May AJ Page-Start a New Beginning

Hello friends!  I feel like the time keeps moving whether or not I do!  At the last minute before getting something done, I finally started this page! Once I got going, it was fun to just play around to see what happens!

It’s time for 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 will have some wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” May prompt of “FLOWERS”.

I noticed looking back on my AJ pages that I rarely use flowers on them unless it’s already apart of some papers that I’m using.  So this was a good challenge for me and it was fun to pull out these Tim Holtz “Flower Garden” stamps and dies from my collection to use for this one.

For the background:  I started with my 9″x6″ pre-punched holes of Canson 140# cold press watercolor and used a brick stencil and model paste.  I covered the entire page with some linen and umber paints mixed together.  I dabbed a bit of orange and spritzed it with water for a rust look.  I then went over that with a dry brush effect with some light ivory paint to bring out the texture of the brick pattern.

The flowers and stems were stamped over a watercolor Bristol that I previously made and splattered with chocolate paint.  I also covered the die cut flowers with shimmer spray. (Not sure if you can catch that in the photo.)  All of the stems were glued, and the flowers were glued with some being popped with foam tape.  I covered the bottom area over the stems with grit paste and then went over it with brown paint to give the appearance of dirt.

I took a Dylusions stamp and white heat embossed it over chocolate cardstock for the sentiment, hand cut it and popped up with foam tape at the top of the page.  I added a butterfly from a Tim Holtz ephemera pack.

 

Hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today!  Thanks for dropping in and checking it out!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Flowers
  2. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  3. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Watercolor (I watercolored the flowers/stems)
  4. Arty Divas – Anything Goes

*Vicki*23 Comments

April AJ Page Sparkle and Shine

Hello friends!  I can’t believe that it’s already at the end of the month!  I feel like this month went by very quickly, but as the weather gets warmer, it seems the more I want to be out.  Spring is always a great time to start seeing those pretty flowers which also means more weeds to pull too!

It’s time for 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 will have some wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” April prompt of “SHINNY/SPARKLY” :

I am a sucker for anything that shines or sparkles!  So of course I had so many things to choose from in my stash to play with!  I really had loads of fun making this one and the photos do not look quite as “wow” as it does in person of course, but you can probably guess what it may seem like once you know all what I’ve done.

For the background:  I used my normal pre-punched holes on a 6″x9″ watercolor paper and covered it with water spritzing and Brushos Crystal Color media in lemon, orange and brilliant red.  Once dried, I went around the edges with a scrapper and white gesso.  (I didn’t use a ton of it, just enough to make a scant frame.  Once that was dried, I took a leafy stencil with coordinating colored Distress Oxide inks and sponged over the page randomly.  I then spritzed with large water drops, once dry, I sprayed the whole page with shimmer spray.

On the dragonfly, you can see directly on the page a bit of a shinny gold shadow under the wings.  I have this dragonfly stencil that I used Deco Stencil Paste over that when dry, you can foil over it.  I did that directly on the page where I wanted the dragonfly and then again on a black piece of cardstock that was cut out.  I added some black string (This was a stray piece of string from a project that I did not use, so I decided to re-use it for this project) around the dragonfly, glued the center down over top the one on the page and then used black foam tape over the wings to give them a bit of a lift.  Before gluing down the cut out dragonfly, I used a gray Big Brush marker to create more shadows around it.  I also used a white Big Brush marker to create the dash lines around the page.

The sentiment was a piece that was cut out from a magazine that I recycled to use for this page and attached it with media paste.  I used the grey Big Brush marker to add some shadows around it as well.

On the left side of the page, you can see some gold sparkles which were created with another Tim Holtz Christmas stencil that I had which looked like fun sparkle images.  I used some gold glitter paste to go over that and then I took some gold Stickles glue to add some details with dots in various places.

And this is just one more photo of trying to capture that shine and sparkle:

Perhaps you can see more of the shine and sparkles in there.  I just had to move the page around in the light to get it in just the “right spot” to capture it better, so pardon my fingers in there.

Really hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today and gotten some inspiration!  Thanks so much for stopping in!  I’ll be seeing you again soon!

Challenges:

  1. Country View – Things with Wings
  2. Art Journal Journey – Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose (black string & sentiment)
  3. Creative Moments – Wings and Things
  4. Arty Divas – Anything Goes
  5. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes-no cards *First challenge*

*Vicki*24 Comments

March AJ Page-FLY

Hello friends!  Officially Spring has sprung, but I’m seeing some possible snow still in the forecast!  BLAH!  I sure how as we finish up this month, that April will be a little kinder to us over here.  With all of this weird weather in all different directions, I do hope that you’re staying safe and enjoying some craft time!

Speaking of craft time- If you’re not familiar, I post an AJ page each month along with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), as we get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles!  We use a prompt each month and post them.  I know she will have wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too! Here’s my AJ page for this month with the “SMASH OUR STASH” March prompt of “Find something/anything GREEN to use on your page” :

Thinking that I was REALLY in the mood to start seeing some green, I started digging through my stash and found SO MANY green things!  I didn’t realize that all you really need is a color to have so many different items to pull from!  I’m happy with all of the green items I found as I used several of them for my layout here.  I’ve got green paint, texture paste, metallic spray, flowers, lace, button, butterfly ephemera and green glitter Stickles!  I’m thinking I don’t use green enough, so I went with a monochromatic page.

For the background:  I started with some printed vellum attached with collage medium and went over top with a soft green layer.  I used an old stencil and went over the two corners with green paste. I then sprayed some green metallic over those two colors and moved it around with water until dry.  I splattered some white ink over top and set to dry.

Vicki-AJpageMar-Flybottom

I added green lace on the right bottom along with my scallop chipboard square that I painted white and added some papers behind it.  I used those same papers to die cut a tag at the top and glued the fairy along with butterfly wings behind her over it.  I added the sentiment sticker that was lined out with a black marker and button over it and attached a string to the hole.  This was popped up with foam tape as well as the “FLY” die cut letters inside the white frame.  The ripped sentiment was computer generated and sponged with grey ink and tucked behind the white frame.  I added some green Stickles glitter to each scallop and tucked some green flowers with gold enamel dots in the center.  I also tucked more of those behind the fairy too.

Vicki-AJpageMar-Flytop

I covered the butterfly wings with a glitter brush pen and then splattered some grey ink over top of the wings before attaching them to the page with glue and foam tape… and before attaching the butterflies to the page, I covered up the fairy with a piece of scrap paper and used some gold paint to splatter over the page…and I called it done!

I enjoyed making this page with all of those GREEN things from my stash!  I hope you’ve enjoyed it too!  Thanks so much for dropping in and have a great weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Anything Goes Art Journal
  2. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  3. Challenge Up Your Life – Monochrome
  4. Beyond the Blue – Green
  5. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  6. A Place to Start – Anything Goes
  7. Through the Purple Haze – Anything Goes

*Vicki*28 Comments

February AJ Page-Relaxation

Hello friends!  It seems like this month went by really fast!  Hope you’re having a great and productive month!  It’s now time for this month’s Art Journal page…really fun one today!

If you’re not familiar, I post an AJ page each month along with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), as we get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles!  We use a prompt each month and post them.  I know she will have some great inspiration, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too!🥰  Here’s my AJ page for this month with the “SMASH OUR STASH” February prompt of “Wooden Pieces/Chipboard” :

Do you have tons of chipboard pieces laying around?  I have several stacks of them that have been around for quite a while and I thought that I would just pull them out to start using some up here with this month’s prompt.  These are old Stampin’ Up! chipboard pieces that they used to sell and I was taught that you don’t throw any of them away…well I think they meant that you should use them, though!😆

For the background:  I started with my usual 6″x9″ watercolor paper with the holes pre-punched at the top.  I used some torn pieces of scraps and vellum that I had laying around and randomly covered the blank page using collage medium. I took the chipboard pieces and glued them in random areas too.  I then covered it over with some white gesso paint that was slightly watered down so that some of the background elements still showed through.

The next step was to add some colors with some Finnebair Impasto paint in Mediterranean and Lemon Peel. When these two colors mix together, they make a beautiful green.  They are actually really bright colors, so I toned it down a bit with more white paint until I got the look I wanted.  I finished it with black paint splattering.

Here’s a closer view of the top of the page with the collage and chipboard texture.  After painting up the background, I also took a few pieces of chipboard along with a wooden butterfly and painted those elements in red.  I thought it would be fun to give the page a pop of bright red to contrast the muted background.  The red painted elements were added after the background was finished.

The sentiment at the top was computer generated and sponged over with some Pumice Stone Distress Oxide ink and layered over a piece of black cardstock and then attached to the page.

Then here’s a closer view of the bottom of the page.  The “Reserved” is from a Tim Holtz sticker book.  

Behind the red chipboard ‘R’, I added some black string.  You will also notice that I’ve used some Finnebair Aged Gold metallic wax to go around the edges of the raised up edges to give them a bit of dimension.  I finished it up with a few red enamel dots.

I had fun with this one and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well!  Thanks for dropping in today!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Seeing Red 
  2. Country View – Sentiment/Inspiring Words
  3. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  4. Try it On Tuesday – Let’s Get Messy (painting)
  5. Arty Divas – Anything Goes

*Vicki*28 Comments

Jan 2023 Art Journal Page-TIME

Hello there friends!  Hope that you’ve been having a great month so far to start off your year! I’m so relieved that I’ve gotten my sound up and running on the computer now!  Also…today I’m very happy to be continuing on with making my monthly art journal pages (plus using my stash!) and to be continuing the partnership with my sweet crafty friend, Carol!  I always love to see how each of us interprets the monthly stash themes.

If you’re not familiar, I post an AJ page each month along with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), as we get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles!  We use a prompt each month and post them.  I know she will have some great inspiration, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too!🥰  Here’s my first Art Journal inspiration for 2023 with the “SMASH OUR STASH” January prompt of “Sprays/Stains/Paints” :

So this one is a bit different for me, but I wanted to try out a “minimalistic” style and very soft with the colors that’s almost pale.  Not sure I achieved what I was thinking, but fun to try anyway.

Background:  With the prompt in mind, I had no problem pulling out a few Distress Spray Stains that I have so many of but hardly use.  So I started the background with a stencil and added some texture paste to the two opposite corners over a gesso painted 6″x9″ 140# cold press paper pre-punched with holes for book.  I then took the spray stains and went over the two opposite corners with them.

I found a cool photo online of the eye with the clock.  The outside of the eye has repetitive “tick tock” wording over it.  Before attaching this photo and the wording elements, I stamped a very large pocket watch image (Whimsy Stamps retired) with Speckled Egg Distress Oxide ink.  Since the sprays and ink are water based media, I covered the page with Distress Micro Glaze to make it permanent before adding some collage medium to attach the other elements. I also used a Big Brush marker to go around the edges for shadows. The pocket watch detail is a laser cut chipboard that was sprayed with black distress spray.

I took some more paint to add to the colored sprayed edges along with some black and white paints to randomly splatter over the entire page. Lastly I took some silver metallic rub to go over the raised areas and make them stand out a bit. The page has a sheen to it because I went over it with a coat of collage medium.

I hope you’ve gotten some inspiration today and thank you for stopping in!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Use a photo (eyeball)
  2. More Than Words – It’s About Time
  3. Country View – Time
  4. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  5. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  6. Arty Divas – Anything Goes

*Vicki*21 Comments

End of the Year-Dec AJ Page-SNOW+Book

It is here!  The end of 2022 has arrived weather you are ready for it or not!  I know as I’ve gotten older the time seems to pass more and more quickly.  Each year I usually go through all of the things that I didn’t have time to do.  This year I’m going to look at all of things that I DID do instead!  I look forward to a wonderful year ahead and I hope you are as well!

  • For this entire year, I’ve had such a wonderful time creating my AJ pages at the end of each month with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)!  Thanks SO MUCH to her for the wonderful inspiration and joining in the venture with me!  I know she’ll have something wonderful, so please check out her blog for an AJ page too!🥰  We’ve gotten creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! (I look forward to doing this for another year each month in 2023 and I’ll hope you’ll be here too!)  Here’s my final Art Journal inspiration for 2022 with the “SMASH OUR STASH” December prompt of “Oldest Stash” :

It’s a bit challenging for me to FIND my “oldest stash” as I’ve been a bit of a collector over the years.  So I’ve pulled out a very old, but favorite stamp set of mine from Stampin’ Up! called “Lovely as a Tree” from 2001.  The container broke when I opened it up to take a stamp out! LOL  I’ve also pulled out my Pearl Ex powders and some gilding flakes from my older media stash.  It’s a good thing that powders don’t go bad otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to use them!🙄

