Bon Voyage! Blog Break

Hello friends! I have a project to share which is a great send off post for an announcement of a blog break I’ll be taking for the next month🛳️🛫.

I wanted to share a project I made by request of my husband which was to recycle a plain notebook for traveling, so I pulled out some Doodlebug items and had some fun:

This is the front cover of the notebook which I covered with some Doodlebug papers, but I thought it would look way to busy, so I decided to tone down the papers by adding a wash of white paint over it. I think it makes the stamped images stand out better.

I’ve used a wave border die to cut some blue cardstock so that the boat could be in the “water” and I’ve added the sentiment underneath it. I stamped and colored the boat and airplane images and die cut them out with the coordinating dies. I also die cut a few clouds to add to the scene.

When I attached the painted pattern papers to the notebook, I decided to add an additional strip along the side of the wire spiral before adding the waves. I then took a black marker to create stitch marks with.

On the inside cover of the notebook, I took some more of those Doodlebug papers and attached them to the inside. I’ve made a pocket using the same papers that I’ve used on the front cover and you can see how bright and colorful they are which is why I decided to paint over them.

I added one of the cards from the paper pack to the front of the pocket and then I put a few pieces of washi tape with the airplane postage and travel stamps on the notebook paper.

And this is the inside back cover which was done similar to the inside front cover.

If you look inside the pocket of this, you can see that I’ve also made a bookmark for him that I’ve laminated. He can use it for his notebook or for another book he may be reading.

And here is the back of the notebook. This is where I’ve added a black elastic closure for the book BEFORE attaching any papers to it. The strips from the paper pack help to give it a little design and I’ve also included another shallow pocket.

He seems very pleased with it and has already put it to good use including the pockets and bookmark! He’s already wrote in it too! I tried to be sneaky and write a secret message on one of the random pages within the book, but he found it too early! I don’t get much past him!

I have lots of fun papers and ephemera left over from this cute Doodlebug paper pad, so I will probably be using it for a special scrapbook at some point…hopefully more on that later.

I would like to also let you know that I will be MIA for a while as we will be away on a much needed vacation time!

Thank you so kindly for stopping in and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Challenges:

Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes #85
The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes #79

July Art Journal Page-Watercolor Winds

Hello friends and happy weekend! It’s the start of the Olympics and it’s something that I enjoy catching up on a few events here and there when I can as it’s very inspiring to see these dedicated athletes perform. I do hope you’re enjoying your weekend however you’re spending it.

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 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 “WATER” (actual water or the look of it):

Do you enjoy watercolor? Do you enjoy the water? I happen to really like both! I think I am more apt to dabble in the watercolor medium than I am to actually be IN the water though!😆 I decided to use both for my page today. It would be a dream of mine if I could ever experience sailing…maybe one day!

Background: I started with an 8.5″ x 5.5″ pre-punched holes on a Canson coldpress watercolor panel and painted the background with my Kuretake Gansi Tambi watercolors and a brush. I started with the yellow and worked my way out to the darker color. I wanted a warm sun with a contrast of darker sky/clouds over to the left. I stamped the birds to the right corner.

For the clouds, sails and water, I pulled out some fabric and die cut the pieces out with the exception of the boat. I stamped the boat with Staz On ink over the fabric and hand cut just the sails out with scissors for the fabric. The boat was stamped on cardstock, colored with watercolor and cut out. I used fabric glue to attach all of the fabric pieces.

I popped up the bottom layer of the dotted fabric water waves with foam tape and used a micron pen to make the stitch marks. I also went around the edge of the page making stitch marks. The sail boat was tucked in between the waves and I added a button with thread on the bottom of the boat.

The clouds were attached on the background with the fabric glue and then I stenciled with white ink over top of that and added a few marks with a white gel pen on the clouds.

Lastly, I printed out the quote and die cut it out with a stitched banner die. It says:

“Withstand the storm, and when the wind doesn’t blow you away, adjust your sails.”

I sponged around the edges of the banner with blue ink and attached it to the page.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today! Thank you for taking the time to stop in and I hope you have a fantastic day!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – “I’ve got a notion” (sewing related items) fabric/stitching
Creative Artiste – #106 Anything Goes Mixed Media

June Art Journal Page-Finding Happiness

Hello friends! Happy weekend! I hope you’re enjoying yourself with whatever you have going on. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost time for us to celebrate the 4th of July holiday!

We’ve been having higher than normal temperatures this time of year and you never really know if that humidity is going to circle back up in the air to create a thunderstorm. Nature can be a wonderful thing though, and this is what the focus is for my page.

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 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 “DISTRESS”-(rough up/sand/rip, etc):

So taking this approach with the prompt of “distress”, I thought it called for green colors and lots of nature collage type elements from my stash! I have tons of those Tim Holtz ephemera packages, so I pulled those out along with distress oxide sprays. I haven’t used those in quite a while.

For the background: I started with a 5.5″ x 8.5″ (pre-punched holes with the Bind-It-All machine) very heavy weight canvas paper. I started with a couple of pieces of ripped printed papers and distressed/inked the edges of it with Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink. I then took a Tim Holtz stencil and randomly applied paste over it. After the paste dried, I placed the panel into a box and sprayed it with variations of water and distress oxide sprays in Peeled Paint, Rustic Wilderness, Fossilized Amber and Vintage Photo. I added water and dried with my heat tool after each color until it was blended as I liked. I took off the Vintage Photo cap and splattered a few drop with it.

Before applying the ephemera pieces, I had a solid fern stamp that I randomly stamped with Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide ink. I also stamped a few of those “rain drop” images randomly in the center of the page with black waterproof ink. I removed the background color out of the images with a watercolor brush and then added back in a touch of blue color from an ink pad lid. I used a white gel pen to add a highlight and covered the drops with a glitter brush pen.

Finishing the page, I’ve stamped the bug and magnifying glass, colored them in and added some acetate behind the magnifying glass, I ripped, sanded and distressed the edges of the page, the card behind the bird and randomly over the background. Before attaching the pieces, I took some white pearl wax and rubbed over the stenciled paste areas. I also sanded around the edges of the black sentiment strips. I attached all of the ephemera pieces and popped the card and butterfly pieces with foam tape. I added a safety pin to the card and glitter to the tops of the flowers in the corner. (hard to see in photo)

The sentiment at the top reads: if you want to find happiness, find gratitude.

Another prompt I worked on with this is the challenge over at Art Journal Journey which was “What Makes You Happy“. So although nature helps with happiness for me, I find that happiness is multi-faceted with the purpose being exactly what the sentiment says. I thought it went perfectly with this page.

Since my husband is retired and we now have time to take little road trips here and there and sometimes stop along the way to find an interesting trail or nature walk or park to explore. We’ve had some great times doing this and I love being out in nature especially among the trees after a gentle rain. The smell and coolness in Autumn are fabulous for this!

Click on a photo to enlarge it if you’re on my website:

This was quite a wordy post, but I hope you’ve enjoyed my inspiration today and how it was inspired. Thanks so much for joining me today and please check out Carol’s blog too!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – What Makes You Happy
Creative Artiste – #105 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – June challenge ATG
A Place to Start – Anything Goes optional: Anything but a card
Paperminutes – #852 Stencils

May AJ Page-Never Forgotten

Hello friends! I hope that your month has been going well so far! We’ve been doing lots of things outdoors and enjoying the time as much as possible until the temperatures climb higher and gets too hot. I’m enjoying it now, but unfortunately, there will be storms this weekend in my area.

This weekend (Monday) is also Memorial Day for those of us in the U.S. The date and name may vary by different countries, but it’s all about remembrance of our active military who’ve died. I wanted to create my art journal page today in reflection of this.

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 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 “MATERIAL”-(use fabric/cloth in some way):

For the “material/cloth/fabric” prompt, it got me thinking because I don’t sew very much. Sometimes I get out my sewing machine, but rarely! I do have some fabric scraps and I thought it would be fun to cut out some squares with pinking shears! Then I had to figure out what to do with them!

