that I’ve ever added an interactive element to an art journal page, so that was fun!

For the background: Starting with an 8.5″x 5.5″ watercolor paper, I printed the critters over it in the position that I wanted…this is so that the musical notes showed on the page.

I then used my Kuratake Gansi watercolors and brush to paint a scene starting with blues for the sky, letting that dry and then adding some green hills for the bottom of the scene. I went over the areas a couple of times to get the look I wanted and let it dry. I also die cut a green grassy border at the bottom of the page with green cardstock being careful to place it so that it covered the “legs/feet” of all the critters.

More layers over the background: I used older Tim Holtz stamps to add some texture by stamping brown ink, then I used an old TH stencil and some yellow paint for the “sun rays” around the hill with a sponge to apply it. I also used a sponge with white ink to stencil over another stencil in areas and lastly, I stamped some musical notes in silver ink in a few places.

Here’s a closer look at some of the details including the critters.

Since I covered up the critters with the grassy border, I printed out the critters again on a separate piece of cardstock, colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them out with my scissors. I attached them over top of the printed out ones on the page so that they align with the music notes above them. I used more markers to add some darker shadow grounding underneath each critter before permanently attaching to the page.

For the interactive element: I used a die cut to cut out the pieces for the windmill in the brown, white and silver cardstock pieces. I then used a circle die to cut a hole in the center of the windmill on the page and then added an element that makes the wheel portion spin in a circle when you spin it with your finger.

I went around the edges with some blue ink for the sky, attached some clouds and then printed out the quote on my computer and cut out each word attached to the page. I used some blue ink to lightly add to the bottom of each one.

Lastly, I went around the edges of the page along with the edges of each word with a black micron pen and then I used a silver paint pen to go around the edges of the page again.

It’s a pretty flat page, but it made me happy! What song do you think they’re singing?

I hope you’ve enjoyed my page today as well as my art journal inspiration throughout the month! Thank you so much for your kindness and support! See you soon!

Challenges: