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