For the background: I used a 5.5″ x 8.5″ of canvas heavy weight paper with the pre-punched holes at the top made with my Bind-It-All Machine and painted over it with some Crisp Blue Americana acrylic paint. Once dry, I sprayed some silver metallic over it. (You can see some of the shine at the top.) I didn’t know how busy looking the fabric squares would look, so I decided to stop there.

Although I did cut several different squares of fabric patterns, my eyes were pulled to the red, white and blues which were perfect for Memorial Day. I pulled out only those type of colors and used some fabric glue to attach over the background randomizing the patterns. I also took some silver and navy ribbons to attach at the top and bottom areas where the fabric squares stopped.

The poem was a memory that I had during a vacation time with my husband when we ran into a memorial with a park bench and this poem was engraved with birds around it. I looked it up and printed it out on my computer over a parchment paper. I ripped it out and sponged the edges. I also printed out the “forgotten” at the top and cut it out in a banner. The poem was popped up with foam tape over the fabric squares. “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” – by Mary Elisabeth Frye

The stars and “never” letters were die cut and attached and I finished it with red rhinestones next to the “forgotten” banner.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and I really appreciate you stopping in! I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Poems
Creative Artiste – #104 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Love to Craft – #80 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Let’s Art Journal
Crafting Happiness – #176 Any Craft

April AJ Page-One Cup at a Time

Hello friends! I hope you’ve been enjoying your month so far! We’ve had a few really nice days this month, but it’s still a tad bit chilly and hopefully it will warm up more next month! It’s hard to believe we are already headed into May for this year!

That means 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 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 “HALF” -(e.g. 2 halves to create whole item/half of something):

Yes, coffee please! I’m a coffee lover and so is my husband! I don’t think we’d be able to start a day without it! I know there are lots of people who don’t like coffee and that’s OK…as long as there will be some somewhere for me, I’m good! 😉☕

It was my husband that inspired this page for me when I asked him what his favorite shape was, and he answered with a circle. Looking down at my coffee cup was the circle I saw and decided to take more inspiration from a coffee cup we purchased at one of our favorite local coffee cafes you can see in the top corner of the photo. To achieve the look, I took a cardstock color matching the cup and splattered white paint over it. The “HALF” is obviously the coffee cup that was cut out with circle dies. I cut another piece of the handle which makes it look like the view you would see from the top of the cup. The other “HALF” of the cup was placed in the corner area at the bottom and this coffee is more of my husband who likes plain black coffee. But this is certainly how we start our day together which is great since he’s retired now. The other “HALF” cup has the latte art, and I did that one with light sponging around the edge and then took my colored pencils to free hand the design. Not sure if that’s exactly what it looks like, but I gave it a try.

For the background: I’ve used a strip of wood plank pattern paper from my stash, and I’ve also heat embossed a coffee bean background stamp with, of course, coffee embossing powder that I’ve had for a very long time, and it was a great time to use it! I’ve also heat embossed the “coffee” sentiment and quotes with it. Below the embossed coffee is a sentiment that says: “Take life one cup at a time” and the other two at the bottom say: “First we drink coffee, then we do the things”😂
The coffee cup-stained background, I’ll share more about below.

I also took a big brush marker to go around the edges of the cups and the sentiment strips. I wanted the heat embossing to stand out a bit more over the brown cardstock, so I took a white Tim Holtz crayon and rubbed over top of it to brighten it up.

Have you ever made backgrounds with coffee? I had such a fun time playing with it and decided to make several different backgrounds that I could use for later!

I don’t drink instant coffee, but I have some in my cupboard because I like to make a chocolate cake that has instant coffee in it…so good! I took some of this instant coffee and made the coffee cup-stained background for my page to create more circles that went with my circle coffee cups.

I also decided that since I had a cup of it, that I would go ahead and make more backgrounds with it and just play around with different things. I splattered, I smooshed, I’ve added salt along with a few other things and let dry and make patterns with. Once dry, I cleaned them off and here are the results of my play. I wish I had done another cup circle background though.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page and been inspired in some way! Thanks so much for dropping in! Have a great weekend! Mine will be busy!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Geometric Forms
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
Try it On Tuesday – Inspired by a Song (Can’t think of coffee with the “Coffee Song” by Frank Sinatra!)
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper

March Art Journal Page-You Just Have to Ride

Hello friends! We are at the end of March, and it happens to also be Easter weekend as well this year! So happy Easter and I hope you’re enjoying the beginning of the Spring season! I will be out as this post goes up, but I wanted to get in this month’s AJ page!