For the Background – I’ve used some mix of paints and splattered some white paint over it for the snow.  The trees at the bottom were stamped over vellum and then I cut it out and attached that to the bottom of the page so that they were a nice vibrant black as I didn’t think they would stamp over the paint very well.  I did take a snowflake stamp (not too old) and stamped a few randomly over the background in teal ink. (water-proof)

For the Pearl Ex Powders – I mixed some Misty Lavender Pearl Ex with embossing paste and used a snowflake stencil to randomly add this to the background.

For the Gilding Flakes – I die cut some snowflakes with double sided adhesive sheets will make the front sticky.  This made it so I could rub in the gilding flakes over them.  They did turn out very pretty!

The “SNOW” letters were die cut and I found a neat winter clipping from my sentiment stash to add below it after I sponged some teal ink around it.  I also die cut another tiny snowflake in the center of the ‘O’ with glitter cardstock and attached a tiny teal rhinestone in the center of it.  I rubbed some silver wax around the letters and around the edges of the page.  Lastly, I’ve added some star sequins and filled the centers of those and the gilded snowflakes with some silver Stickles.  I covered the bottom of the page under the trees with glue and covered it with sparkly glitter.

So I thought that since I’ve done an AJ page every month this year that not only did I need to close up the year, but I also needed to close the book to all the AJ pages I made from 2022 by finally finishing up a book to put them all in!

I made the covers with some chipboard along with some “old” chipboard pieces from my stash and did some painting with a bit of mixed media gold wax and stenciling.  I wanted to be sure to add the year to the front and a little quote from my sticker book that says:  “happy in her heart where only the imagination can go”

I fit all of the AJ pages completed this year along with a few extras that were created from before with unknown dates, added the front and back covers and used my Zutter Bind-it-All machine to add the spiral wire for a book.  (This was the reason all of my pages had the pre-punched holes in them when I posted each month.)

That finishes up the 2022 year on my blog.  I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts weather it’s for inspiration or just a smile.  Either way, I’m so thankful that you have joined me this past year and your friendships.  I look forward to a productive and crafty year ahead in 2023!

  • Have a safe, happy and healthy New Year!🎊

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Snowy Winter
  2. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  3. Creative Knockouts – Anything Goes

*Vicki*19 Comments

November AJ Page-Peace Love and Hope

Hello friends!  Hope that you’re having a wonderful weekend and I can’t believe we’re looking at the end of November already as well as almost the end of the year too!  Since I’ve been doing most of my post this month with guesting for Inky Stamper, it’s time to change it up a bit.

At the end of the month, I do an Art Journal page and collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), so please check out her blog for her AJ page 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” November prompt of “washi tape/stickers/border stickers, etc” :

So with the Smash our stash theme, I went through and pulled out so many stickers in my collection…and then realized that I’ve had some of these things for such a long time!  I couldn’t use them all, but I made something work with a fun Christmas theme in mind.

For the background:  I started out with my pre-punched holes at the top of my 140# cold press paper sized 6″x9″ and covered the bottom portion of the page with some Tim Holtz Christmas themed washi tape.  I thought it was a bit too bright and went over it with some white paint and a brayer.  I also took a collage paper of Christmas music sheet paper and stamped a couple of different images over it to further the collaged background.  I also covered this area with a thin layer of mixed media silver paint.

I die cut a pine tree and sponged some inks around the edges and turned that as well as the die cut sparkle snowflakes into stickers using my Xron machine.  I stamped the two deer in black ink and heat embossed over it a clear EP.  I then took a Tim Holtz stencil and used some sparkle texture paste over it for snow. (Before I attached the larger snowflake stickers.)  I also splattered the page with some white paint too…lots of snowfall going on!

For the wording:  I had some black thickers (as they call them, which are thick foam letter stickers) for the “PEACE” and then the other words are stickers from my stash.  The heart is from the thicker sheet too.  I took some silver rubbing paste with my finger and went along the edges of the page as well as the thicker letters to add some interest.  Lastly: I made a “snow ground” for the deer by applying some glue and covering it with some glitter crystals.  I also added some black gem stickers to the center of each snowflake sticker.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and have been inspired in some way.  Thanks for much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1.  Art Journal Journey – Collage Fodder and/or Food and Drink (collage fodder here)
  2. Mixed Media Lovers – Letters/text/quote 
  3. Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media
  4. Creative Moments – Winter
  5. Arty Divas – Anything Goes
  6. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – NOT a card

*Vicki*25 Comments

October AJ Page-Believe in Fairytales

Hello friends!  It’s almost Halloween, can you believe?!  Today is actually hubby & my 23rd wedding anniversary that we are out celebrating and hanging out having fun right now.  So the theme of my page was designed to fit with this in mind today.

Hard to believe that the end of the month is here and also time for a monthly Art Journal page and 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” October prompt of “UNUSED MEDIA from stash” :

As I was thinking of this month’s prompt, I was checking through my media to see if there was something that I had NOT used at all yet, but for the most part, I have. So then my thoughts turned to what I haven’t used in quite a while.  So after going through bottles and bottles of liquid watercolor…and throwing several away that were no good…I used some colors to create the background on my page using a 6″x9″ sheet of Bristol Smooth Watercolor paper with pre-punched holes.  I added drops of the watercolor on my glass mat, sprayed with water and “smooshed” the paper to create the look I wanted and let dry.  I wanted the smooth texture because I knew I was going to stamp over top.

Another media I haven’t used in a while is the Faber Castel Gelatos, which was used to create the moon.  I took a circle scrap, traced around it and then scribbled on a white and shimmer white gelato with my finger and rubbed into the areas I wanted.  I also pulled out several of the Lavina Stamps which were all used to create the scene over my watercolor background.  I had these stamps for quite some time, but have never used any of these images.  So I stamped stars at the top, the moon, the castle, the stage coach and the tall grasses.  BEFORE all the stamping, I did use some gold paint to create splatters at the top.

After stamping the images, I took some torn scrap paper and sponged in the “ground” areas for my images.

For the quote, I printed out the “in fairytales” on my computer, added a die cut “Believe” sentiment cut from some gold glitter cardstock and attached it above the computer generated wording.  I tore around this sentiment and sponged in some dark blue around it.  I finished off the page with some gold Stickles around the edges and drops randomly over the star areas.  I also took a glitter brush pen to add some sparkly highlights to the castle, ground areas and stage coach.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today & been inspired in some way.  Please check out Carol’s page for more inspiring fun!  Thanks so much for dropping in!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Fairytales, Folklore and Fables (Mine is based on the Fairytale Cinderella)

*Vicki*18 Comments

September AJ Page-Embrace Change

Are you a winner from my TE Background Stamp Give Away?  Check post below or CLICK HERE!

Hello friends!  As of Thursday, Fall has begun!  It actually really does feel like Fall with the cooler temps settling in on exactly that same day too!  I’m looking forward to all of the wonderful changes it brings with it!  I enjoy going out in nature and seeing the trees change into their colors.

It’s also that time for a monthly Art Journal page and 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” September prompt of “ANY kind(s) of scrap papers!” :

Like many crafters out there, I’m sure we all have those never ending piles of papers! I especially have a very extensive collection of pattern papers and MANY within those piles of little left over pieces that never seem to get used and just thrown back into the package!  I not only have packages, but I also have several card kits that ALSO have packages of papers in them too…so I pulled out a past kit and was happy that I’ve used pretty much all of the left over scraps from it!  One down and a trillion to go!!😅

For the Background:  The page is a 6″ x 9″ Canson 140# cold-pressed paper with the holes prepared at the top for later book binding.  I’ve used Distress Oxide Sprays and used the left over spray on my glass mat with water until I soaked up all the ink.  I’ve also splattered some Gold and Ivory acrylic paints over top once dry.  I stamped a couple of the tiny leaves with green ink for a bit of depth in the background.

Vicki-SYS-SeptAJ-paper scraps-close

For the Image Elements:  I used the Simon Says Stamp “Woodland Whimsy” stamp set to paper piece all of the image elements with the tall trees on the right, the leaves, the bear, the bear’s belly and ears, also with the berry and leaf branches next to him.  The trees were fussy cut with scissors and the other images were cut with coordinating dies.  I’ve used Copic markers to add a bit of depth and dimension to some of it. Some were glued down while some were popped up with foam squares.  I’ve also taken the Lawn Fawn Small Stitched Leaves dies to cut out a few extra and sponged around them to add to the scene.  I’ve also used the same papers I’ve used to cut those leaves out and added it as a layer behind the two sentiment quote squares.  The quote was printed out from my computer and the “Autumn” sentiment was cut out from pattern papers using the Lawn Fawn henry’s ABCs dies along with more papers to make an “off-set” shadow behind them.

The “ground” was just fussy cut with scissors and ink sponged around the edges.  Lastly, I’ve taken some gold Stickles to create “berries” on the leaf branches and randomly over the page.

I really enjoyed creating this page as it has inspired me to go out in nature for a walk!  I sure hope you’ve enjoyed it as well!  Thanks for stopping in today!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Fur or Feathers (I went with fur, but love both!)
  2. Country View – Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
  3. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
  4. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  5. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  6. Snippets Playground – Anything Goes using snippets (Happy to use up “snippets” of my pattern papers for the paper pieced images!) YES PLEASE!

*Vicki*32 Comments

August AJ Page-Childhood Imagination

**IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN MY GIVE AWAY OR LOOKING FOR IT, CHECK OUT MY POST BELOW OR CLICK HERE.  ENDS SEPT 22nd**

Happy Saturday friends!  I hope you’re enjoying your weekend and maybe doing something crafty too!  I actually can’t believe that next weekend we’ll be into September already!  Fall is coming which means hubby and I can enjoy some football game time!

Hard to believe that it’s time for a monthly Art Journal page and 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” August prompt of “liquid drops/enamel dots/brads/eyelets” :

Yes, it’s the never-ending supply of those enamel things, brads and eyelets!  I didn’t even use any eyelets on my page today, but at least I pulled out a few brads, enamel dots and even some liquid enamel drops too!

So I could take you down that “rabbit hole”😁 of how this page came about from seeing a couple of mushrooms out in our backyard that just weirdly keeps popping out randomly the last few months, but needless to say, I ended up with this page.  As a child I have always loved Alice in Wonderland and imagined myself secretly finding these amazing new worlds and having conversations with odd characters.  I do enjoy getting lost in a good book!

The background page was printed out with adding the Cheshire Cat image over top. (The wording was also printed out with the cat.)  I stamped some other wording over the printed background, splattered some paint and took an empty plastic roll dipped in gold paint and randomly stamped that all over it too.  I used my finger to also add some gold paint along the edges.  The mushroom image is from Power Poppy which I’ve printed, colored with Copics and fussy cut them out with the one in the front popped up with foam tape. I die cut a grass border at the bottom and tucked one of the cut out mushrooms behind the grass blades and then cut off all the excess.  I’ve attached this entire page to a heavy weight 140# cardstock that was ink blended with chocolate ink around the edges.  I took a strip of Graphics 45 Alice in Wonderland decorative paper and attached it to the right side of the page.  I was then able to punch out the holes at the top for my AJ book.

So when you look at the bottom of the page, you can see the mushrooms and how I’ve added some white Nuvo Liquid Drops to the red tops.  I think this really makes them pop and give dimension!  With the same Graphic 45 decorative papers, I’ve cut out the “tea set playing card” image, blended around the edges and added a blue brad in each corner of it.  I also added a bit of sparkle to the flying horse.  This cut out playing card was attached below sentiment over the background mushroom and grassy border.

You will also notice the “Eat Me bottle” at the top of the mushroom which was printed out separately from the background page, Copic colored and fussy cut out.  I attached it over top of the large mushroom and added a ribbon enamel at the top of it.  I also took my glitter brush pen and added something rising from the bottle…mysterious?!

Here’s a closer view of the enamel bow at the top of the bottle along with the mysterious glitter coming from it.  I’ve also added some of the glitter brush pen to the Cheshire Cat’s eyes too.  I thought I had room to add another three sparkly gold enamel dots to the top right and call this one done.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today or have been inspired in some way!  Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – When we were Young
  2. Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media
  3. Mixed Media Lovers – Anything Mixed Media
  4. Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + coloring (mushrooms)
  5. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  6. Simon Says Stamp Mondays – Mixed Media

*Vicki*26 Comments