Hello friends! Hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving for those that celebrate. And with that, there is also the Black Friday deals, and today is “small business Saturday”. So have you’ve gotten some really good deals or do you shop during this time? I don’t really shop too much during this time, but I enjoy hearing about the great deals everyone has gotten!
The last Saturday of the month also brings us to 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” November prompt of “STENCILS” (can also make your own):
I do love stencils, don’t you?! I have lots of them in my stash and I don’t always use them as much as I’d like to, so how fun to pull out several of them for this month’s prompt! All of the ones I’ve used on my page are from Tim Holtz. The entire page is stencil expect for the deer, sentiment and bottom snow! (I would’ve used the deer for a stencil too, but I don’t have one.)
For the background: Started with my usual 6″x9″ 140# watercolor pre-punched holes on the side. I took the large star looking stencil and sponged some VersaMark ink over it towards the top of the page and heat embossed it with clear EP. (This made a “resist” for the ink I layered on top.) I took a long strip of masking paper and ripped it to create some hills for the bottom. I needed to mask so the colors didn’t go over it. I took several different colors of Distress Oxide sprays along with spritzing with water to help the colors move around and made a few layers with this. Once dry, I went over the background with the dotted stencil and sponged ink over it with a blue color.
For the tree stencil, I needed to be sure that it would cover the background I created, so I used some green paint to sponge over the stencil, but because the background is blue, it’s sort of harder to see the green. This stencil also had a second part where you can cover each tree with another layer for either another green or snow. So I used some Hero Arts white paste to cover it with. I also used the same paste to add another layer of stencil to the sky for snowfall.
The silhouette deer is a stamp that I stamped with black pigment ink and then I heat embossed it with clear EP. My final touch to the page was to take the Hero Arts white paste and cover the hills at the bottom using my spatula. Really love the dried look of the paste as it has a wonderful shine to it which works great for snow! It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to dry. (About 2 hours it was hardened.)
I found a couple of the Tim Holtz sticker quotes to go with my theme, added to black cardstock and went around the edges with a silver paint pen. I cut them out with scissors and glued to the page. I took some silver wax and went around the edge of the page with my finger and lastly added some glitter drops to a couple of the centers of the “stars” in the sky.
Hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today or have been inspired! I appreciate you taking the time to stop in!
Challenges:
- Art Journal Journey – Nature (I love nature in the wintertime! So pretty covered in snow!)
- Try It on Tuesday – Baby, It’s Cold Outside!
- Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
- Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media (stencils, pastes, paints, inks)
- Stencil Fun – Anything Goes using stencil(s) optional: leaves
- 613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional embossing (heat embossed)