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 always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” March prompt of “POSTAL”:

For this month’s theme, I knew I had lots of real postage stamps in my stash and some ephemera pieces as well as some postal tissue wrap from Tim Holtz. I have a huge roll of it and it was time to get it back out and use it up! When looking for my postage stamps, I also found a post card that I previously created and a vintage looking photo that I printed out…which I also turned into a very large postage style stamp.

The top of the page says: “Some days you just have to ride, however difficult it might be!“

For the Background: I used an 8.5″ x 5.5″ piece of acrylic paper with pre-punched holes at the top and blended some media paints over the background which gave me the bright blended colors. I ripped pieces of the Tim Holtz Postale Tissue Wrap and attached with matte medium over the blended paint background. After it was dry, I ripped some more of the pieces and sanded the edges. I also took some ” Rusty Brown” wax and went over the textured areas and around the edges with my finger. Then I splattered some white paint over top.

I popped up the pre-finished postcard and also added some ephemera around it and added that Shetland pony postage stamp. I thought it went well with the vintage photo that I turned into a postage stamp with a die. The quote at the top was printed on my computer, ripped edges and sponged with brown ink.

This is a bit busier in design than what I had planned it to be, but I had fun playing with it and I was glad to use up some more of that piled up ephemera! I hope you got a “KICK” out of it too! 🫏 Thanks so much for stopping by and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – On All Fours
Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

Art Journal Journey Inspiration-Letting Go…

Hello friends! Hope that your week has been off to a good start. We are closing up February, but there are still a couple of days left if you’d like to enter the Art Journal Journey Challenge that I’m hosting this month with the theme of “LIGHT“. It has certainly been a journey as I’ve never created that many pages within a month’s time! I did have fun on this journey as it also helped to push me to try a few different things that I can take me with as I continue to art journal. Thank you to everyone over there for having me as host for this month and to those that have played along, as I have really enjoyed all of the fabulous inspiration!

For my last page, I challenged myself to try something I don’t feel comfortable with:

Sometimes as hard as it can be, you just have to let it go. I let go the fear of hand lettering and drawing for this page.

For the Background: I’ve got a piece of canvas paper 5.5″x8.5″ that was pre-punched on the right side with my Zutter machine. (I like this canvas paper because it takes paint really well and the texture does not interfere with making the writing wonky.) I took my favorite colors turquoise and lavender paints that were extremely watered down to cover the page with. I was going for very light colors with a flow that blended together. Once dried, I took some light blue ink and stenciled in certain places.

For that cute little girl that I found on my computer from Tiddlywinks, I printed her out rather large to fit on my page and colored her with Copic markers. I printed an additional image over a piece of vellum and cut out the dandelion seeds and hearts and attached that portion to the girl image I colored. I did this so that you could still see the background. Once I’ve attached her to the page, I cut a piece of cotton ball and glued it to the dandelion weed and the one in her hair. (Cotton is pretty light!)

Lastly, I took a deep breath and used a pen to write the title above her head as well as all of the dandelion seeds floating around with the words. I used a white paint pen to make an underline around the words as if they’re flying through the air. I filled in the lettering with a blue gel pen.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my page today and found some inspiration with it. I also hope you’ve enjoyed my journey this month with art journaling too! Thanks for stopping in!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT
My Time to Craft – Create Your Own Background (paints, stenciling, drawing)
We Love to Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media

February Art Journal Page-Catching Stars

Happy weekend friends! We’ve had some great sunshine for the last few days and it’s been really nice, but it’s very unusual for us to have these warmer temperatures for this time of the year. I will enjoy whatever it brings for sure! But in the meantime, I’ve also been enjoying time in my craft room getting creative too!

As you know, this month I’ve been sharing several art journal pages as I’ve been hosting this month’s challenge theme over at Art Journal Journey. There is still lots of time left to join in the fun with us and share your inspiration with the “LIGHT” theme and I’d love to see your take on it!

Today, I’m not only sharing my project for that, but it’s also time for our 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” February prompt of “LIGHT” (of course!):

Oh my stars! I don’t know if these guys are expecting several rainy days ahead, but they really want to be prepared for it! For my “stash smashing” I went with using some metallics. Do you have a problem hoarding those metallic things because they’re just so pretty? I am guilty! I’ve used some metallic paper to cut out the lettering, I’ve used some metallic watercolor that I avoid using so I don’t run out and those star sequins I have so many in every metallic color!

For the background: I’ve used a 5.5″x8.5″ piece of Canson watercolor paper with the pre-punched holes at the top using my Zutter machine. I’ve pulled out my watercolors and used shades of blues, but also dark turquoise and dark violet. I’ve used the metallic copper watercolor to splatter over the background for those distant stars. I also added a very light touch of this metallic watercolor on the top highlight areas of the critters, around the wheelbarrow, the net, the lantern and the star with the mouse. (Sometimes it’s hard to capture all of the shine on a project, but this thing is very shinny and sparkly!)

But before I put all of the details on the images, I took a black marker and drew in a ladder to reach up towards the clouds so Mr. Fox could climb up to the clouds and catch his star. I then took a grass border die and die cut a strip in black for the bottom.

All of the stamped critters and clouds came from Lawn Fawn sets. I stamped, colored and die cut them to arrange my scene. Some of images are popped up with foam tape for dimension. As you can see, I’ve added tons and tons of metallic copper sequin stars filling the wheelbarrow, dropping from the sky and even the little bunny is holding his star.

Lastly, I die cut the metallic copper letters, backed them with black cardstock and popped it with foam tape over the page and printed off the quote on the computer and cut them in strips to arrange on the scene.

This was lots of fun to do as I was able to use up some of that hoarded metallic stash! Hope you’ve enjoyed it and gotten some inspiration from it.

Thanks so much for stopping by and enjoy your weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT
Stamping Sensations – Animals/Birds/Creatures/Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #272 Anything Goes

Art Journal Inspiration and Valentine’s Day Cards!

Good evening friends! Tomorrow is about “LOVE” for Valentine’s Day! I hope that whatever you’re doing that you spend it with those that you love or at least tell someone how much they mean to you! I have a special post this evening that is dedicated or inspired by love. ❤️

First up is my art journal page with the prompt/theme of “LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT” that I’m guest hosting this month for the Art Journal Journey Challenge. It’s been so fun to see all of the wonderful art created so far!

This page was inspired by not just the “light” prompt for the challenge, but it was also inspired by the love of my life. We have spent many moons together and have enjoyed our time in the moonlight as we both love nature and have spent some time traveling and seeing some beautiful things. I’m so thankful to have had these special memories with him.

For the background: I started with a 5.5″x8.5″ watercolor with pre-punched holes at the top with my Zutter machine. I used my watercolor to create the blue sky background with an idea of where I was going to place the moon. I left that area to watercolor in the yellow rather than the blue. I then used some white opaque copic watered down and splattered over top for stars. The “moon” was die cut in white with a heart shaped die and I added a moon stencil over top to make it look like a heart shaped moon and glued it in the center of the watercolor background.

The bottom portion was made with just ripping some cardstock and ink blending one with the greens and one with greys and black. I die cut the trees in black and glued them in place and then added the ripped layers over top.

I stamped the Lavinia Stamps “Star Gazers” stamp in black in and fussy cut it out. I colored the rocks they were sitting on as well as their wings and popped them up on the grey ripped border. I also hand drew more rocks around them and used a white gel pen to highlight. I added some glitter to the wings. Lastly, I wrote over black cardstock with a white gel pen, cut them out and attached to the ripped green border. I then used a black pen to doodle around the words.

Next up are a few Valentine cards that I’ve made. I’m actually really bummed because I would’ve shared another two cards that I made, but I forgot to take photos of them before I sent them out! I used a pizza theme and they were so fun!

This first one is for my husband and I’ve used the Craft Roulette #201 parameters to create it:

We had to make an easel card, so I decided to make a heart shaped one. I’ve used the cute skunk from Lawn Fawn with all of the “sweets”. (which was also one of the parameters) My husband loves his sweets! I also had to use “quiet” colors and some sort of bokeh, so I’ve made a bokeh background and used a solid heart stamp in white over the blended colors. It reminds me of those conversation hearts. This skunk makes me smile!

This is another fun card that I’ve made for a friend! I couldn’t wait to use this fun mosaic heart from Taylored Expressions. It came as a freebie for a limited time with a Valentine release. I like that it comes with the solid heart backer which makes putting it together easier. I ink blended a panel in two shades of pink and then die cut the heart with the pieces. I used the frame cut in white and then popped in the ink blended pieces inside the frame.

The embossed heart background was made after cutting out a piece of Bubblegum cardstock with the postage rectangle die. I stamped and die cut the sentiment over top of the heart and added some gold rhinestones.

And this card was done for the Inky Stamper FB challenge which was to create a square card. I have made this one 4.25″ square and used the cute Snail stamp set along with some Doodlebug papers which you can also find in their store.

I just stamped, colored and cut out the images, added a border at the bottom and cut out a scallop square in white and stenciled some clouds at the top. More pink papers onto a white square card base and called it done! There’s nothing better than getting snail mail!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my heart-filled post today and you’ve been inspired in some way! Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you again on Thursday for a new challenge to try! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT (art journal page only)
Crafty Animals – #80 Anything Goes + animal (skunk card)
Critter Crazy – #83 Anything Goes + critter (snail card)
Pearly Sparkles – #92 Love/Have a Heart (skunk card)
Creative Knockouts – #514 Love/Valentine’s Day (skunk card)
A Place to Start – Monochrome (mosaic heart card – pink)
Aud Sentiments – #310 Dies/Love/Wed/Anniversary + sentiment (skunk card)
Creative Inspirations – For Someone You Love/Special Friend (mosaic heart card)
The Male Room – Valentine/Use a Heart (skunk card)
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional: Valentine/Love (snail card)

Art Journal Inspiration-Advice from the Sun

Hello friends! Back to share more inspiration for this month’s Art Journal Journey challenge theme of “LIGHT/KEEPING IT LIGHT“. I’m hosting this month’s theme and I’ve really enjoyed seeing everyone’s interpretations with it! Looking forward to seeing even more!

For the last few days over my way, we actually got to enjoy a few walks outdoors as it has been unusually warm and with some sunshine…finally! So of course I’m going to go out and enjoy it while it is around! This inspired my page today:

Now, I’m not sure if the sun gives advice, but if so, I’m thinking there might be a few of these to consider! It’s hard to read, but inside the circle, I handwrote “Keep it light – Rise to the Occasion – Look on the Bright side – Shine – Keep a Sunny Disposition – Be Brilliant – Set sights high – Renew energy” I’ve also handwritten with a gold paint pen on the black under the sun ” Light a Path wherever you go“.

For the background: Started with a 5.5″x8.5″ piece of heavyweight cardstock that was pre-punched at the top with my Zutter machine. I took a baby wipe and covered the top half of the page with yellow paint. I then used a “Light Ray” stencil and blended a few yellow and orange ink colors over the painted background. I also took some gold metallic paint and splattered over the background with a fan brush. A die cut a circle to place in the center. The clouds and “SUN” letters were cut out with dies. I used my printer for the lettering on the clouds and some gold mirror cardstock for the “SUN” letters.

The bottom half of the page is all papers. I started with a black piece of cardstock sized to fit under the sun rays and then die cut several different green colored pattern papers to create hills layered on top of the black. (Happy to use some more papers!) I also found a book page strip and cut it for a “path” in the middle of the hills. I sponged the edges with some black ink and that’s when the gold handwriting was done.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! I’m glad you’re here and I hope this has inspired you in some way!

I’ve had a few people that have sent me a message from my contact page on my blog. If you have contacted me, I’ve replied, but not sure if they’ve been received. Please check your spam folder to see if it’s there as I haven’t heard back from a couple of people. Thank you!

Challenges: